The purpose of this report is to outline activity within the Digital Strategy for the year that requires funds outside of the revenue budget, specifically from the ring-fenced reserve for IT.

The IT reserve was established to address future requirement and pressures within IT, knowing there would be demand going forward to keep pace with the opportunities and changing nature of digital services.

The 2018/9 reserves expenditure will enable progress to be made in a range of areas including upgrades and new systems to support the activity and programmes of the council.  To do this funds are not contained within the revenue budget.

That:

(a)  Up to £250k is used from the ring-fenced IT reserve for:

·         20 Laptops for new starters and 10 to replace damaged laptops

·         MS Exchange (eMail engine) and Websense (Website filtering) upgrades

·         MS Systems Centre Configuration Manager

·         Education Tracking 16-19 Year Old System

·         MS SQL Server (Databases) Upgrade

·         MS Sharepoint Upgrade

·         Implementation Costs; and

(b)  The assistant director corporate support be authorised to take all operational decisions necessary to allocate the funds and implement the recommendation above.

1.         An alternative option is that the spend for the listed projects is met from the IT revenue budget.  This is not possible as the revenue budget has existing committed expenditure.

2.         Additionally, the expenditure is not incurred and therefore no requirement to spend from reserves.  This is not advisable as key requirements and development are needed to deliver the Digital Strategy and enable the operation of the council in supporting residents and businesses.

3.         That spend takes place in 2019/20 financial year for activity to be funded from the IT base budget.  This is not recommended as would result in a delay in activity when progress is needed this financial year.