Agenda item

To consider a joint report of the Head of Commercial Strategy, Business Innovation and Performance, Cheshire East Council, and the Director of Resources, Cheshire West and Chester Council, which provides a summary of the current position of the Shared Service arrangements and in particular highlights progress on key projects namely:

·        Archives Site Options / Feasibility Study

·        Public Sector Network

·        Superfast Broadband

Consideration was given to a report which provided a summary of the current position on three key projects:- Archives Site Options, Public Sector Network and Superfast Broadband.

It had been agreed that a Site Options Appraisal/Feasibility Study would be undertaken into new premises for Cheshire Archives and Local Study Service.  Funding had been agreed for the Study as part of the Shared Services budget challenge process in October 2012 with funding coming on stream in April 2013.  A brief to inform the Study had been prepared to inform the procurement exercise to engage a suitable consultant to undertake the work.  A copy of the brief was attached to the report and the Committee was asked to approve the content. 

It was requested that a breakdown of the costs involved in the study be forwarded to Committee members.  A report would be brought back to the Committee at the end of Stage 1, which would report on the outcome of the site options appraisal. 

The National Public Service Network programme was a joint Government and industry programme to revolutionise the way National Government, Local Authorities and the Third Sector buy with better efficiency and use voice and data networks and the ICT services that run over them.  A collaborative approach had been adopted across Cheshire and Merseyside with the project being led by Cheshire West and Chester ICT Strategy Service.  An invitation to Tender was issued in November 2012 which resulted in five suppliers giving full tender responses.  In February 2013, BT Global Services was selected as the preferred bidder for the Cheshire and Merseyside Public Service Network. 

Following a five week period of due diligence, a notice of non award of contract was issued and BT Global Services and the other four bidders were notified.  It had been agreed that the tender should be re-run.  Consultants Analysys Mason had been commissioned to review and validate procurement route, tender specification and cost analysis.  It was expected that tender would be released in August. 

The Connecting Cheshire Partnership of four local authorities were leading the roll out of Superfast Broadband across the area and had awarded a contract to BT to deliver fibre broadband to areas hitherto outside the commercial development of fibre broadband.  Work had begun with Openreach, BT’s local network division, to plan the deployment and begin the process of planning the ‘how, where and when’ with engineers surveying locations and analysing the best way to roll out the network.    

The project had received 15m funding from the ERDF, and within this was the requirement to deliver a Business Support Programme that would enable eligible SMEs to access a comprehensive package of free support to enable them to exploit the benefits of fibre broadband such as HD video-conferencing, e-commerce and cloud computing.  Following a tender process Peninsula Enterprise (working with Groundwork Cheshire) were selected, pending a period of due diligence, to provide the support programme.

RESOLVED:  That

1          the overall position statement relating to current Shared Services be noted;

2          the brief for the Site Options/Feasibility Study for the Archive be approved;    

3          the progress on the Public Sector Network and Superfast Broadband projects be noted.