ICT Cloud Implementation – Integrated Technology Solution (R.163/2021): Executive Response

Recommendations

Action

Target date

Responsible Officer

R1 Document an overall IT strategy for the States of Jersey.

The Technology Transformation Programme Business Case developed in 2019 set out the strategic approach to the transformation of critical core technology in Government and provided a potential roadmap for future investment once the initial phase had been achieved. Whilst not formally published, this document was the basis for the technology investment included in the Government Plan 2020-23 and the subject of briefings to both CSSP and the Assembly.

In response to this recommendation and similar requests, an updated document is being prepared for publication. Initial work has already been completed and further work will be undertaken during November and December to complete the draft strategy.

Engagement with staff and a wider stakeholder group will take place early in the new year.

31/12/2021 (Draft)

31/03/2022 (Publication)

Fiona Capstick

R2 Provide clearer reporting to the ITS Programme Board on the links between

The programme board packs will be updated to take account of this recommendation.

30/11/2021

Neil Fellows

project risks, interdependencies and the overall project plan.

ITS Programme Manager to review governance materials with a view to providing greater clarity on risks, interdependencies and the overall project plan through the plan, interdependency log and risk log within Project Workbench (the contracted project management tool). External dependencies will also be added to this log.

The ITS Programme Manager will include within its monthly meeting with the CPMO to provide beneficial insight in the interdependency mapping.

R3 Ensure the Communication Plan for the  ITS  programme  documents  more fully  the  communication  needs  of  the States Assembly and Scrutiny Panels and how these needs will be met.

This recommendation has already been incorporated within the ITS Programme's Stakeholder Communications plan. The sign-off of this deliverable (Ref: E41) was completed on 11th Nov.

The plan covers the communication objectives and desired outcomes for both the States Assembly and Scrutiny Panels.

Sample activities include providing Ministers / States Assembly with:

• An initial ITS Explainer Pack + regular email briefings and updates

• Presentations at hearings / panels e.g. Scrutiny

• Invitations to Roadshow events

• Press releases

Completed

Martyn White

R4  Provide  clearer  guidance  and templates to capture all expected costs of major projects at the Outline Business Case stage.

As part of the Finance Target Operating Model (but after the ITS OBC was drafted), the Treasury and Exchequer established an Investment Appraisal Team.

The  Team  has  subsequently  revised  business  case templates and guidance. Both templates and guidance now make explicit reference to the full range of costs that must be documented in a business case.

For the purposes of options appraisal, this includes a valuation of likely internal resource time even where

Already implemented continuous improvement required

–

Phil Ashley

there  is  no  incremental  financial  cost  that  would  be incurred.

On-going  developments  will  continue  to  be  made  to guidance and templates to ensure that business cases provide a comprehensive view of anticipated cost and allow decision makers to make fully informed decisions.

R5 Document and implement a clearly defined  strategy  to  measure,  monitor and  report  on  whether  the  ITS programme  is  delivering  the  intended financial and non-financial benefits and outcomes.

Benefits planning and tracking are key deliverables of the PMO service provided by the Programme Partner. The contract with the Programme Partner includes the following requirements:

PM-FR-33  The  Programme  Partner  must manage and track the realisation of outcomes and benefits (including dis-benefits) against the business case to judge whether the programme is  (and  remains)  desirable,  viable  and achievable.  This  includes  challenging  and aligning with GoJ's Treasury and Exchequer to agree the process for doing this.

PM-FR-34  The  Programme  Partner  must establish a Benefits Management Strategy for the programme working with the Delivery Partner on the realisation plans required to fulfil the strategy.

PM-FR-35 The Programme Partner must support development of benefits maps with the Delivery Partner to show how benefits relate to each other and to the project outputs and business changes that  will  enable  them  to  be  achieved.  The Programme  Partner  must  ensure  benefits  are aligned  with  Finance  and  that  tracking  and reporting against benefits is key. This includes ensuring the programme is acting on previous lessons  learnt  and  can  evidence  this  during audits by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG).

28/02/2022

Brian O'Kane

 PM-FR-36 The Programme Partner must support development of benefit realisation plans with the Delivery  Partner  to  schedule  the  benefits measurement activities and reviews to enable tracking of the realisation of benefits across the programme

To  address  this  recommendation,  over  the  next  few months, the ITS PMO will document a clearly defined strategy for benefits realisation planning and tracking. In order  to  achieve  this,  the  financial  and  non-financial benefits and associated baselines need to be agreed by key ITS stakeholders.

Based  on  a  number  of  assumptions  around  the availability of key ITS stakeholders, this can be in place by the timeline proposed.

R6  Document  clearly  the  roles  and responsibilities of individual members of groups  in  the  governance  structure together  with  the  accountability  and decision-making  responsibilities  for  all project activities and deliverables.

"Putting the Programme into Practice recognises that ITS has well defined with clear and appropriate governance structures and reporting lines in place. The key enablers for the ITS programme to achieve its objectives have been Identified within the Programme Structure." (Section 114)

The roles and responsibilities of individual members of Groups are set out in the relevant Terms of Reference. These are defined in the ITS Master Services Agreement Schedule 8.1 - Governance and relate to the following:- ITS Partnership Board, Programme Board, Service Management Board, Design Authority, and Programme Team Meetings. The same structure for each Board is as follows- Purpose, Key responsibilities, Decision Making Authority, Standard Agenda, Supplier and GOJ members by role and composition of Quorum.

As part of the wider governance framework, the ITS Programme Scheme of Delegation is in accordance with the Chief Operating Office Corporate Governance

31/01/2022

Caroline Hastings

Framework. A specific Scheme of Delegation for ITS daily operations that is in line with the COO Scheme of Delegation including oversight of Change Requests is in flight and due to be finalised by mid- December.

Following the SoD being approved the ToRs for each of the Boards will be revisited, updated accordingly to include individual responsibilities, and accountabilities to be approved by the SRO.

R7 Improve the minutes of the meetings of  boards  within  the  governance structure and ensure that they include a record of all agenda items.

This was remedied immediately and minutes now follow the same layout/order of the agenda.  

Completed

Ciaran Mulqueeny

R8  Enhance  the  level  and  detail  of financial information reported to the ITS Partnership Board.

The current level of financial information presented at the ITS Partnership Board is underpinned by a more detailed financial model.

A working session with the SRO has been conducted and it is planned that the level of detailed financial information reported to the Partnership Board will be enhanced from November 2021 onwards.

The level of financial detail provided will evolve from the current programme summary view to also include a per release breakdown view. A dashboard has now been developed and will be reviewed monthly in the Partnership Board meeting. To accommodate this we will split the Partnership Board Meeting in an external' (all Partners) and Internal (GoJ only) sections to allow GoJ to review potential sensitive commercial and financial data.

18/11/2021 (Completed)

Franklyn Peacock- Brennan

R9 Document more formally the matters that  have  been  escalated  between groups  within  the  ITS  governance structure.

ITS PMO to add an agenda item for 'Escalations' within ITS governance forums to ensure any escalations are formally reported. The agenda item will then be noted within the meeting minutes.

Completed

Ciaran Mulqueeny

R10  Reassess  the  level  of  internal resources  dedicated  to  the  ITS programme  and  ensure  that  the

The programme has completed its latest monthly review regarding the level of dedicated GoJ resources required by the ITS programme.

Completed

Tom Paterson

programme timescales set are realistic in  light  of  the  resources  actually available.

This included carrying out a workstream-by-workstream review of resource requirements and cross referencing this against the existing monthly projections from the internal enabling functions.

The  output  has  been  consolidated  within  the programme's new strategic resource forecasting tracker, which will identify, via summary MI dashboards, any known gaps and trigger the relevant interventions to fill them in a timely manner.

As previously conducted, the programme's monthly GoJ resourcing  forecast  check  cycles  will  continue  to  be performed to maintain a proactive forward look view.

R11 Ensure the ITS Programme Board and the ITS Partnership Board reporting clarifies  the  relationship  between  the overall programme status and the status of  key  component  parts  of  the programme.  This  should  include  any assumptions  being  made  regarding future activities that lead to the overall programme status being reported more favourably than a key component part of the programme.

ITS Programme Manager team will propose definitions and any relevant assumptions for each Red, Amber, and Green status used to review the programme. These definitions will be reviewed and agreed with all partners of the programme.

To ensure consistent RAG status reporting throughout the ITS Programme we have adopted the CPMO RAG status with some minor changes more suitable for the ITS Programme This has been reviewed by the ITS Programme Board and will go to the ITS Partnership Board this month for approval. This RAG status will be used to report on the individual releases and the overall ITS programme status and will report each release and the overall programme on the following indicators:

• Scope

• Budget

• Resources

• Timeline

A release will be reported as red if the budget/timeline/resources/scope are impacted without a chance of recovery . Actions back to green' will be agreed with the Programme board and Partnership

30/11/2021

Neil  Fellows/Kurt Schroder

board and once executed the release status will go back to green.

If during this process there is no threat that the overall ITS Programme indicators are impacted (i.e. it will not exceed the timeline, scope, budget or resourcing) the overall Programme status will remain green, if the indicators are adversely impacted but with mitigating actions recovery is possible it will be marked as amber and if the indicators are impacted without any chance of recovery it will be marked as red.

R12  Develop  the  reporting  of  overall progress to the ITS Programme Board and the ITS Partnership Board to align cost and delivery indicators in assessing overall programme performance.

ITS Programme Manager will review and align the cost and  delivery  indicators,  and  use  these  with  the appropriate audiences.

Using the RAG status and approach as outlined in R11 we will report a monthly health dashboard to the Programme Board and Partnership Board containing RAG status on all release and the overall programme for the agreed indicators (Scope, timeline, Budget and Resources)

30/11/2021

Neil  Fellows/Kurt Schroder

R13 Report formally the performance of third party partners against agreed KPIs to the ITS Partnership Board.

There are several mechanisms used to formally report on the contracted third parties including: a Collaborative Behavioural Survey which sets out the 8 required behaviours of both Delivery and Programme Partner they self-assess their performance and GOJ also assess their performance, a consensus view is determined at a Round table meeting. In addition to Surveys, a range of Key Performance Indicators are measured and reported on monthly.

The ITS PMO will consolidate KPIs into thematic areas so this high-level view can be reported within the ITS Partnership Board.

30/11/2021

Amy Phillips

R14  Develop  the  change  request reporting  to  include  clear  cost

The cost and non-cost impacts are captured as part of the formal Change Request process. The commercial impacts are filed in the commercial library which resides

Completed

Caroline Hastings

implications  associated  with  each individual change request.

in  WorkBench  (the  programme  tooling).  Costs  are shared with the Design Authority; wider reporting will be matured to include the appropriate level of detail for decision making that preserves commercial sensitivity.

An appendix to the PSB has been added to include a summary of the CRs (inc. cost).

R15 Revisit the lessons learned log from the  Revenue  Jersey  Transformation Programme and ensure all actions in the log have been considered and mitigating actions  are  in  place  for  the  ITS programme.

This is in progress,  The lessons learned have been shared to a limited audience, due to some commercially sensitive information. Key themes will be extracted, and sessions will be held with the relevant parties in Revenue Jersey Team and ITS leads, to consider the issues and mitigating actions.

28/02/2022

Caroline Hastings

R16  Ensure  that  responsibility  for benefits  realisation  is  identified  and allocated  to  specific  business  units within departments.

This links to R5 and the documentation of a clearly defined strategy for benefits realisation planning and tracking.

ITS PMO to support definition of benefits case / levers, including identifying owners within departments who will support measurement activities.  

28/02/2022

Brian O'Kane