Issue details
Record of Officer Decision - Webex licences – Covid-19
The council has needed to increase the use of
on-line video conferencing during Covid 19 emergency as the
majority to staff are required to work from home. The free licence
for Webex comes to an end on 1st July 2020 and a decision was made
to continue with the licence to Webex based on “active
user” agreement – this means if someone is not active
in using the licence this will be withdrawn. Consideration was
given to other conference call tools with the pros-and-cons
considered. The decision was made based on:
• The advantage of Webex having the number of participants who
can be viewed at one time
• That participants are familiar with the system, and people
who are not confident with IT or do not use conference call
regularly may struggle to adapt to a new system
• That the licence is based on “active users” so
cost may reduce (though balanced with increased demand).
The licence will run until February 2021 and this gives time for a
full evaluation of what the council needs from a video conferencing
function next to the available systems and their costs –this
will involve both research and testing. This evaluation to be
commissioned to Hoople who are the council’s ICT delivery
partner - evaluation work of this nature is not included in the SLA
therefore a cost of up to £4,000.
New requests for video conferencing will be asked to use Microsoft
Teams as a trial of that system.
It is also expected over the next six months video conferencing
providers will develop and improve their offer to be more
comparable and competitive with each other.
Decision type: Non-key
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Notice of proposed decision first published: 03/07/2020
Decision due: 22 June 2020 by Chief executive
Contact: Alistair Neill, Chief executive Email: Alistair.Neill@herefordshire.gov.uk.
Decisions