Further submission: response to evidence
submitted to the ICT inquiry (January 2007)
A. SUMMARY
1. There were several core themes arising
from the evidence to the Administration Committee's inquiry into
Members ICT. The evidence to the inquiry recognises that a high
level of ICT service and support is required to support the efficient
working practice of Members, and that their Parliamentary work
is conducted in a mobile and time critical manner which increasingly
relies on the effective working of ICT outside, as well as inside,
the Parliamentary estate.
2. Until now, ICT has been funded to provide
a high concentration of service on the Parliamentary estate. Members
are supplied with PCs, printers and Microsoft email and Office
services which connect to the parliamentary network. PICT employs
IT engineers to maintain and mend equipment and provide services
on the Parliamentary estate and trainers directly support Members
at Westminster.
3. Since 2001, a range of network connection
services to the Parliamentary network have also been provided
to Members in their constituency offices and from their homes,
and since 2006 from a mobile device. The current level of funding
for country-wide ICT provision is however limited and does not
cover support for privately procured equipment, nor does it cover
wider constituency office network or software services. The maintenance
and support for ICT services outside of Westminster has been largely
provided remotely through the telephone Service Desk (extension
2001) and through 3rd party sub contractors. Some of these 3rd
party services (for instance BT and Demon) required direct involvement
by Members or their staff to invoke the service and to register
faults.
4. There is evidence that the ICT support
provided at Westminster has improved over recent years, but it
is also clear from the evidence to the inquiry that this does
not adequately support Members in their wider role outside of
Westminster and the level of support to constituency offices is
confusing and inadequate for the high level of dependency that
Members have on these services.
5. Four key themes arising from the Inquiry
have been addressed by PICT in their response to the Administration
Committee on 30 January 2007. These are:
— the requirement to continue to improve
the quality of ICT service currently provided to Members;
— the discussion on the reconciliation
of the advice of several experts to provide a more standard fixed
desktop software environment versus the requirement to provide
a flexible desktop services that is tailored to individual Member's
requirements;
— the requirement to increase the level
of ICT support to constituency offices; and
— the development of new ICT services
to support Members' work.
6. PICT has read the evidence to the Inquiry
and analysed in further detail the four core themes described
in the sections below. This analysis describes the situation of
funded service today, the actions that PICT has taken to improve
services during 2006 and the actions planned to improve service
further during 2007. The analysis under each theme also describes
options for consideration for further improvements.
B. THEME 1: CONTINUE
TO IMPROVE
SERVICES CURRENTLY
PROVIDED BY
PICT
7. Since June 2006, PICT has been working
on improvements at the Service Desk. Against the background of
a year on year increase in the total number of calls to the Service
Desk, a greater proportion of those calls are answered and the
number of calls now lost are the same or less than comparable
national benchmark figures.
8. The time to respond to telephone calls
has also improved to meet national benchmark standards, with most
calls now being answered in less than 30 seconds.
9. PICT plans for future improvements to
Members' services include:
— Provide Members with a one-stop-shop
for all IT services, with a single point of contact to provide
a co-ordinated service and which will provide management for 3rd
party contract services as well as PICT directly provided services
— Extension of service desk and network
support hours to provide 24 hrs x 7 days a week cover.
— Continue the improvement in service
desk response, with ongoing training and improved and joined up
customer record keeping.
C. THEME 2: RANGE
OF EQUIPMENT
AND STANDARDISED
DESKTOP PROVIDED
TO MEMBERS
10. The current services and range of equipment
that PICT is authorised to provide to Members are outlined in
Annex 1. This list reflects resolutions of the House on Members'
allowances and decisions of the House of Commons Commission or
Members Estimate Committee.The Annex also identifies the services
which PICT is not authorised or funded to provide.
11. The additional services which PICT plans
to provide in 2007 are outlined in Annex 2. These services include
additional hardware items in the catalogue, as well as additional
network services and security backup services. In particular,
PICT plans to develop additional wireless network services around
the Palace of Westminster.
12. Current IT training is delivered through
a 3rd party training organisation that provides Members and their
staff with IT training courses, but from 2007 PICT's training
service will be increased to provide improved remote desktop software
support (system shadowing) from Westminster and e-training services
will be available remotely to a desktop, using a virtual classroom.
The 3rd party training contracts will be reviewed after evaluation
of these developments.
13. The question of a standard desktop has
been raised during the Inquiry, and PICT seeks Members' advice
on this issue. Members are individual customers rather than a
single customer group, and are sometimes compared to individual
small businesses. However, the service provided by Parliament
must be consistent and impartially available for all Members and
so does require some level of standardisation. The current position
is that PICT is authorised to provide a standard set of hardware
and software, but apart from that there is little standardisation
of the desktop environment. The advantage of this situation is
that it provides Members with high degrees of flexibility, but
the disadvantage is that flexibility makes the desktop more difficult
to support, more difficult to introduce general improvements,
and it is more difficult to diagnose problems if there is a fault.
14. Some options which PICT is considering:
— PICT intends to identify and work
more closely with the top five software suppliers to Members to
encourage joint working and support. This approach is intended
to cover all the main suppliers of casework management software.
— Our development plan includes deploying
more web based services, which will allow flexible access and
help to accommodate a more standardised desktop with the support
advantages that have already been described.
— For those Members seeking to work
independently from the Parliamentary Network we have piloted the
provision of direct ADSL to their Westminster office for those
who wish to receive it at their own expense.
— We will be revisiting logging in
processes and password management as well as the desire for private
and generic emails accounts. This will include measures to safeguard
the privacy of Members' communications when staff transfer employment
from one Member to another.
15. During 2007, PICT will investigate the
feasibility of increasing Members' file storage space, along with
archiving procedures.
D. THEME 3: IMPROVE
CONSTITUENCY SUPPORT
WITH NEW
SERVICES (WITH
THE IMPLICATION
OF ADDITIONAL
COST FOR
THESE SERVICES)
16. Services provided to Members at Westminster
are reported for the most part as being effective for provision
and support of equipment and software that PICT is funded to provide.
PICT acknowledges that support for constituencies is less effective
than the services provided at Westminster. The increased reliance
on electronic communications and systems to support the core work
of Members, and the increased workloads in constituencies have
resulted in a substantial increase in the number of requests for
constituency support and for increased levels of service to match
Westminster levels of service. This must be considered alongside
the levels of resources required to support the geographically
diverse nature of customers. PICT is not currently funded to provide
services in that geographic dimension. In our initial investigations
we have assessed a number of options and their potential costs
for Members to consider.
17. The options include:
— 24x7 hours support services for service
desk, servers, network (see theme 1 above).
— Account management to provide a single
point of contact for services to constituency offices. This would
involve PICT managing the interface with 3rd party contracted
services to provide a cohesive managed service for procurement,
installation and maintenance of equipment.
— Further web-based services—such
as virtual "drop-in surgeries" and extended remote command
of the PC software.
— A managed LAN (local area network)
in constituency offices and a higher specification of network
connection to Westminster.
— Regional support units (probably
3rd party contracts).
18. The cost of the 24x7 service, account
management and virtual "drop-in surgeries" for constituency
support are included in current plans and will be introduced at
no additional revenue cost.
19. Indicative costs for offering LAN support
and network based improvements (which will require clearer specification
and market testing) have been estimated to be in the region of
£6.1 million to implement and £6.3 million to run per
annum thereafter. If instead of the options above, new dedicated
lines to connect constituency offices to the Parliamentary network
are introduced, there is an estimated indicative cost of £7.4
million implementation and £9.9 million per annum running
costs. This assumes full take up and is based on the highest specification
of equipment and 3rd party support available. They should therefore
be seen as an upper limit for this type of improvement. In the
event that PICT is authorised to take these options further a
full business case would be drawn up and costings put to the Members
Estimate Committee/House of Commons Commission.
20. Indicative costs for Regional support
units would be subject to market investigation and are likely
to be provided through 3rd party contracts.
21. One fundamental constraint for providing
increased ICT services from Parliament to constituency offices
will be clarity of service level arrangements at Dissolution.
Members' are reminded that all of PICT's services are funded for
Parliamentary use only. The overlap between parliamentary, political
and private use of ICT is an issue that already exists and as
ICT systems generally become more integrated, is likely to intensify
as an issue for the future.
E. THEME 4: DEVELOPING
THE RIGHT
LEVEL OF
ENGAGEMENT TO
PROVIDE A
MEMBER STEER
ON FUTURE
IT SERVICES
22. ICT is a fast moving subject and new
services and products are constantly being introduced. In this
environment, PICT seeks guidance on how to develop the relationship
with Members and the Administration Committee in order to identify
the new products that will best support Members in their work.
This range of services could include:
— The provision of webcam services
for video links from Westminster to constituency offices to provide
Internet video links.
— Web services (Members' portal, website
framework, blogs, forum, communicating with the public).
— Range of channels for delivering
electronic documents (Personal Digital Assistant , text alerts,
voice alerts, group communications).
— Mobility of services—eg login
from anywhere.
— "Electronic Committee"
options.
23. As requested, PICT will add additional
items to the catalogue which Members can choose to purchase if
they wish. If widespread demand is seen for a particular item
or revision to list of items available on loan, then this will
be brought to the attention of the MEC, via the Administration
Committee and APMA. If appropriate it will be submitted to SSRB
as part of their deliberations via formal evidence.
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