Transcript - Public Hearing on IT Procurement with the Chief Information Officer Digital Services and Director Commercial Services - 26th March 2025

Public Accounts Committee

I.T. Procurement

Witness: Group Director, Commercial Services

and Chief Information Officer

Wednesday, 26th March 2025

Panel:

Deputy K.M. Wilson of St. Clement (Chair)

Deputy K.L. Moore of St. Mary , St. Ouen and St. Peter (Vice-Chair) Deputy R.S. Kovacs of St. Saviour

Deputy D.J. Warr of St. Helier South

Mr. A. Awan

Mr. P. Taylor

Mr. V. Khakhria

Mr. G. Kehoe

Witnesses:

Ms. C. Hastings, Group Director, Commercial Services

Mr. J. Whitfield, Chief Information Officer, Digital Services

Ms. R. Galloway, Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services

[13:10]

Deputy K.M. Wilson of St. Clement (Chair):

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Public Accounts Committee review of I.T. (Information Technology) procurement, which is connected to the P.A.C.'s (Public Accounts Committee) ongoing review of procurement overall. I would like to say that we have with us today the Chief Information

Officer and the Director of Commercial Services, ably assisted with the Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support for Digital Services at the Government of Jersey. I first want to take an opportunity to apologise to the public for the late start of this hearing, which was due to some security issues, but we are now ready to go. Welcome. I would like to draw everyone's attention to the following, if I may. As you all know, this hearing will be filmed and streamed live. The recording and transcript will be published afterwards on the States Assembly website. If I could ask for all electronic devices, including mobile phones, to be switched to silent. I would ask that for any members of the public who intend to join us, there is nobody in the room at the moment, but we would ask them not to interfere in the proceedings and as soon as the hearing is closed to leave quietly. For the purposes of the recording and the transcript, I would be grateful if everyone who could speak could ensure that you state your name and role. If we can, I would also like to just draw attention to the statement that I am required to make in relation to Scrutiny Panels, which states that the proceedings of the panel are covered by parliamentary privilege through Article 34 of the States of Jersey Law 2005 and the States of Jersey (Powers, Privileges and Immunities) (Scrutiny Panels, PAC and PPC) (Jersey) Regulations 2006, and witnesses are protected from being sued or prosecuted for anything said during hearings unless they say something that they know to be untrue. This protection is given to witnesses to ensure that they can speak freely and openly to the panel when giving evidence without fear of legal action, although the immunity should not be abused by making unsubstantial statements about third parties who have no right of reply. The panel would like you to bear this in mind when answering the questions. If we can begin with introductions. I am the Chair of the panel for today, in the absence of Deputy Gardiner . My name is Deputy Karen Wilson , and if I could pass over to other members of the Committee to introduce themselves also. I would like to start with Deputy Kristina Moore , who is the Vice-Chair of the panel, who is currently online.

Deputy K.L. Moore of St. Mary , St. Ouen and St. Peter (Vice-Chair):

Hello, thank you very much for joining us. I am Deputy Kristina Moore , Vice-Chair of panel.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Okay. Then if I can start with you.

Mr. A. Awan:

My name is Ali Awan, I am one of the lay members of the Committee.

Deputy D.J. Warr of St. Helier South : Deputy David Warr , a panel member.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Vijay Khakhria , a lay member.

Mr. G. Kehoe :

Glen Kehoe , lay member.

Deputy R.S. Kovacs of St. Saviour :

Deputy Raluca Kovacs , member of the panel.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Philip Taylor , lay member.

The Comptroller and Auditor General:

In attendance, Lynn Pamment, the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Thank you. If I could ask the officers to introduce themselves. If you could, would you be kind enough to also just give an overview of your expertise and your experience in the roles that you hold?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Good afternoon. Jason Whitfield, Chief Information Officer. My experience and my career is in information technology, digital services, over 30 years. I would summarise it as the first third was software engineering, so building systems and implementing and integrating corporate I.T. I moved on to lead an enterprise architecture and I.T. strategy team in financial services. The second third of my career was in public sector, focusing on I.T. strategy, enterprise architecture and sourcing, strategic sourcing. Then the last third that I am in now, leadership roles. This is my fourth Chief Information Officer role in the industry.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Caroline Hastings. I have been in procurement for 40 years. Started my career in the police back in Devon and Cornwall and worked on many national procurements as part of that role. Led some very significant procurements, Microsoft being the biggest one for the whole of the police estate across the whole of the U.K. (United Kingdom), and led a number of teams in that role. Then I came to Jersey in 2006 as the first Commercial Services Director.

[13:15]

It was not called that at the time, but that is the role it was. I set up a small team there and worked in that role for until 2019 and then I went to work on the I.T.S (Integrated Technology Solution) programme as the commercial lead and led that procurement. I have recently gone back into the Director's role and been in that role for a year and a half, more or less.

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services:

Ruth Galloway, I am the Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support for Digital Services. I have been in government for around about 18 years. I have had a varied government career. In the last 4, I have been with what is now Digital Services. My team looks after frontline I.T. services and also the governance aspects of the stuff that we do.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Great. Thank you very much. I would just like to draw your attention to the fact that we do have an hour. I know it is going to run over because of the late start, so we should aim to finish by 2.15 p.m. and there will be a few areas of questions which will be shared between all of us. I will start off. Obviously this hearing examines I.T. procurement practices of the Government of Jersey addressing previous shortcomings identified in official reports and hearings. What we are hoping to do is to explore the improvements made, the current challenges and the future plans. So what we know is that digital procurements have shared characteristics with major government procurements but added complexities make them even more pivotal. That was a comment made by the National Audit Office. Government's approach to technology supplies addressing the challenges on 16th January 2025. An overarching I.T. strategy for the Government under development and due to be finalised later this year, June 25 being the estimated completion. What we would like to learn today is what lessons you have learned from previous digital initiatives and how these will be incorporated into the I.T. digital strategy that will be finalised in June. If you could start, Jason, please.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

It is a very wide question. Lynn's recent report on the I.T. Thinkpiece has been helpful because it has gone back 10 years with investments in technology-dependent programmes. I think for me, personally, one of the top headings is project and programme management. Some of the shortcomings, some of the issues, some of the things that Lynn's reports have been calling out is not best practice project management. Managing to scope, managing to quality, managing to timelines, reporting and ensuring the right skills. Also, lackings in what I would call stakeholder management, so the business change component, not just the pure technology component. As a result of that, as part of the I.T. strategy work that I am leading, we are looking at where our skills base is and where we need extra skills in that space in the new department known as Digital Services. The second area is what I think is previously referred to as overtrading. When I took over the department and we had some issues, I led a health check that I have talked about in previous

sessions - the health of the department, the health of the systems - and we discovered in totality we were leading over 300 projects for the Government. So we went through quite an extensive exercise with Ruth's team across all the departments, and each department helped us prioritise their needs and priorities. As mentioned before in previous hearings, we reduced the totality of it is actually 330 projects that we were accountable for down to 100, to give us the space, the capacity and the focus. In other words, the challenges of some of the projects is that the resources were spread too thinly because there was too much change going on within our own team and then also the resources on the Island. Very important obviously we focus on that. So prioritisation has been really key. The third area for me would be standards and policies. We have got a way to go in the department to document all the I.T. standards and policies that you need for the complexity of the estate. Believe it or not, for a small Island of Jersey, we have a thousand systems, thousand applications, business systems. That is quite complex to run and maintain. So when you have change projects come along, they have to be tested thoroughly and documentation needs to be brought up-to-date. So the strategy is now looking at the lesson learned, particularly from Lynn's reports, as to how we simplify, how we reduce that complexity, how we have less systems, which also leads to less suppliers, because we have a large number of suppliers providing all of that IT and technology. That is my summary level response, but it is a very broad question so happy to take further detail to that theme.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

I think the question is, what learning will be incorporated into the final I.T. strategy, based on what you have just talked about there? What is the biggest learning point that you must not repeat in terms of producing another strategy?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Not taking on too much. Focusing on a very clear set of priorities aligned to Government needs so that we have the right level of resources on the projects and we deliver what the projects expect. That would be my short version.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Okay, so there is a big issue around overtrading as you talked about. Can you tell us what caused repeated delays to the overarching I.T. strategy?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

I have read about this and thought about it quite a bit, particularly with the Thinkpiece report, which catalogues it painfully. I have only been in role just over a year. I would suggest it is simply down to overtrading. When you have that many projects, that many issues, that many escalations and those large number of operational systems, things happen. Maintaining and managing that I.T. complexity is a complex business. Things go wrong. We had plans to make some advances on our strategy in Q4 last year, and we had some quite complex operational incidents that required most of the focus of my leadership team. Just bandwidth for it. It is taking longer than we expected.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Do you think it is going to be ready by June 2025?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

That is absolutely our intent and plan. We have the right members of my leadership team focused on it. We have workshops booked. We have milestones. We have all the things in place. But what I cannot predict is things going wrong operationally for it. So I will touch wood. As long as long as we have no major operational issues on our systems, then I am confident we will be publishing at the end of June.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Okay, thank you. I am going to move over to Deputy Moore now, if I might. Kristina, could you take over?

Deputy K.L. Moore :

Thank you. It is good to hear that you have already acknowledged the work of the Comptroller and Audit General. I was just going to briefly overview the report by Thinkpiece on this subject in which it is debated. I recognise that the Government has undertaken an exercise to prioritise those new projects for investment as part of the proposed budget. The prioritisation and re-prioritisation of projects and programmes in the absence of a coherent, overarching vision and strategy, however, creates increased risk that projects and programmes will be implemented in a sub-optimal way and may not deliver intended benefits for citizens. Could you explain to me how your prioritisation process has been worked through without having that overarching strategy under which to guide it?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Thank you, Deputy Moore . Sometimes I think there is some confusions across the Government on an I.T. project, a digital project, a technical project and a business change programme. The majority of those 102 projects are business change projects. So, for example, changes to our tax systems because of refinements to the law or tax policies. I say that because the majority of the 102 projects has been prioritised by departments. So if a department has a new set of processes, something changing, and they need a new document management system, or a new customer relationship management system, then within the realms of that project, the architects that work for me in Digital Services will engage in the planning and then in the procurement processes and architect and design a solution for that project and programme. The best example is the transform programme, where

there has been a very comprehensive planning strategy and architecture exercise with procurement. So the strategic planning is done within this sphere of the programmes and the projects, as opposed to there is one master blueprint for all 102 projects. To say it a different way, the technology needs for the prison are very different from the technology needs for the Treasury or the tax systems. However, there is some commonality, which is why the I.T. strategy is important, which is the underlying infrastructure. So, for example, how we use Microsoft technologies, which is one of our core foundations based on the end user side, on the service side, and on the database side. The architects, as they work with the large programmes or the smaller projects, are taking a strategic approach. Because it is not all written down in a well-summarised, very clear strategy, I can understand why that gives the impression there is not strategic planning going on. My assurance to the Committee is these large investments are taken very strategically and the role of the architect, the principal designer for the solution, their role is to ensure that and guide that. We also have an assurance process called MERS, that as projects progress through their stages, we are providing verification assurance that projects are following the strategic path in alignment with published IT policies, for example.

Deputy K.L. Moore :

Thank you for the answer there. I think perhaps we may be seeing a slight difference in approach which might be guiding the approach. In an earlier answer you stated that priorities are according to government needs, but what about the needs of the public and their interaction with the digital platforms of government. We have seen, just recently, Guernsey has published their digital strategy, which identified an overarching vision for digital governance, which means offering services digitally, as members of the public would expect. Could you describe how you see that role? Are Digital Services a separate element to the prioritisation and the Government need that you have previously described?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Digital services has facilitated the prioritisation, not carried out the prioritisation. So the main answers to your questions on what the needs and the priorities are for the citizens and for the businesses that these projects help enhance or improve is driven by the departments and by the Chief Officers that made those decisions on priorities. I can think of a few that are very much about improving citizen needs, for example, our digital government platform is about improving our online services to citizens. It is not as good as it could be and I have received some criticism since I have been in my role. In the main, it is the departments and the Ministers that are sponsoring those projects and programmes that are deciding on the citizens' needs and citizens' priorities. In other words, this strategy that we are developing is not for a greenfield site, it is an optimisation strategy of where we are. If the Government had taken a decision, which I would not have encouraged, to replace all of our systems and wipe things out, which sometimes happens, then it would have needed a far more centralised approach to the needs of the citizens. So this is an incremental strategy. This is a how do we optimise what we have with our current systems and how do we need to improve things in an incremental way as opposed to some revolutionary strategy to replace everything, replace all our systems.

[13:30]

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

If I could just come in, Kristina, I think one of the questions aligned to that is, in the optimisation approach is that still going to deliver the benefits to Islanders in terms of what is in the mix at the moment and will there be any gaps in that, where strategically you are going to have to make some decisions about how to fill those gaps going forward?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Well, that is a good question. From my career experience that depends on the success of the projects and the programmes, which is why in the first question I emphasised the importance of project and programme management skills, the governance of projects and programmes, and the assurance of projects and programmes. In other words, the strategy, if it is sensible, it is balanced and the funding comes with a strategic change plan, that is not necessarily going to direct benefits being realised. Benefits being realised come from the projects and the programmes, also the importance of the S.R.O. (Senior Responsible Officer) role and what happens when the project is finished. The other thing I would add in my experience is when the system is being built or modified under a digital and I.T. project, the benefits tend to flow in the one or 2 years after with process optimisation, cultural change. So the business change has to follow on after, which is why benefits realisation and benefits tracking is all of our roles in departments when we are investing in these projects. Very rarely does a large I.T. project, I.T. programme deliver benefits on day one that the system goes in. It normally takes at least a few years after. So I cannot guarantee the benefits will come because we are reliant on the projects and the programmes that will deliver the change programme. But my intent is to focus more on project and programme management skills and how those programmes are governed and ensured.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Can I just ask a quick question, please, Chair? What is the strategy team expected to achieve? Strategy is normally an aim, a vision, they are trying to achieve. Could you articulate that for me in fairly simple terms?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Number one, to look at solutions to simplify our complex I.T. estate. Actually, it is too complex. Number 2, to find quick ways to replace some of the older systems. We have quite old systems that are costly to maintain, take a long time to change as a result. Number 3, to keep our Island safe, so our technology and our systems as secure and safe as they should be. Number 4, as cost efficient as possible, so making sure we are getting good value for money. Technology is an expensive game, I do not need to explain that to you. They would be my 4 simple ones off the top of my head.

Mr. P. Taylor : Thank you.

Deputy K.L. Moore :

Before we pass on to Deputy Warr , could I just ask briefly whether a digital I.D. (identification) processes in service industries are any of programmes that have been prioritised?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Do you mean by your question, Deputy Moore , changing the digital I.D. processes or do you mean the existing systems like JerseyMe and what is the other one, Ruth, that we have? Yoti. How do you mean by your question, Deputy Moore ?

Deputy K.L. Moore :

By providing each member of the public with one digital I.D. for interactive services.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

To my knowledge - Ruth might need to help me here - there is not any projects in the prioritised list that mandates a digital I.D. for all Islanders.

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services: Correct.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Correct, so that is the first part of the answer. The second is the digital government platform project and programmes are optimising the platform that we have for that, so the usage indexing, but we are not actually changing the underlying use of JerseyMe and Yoti from an optimisation perspective. Does that help your question Deputy Moore ?

Deputy K.L. Moore : Thank you.

Who holds ultimate accountability for digital procurement decisions across departments and how is this communicated? How do you ensure that there is consistency in these processes if they are managed by individual S.R.O.s?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

So the requirements that come in from digital projects.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Could you speak up a bit, please?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Sorry, I have got a very croaky voice. So in terms of procurement across the departments, then there is a bidding process, obviously, in terms of business case preparation. That will be reviewed by either Jason's team or a combination of myself and strategic finance. So there is a business case that has to be prepared, and that goes into some sort of prioritisation. In terms of procurement, it will depend on the value of the project and some of you, I think, would be familiar with the process we have in terms of the different categories of spend, it requires different types of procurement activity. The more expensive ones which tend to fit into the digital space would require tendering and if it is a bespoke piece of software it may require an exemption to not bid the work but generally all I.T. projects all projects actually and all requirements in terms of procurement should follow that process which is set out in the Public Finance Manual, its law and the sourcing routes are set out clearly in the documentation and we will support those. Some departments are more self- sufficient than others and can do more of that work. Other areas of the business, it is more complex and we require specialist skills which we work together to determine whether we have the skills in- house or whether we need to bring in external third parties to support, which may be individuals with a particular expertise or new businesses and suppliers. Then we will follow the same route in terms of supplier relationship management, contract management and ensuring that the delivery is as we wanted it to the quality and standard. Does that answer your question?

Deputy D.J. Warr :

Yes, just a quick question. You mentioned about this sort of unevenness in expertise in departments. Is that just how it is? Can you give an example where why would you expect expertise here in this area as opposed to that area?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I think it is kind of organic. So this is happening over time. In some areas, some of the departments have grown their capability and skills and perhaps they are not in such a complex area, such as digital for example, so they may be buying more routine goods and services and therefore it is simpler for them to do.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Could you just give us an example of that?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

In the digital space, it has to fit with all the requirements and standards that are set by Jason and the team. So they cannot just go and buy some random piece of software.

Deputy D.J. Warr :

Can you give an example of a real-life department?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I can talk about Education, actually, who have done a really good piece of work to procure a website that helps direct learning. I cannot remember the name of it, sadly. But they worked out this was with Highlands, knew their requirement needing to be more digitally aware and to provide a service to students. They provided a very good, capable requirement. We had a very light touch in that, in terms of it went through the number of gateways that we would expect. It met certain standards and ...

Deputy D.J. Warr :

So you have given me the good one, what about the bad one?

Group Director, Commercial Services: Bad one? I cannot recall a bad one.

Deputy D.J. Warr :

Well, I do not mean bad, but one where there is not the capability or there is not deemed to be the need for the capability. Sorry to put you on the spot.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I cannot think of one at the moment. Honestly, I cannot think of one. I can think of where departments have brought in some of their support and that sometimes needs some refining.

Deputy D.J. Warr :

Probably the question is ultimately why are some behind the others, is there a strategy to upgrade everybody?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I think that is probably part of Jason's strategy, is it not, in a way because we need to bring I think at the moment there is probably some as Jason and the team develop their strategy and standards which they have standards, Microsoft being a key one, but there are others. If I think about S.A.P. (Systems, Applications and Products), our implementation of S.A.P., there is more we could do there. Then the smaller departments will have niche requirements that only their area will use. So it has to be proportionate in terms of the skills and the attention that we put. We have all got limited resources. I have got a very small team.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Sorry, do you mind if I just ask the question in a slightly different way? This is a procurement review, and I think I heard you say that individual departments create business cases for I.T. changes or procurements and they pass them to Jason and yourself and that you assess those business cases. Did I hear that right?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

In the I.T. space I think, Jason, I might be able to help with that one. In terms more generally, we would expect departments to produce their business cases, and they would be reviewed.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Supposing you got 2 different random departments, Department X and Department Y, and they have got Project A and Project B, and you cannot do both of those because lack of resources, how do you determine which one you are going to prioritise in that situation?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

That would be in consultation with Jason's team, with the Chief Officer. I mean in terms of the importance, the level of risk, there are a number of considerations that and if we are going to the strategic projects then obviously, we would be working with the C.P.M.O. (Corporate Portfolio Management Officer). It would require them to go through certain gateways.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

I think what we are trying to test is: what is your evaluation framework? What is your control mechanism for approving or disapproving of a business case? How do we come to understand the decisions you make in terms of what can be procured or what will not be procured?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

There is a business case process for strategic and high-level expenditure, the Chief Officers are required it is an accountable officer's responsibility to oversee and make sure that those business cases are presented.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

But you are the stopgap, are you not? You are the department that says you can pass go or you cannot, so what is it that you

Group Director, Commercial Services:

We do not pass go. We do not have that authority to say yes or no. People will submit business cases which will get funding approval and that is a separate discussion from the procurement. The procurement comes in when that has been agreed and it is how we go to procurement, how are we going to buy this thing?

Deputy D.J. Warr :

We talked about the number here. I think you talked about 300 different projects on the go, and you have got that down to 100, so how did you prioritise that? The danger I am hearing here is that we might end up going the other way where lots of different people say yes and you cannot make your mind up which is yes, and which is no.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Each of the Chief Officers in each department prioritise their projects so the 102 is a sum of the priorities per department.

Deputy D.J. Warr : Yes, I understand that.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

To the first part of the question on what if we have resource contention, A and B projects need exactly the same skills. Ultimately that would get escalated to me and then my role would be to resolve with the other Chief Officers, and ultimately Ministers, if one takes priority over the other. I have not had that in the time here in my role. Technology projects do depend sometimes on specialists and third parties so all through my career I am used to bringing in expertise on a database technology or networking or security. That does not tend to happen. Then on the other part of the question about do we approve the gating part of a business case, so if a project has a technology component and requires technology, even if it is not going to be delivered by our department, Digital Services, the Public Finance Manual says that we must be consulted. During the business case

development and the phase, best practice would be for my architects and my team to be involved in the development on the solutions side. Remember in a business case, it is typically about outcomes. It is about what is trying to be achieved so the systems design is not normally done at that stage. The business case is to get approval from the Treasurer and the Government planning process for it.

[13:45]

It is not typically until after the business case is approved from a funding point of view, outline business case, then it gets set up as a project and we have architects involved. Then the requirements would be analysed and that typically is when you then

Group Director, Commercial Services: When we step in.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

produce a procurement strategy which is also one of our rules and we would engage with Caroline's team. Broadly in my time in the role, that has worked well. I have not had any major issues on that with the big procurements and investments that we have been making, and we are just about the conclude the Transform Programme which has gone very well. We have not quite signed the contract and agreement yet, but it has gone through all the stage gates and the architects and the team have been involved all the way through, and a specialist from Caroline's area has been highly engaged and I think it has worked really well.

Group Director, Commercial Services: It has worked well.

Mr. G. Kehoe :

Jason, sorry, can I just interrupt? You mentioned there that obviously the departments come to yourselves. Do you go back out to other departments where a project may line with other departments that you obviously oversee a lot of these different things or do you just say: "Well, they want this. They are going to just go to the procurement and that is the line of travel we are going to take", but you do feed that out to others so they can all share in that experience?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

The short version is yes. Maybe if I could bring Ruth into this part. One of Ruth's responsibilities is the Business Relationship Management Team. Her team work day to day regularly with each of the departments and where we spot synergies between projects then, yes, we would go out proactively for it but, Ruth, do you want to pick that up?

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services:

I think there is not very much more to add. If we think about this S.A.P. platform as an example, we would look to make sure that we were using as many of those components as possible and the architects are absolutely key in that process. The Business Relationship Managers are there within their departments understanding their specialism so the team that are supporting J.H.A. (Justice and Home Affairs) are clued up on blue light related technology in a way that the team supporting I. and E. (Infrastructure and Environment) are clued up on regulation related activity.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Okay. All right, we are just going to move quickly on.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Can I just give one more example of your question? We are currently working on a very urgent project for one of the departments - and I am not going to go into specifics - and we have spotted that there is some case management technology and functionality that could be reused on another project. We think that they can be co-developed and co-existence so it will save us money and it will create resource efficiencies and we have done that proactively. That project is not approved yet. It is going through the final stages so I would rather not give the details here because I assume we will probably have an I.T. procurement after at some point.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Is that routinely practised in that way or is this something that you have just introduced now in terms of trying to improve the diligence around integration, optimisation, all those

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

In my time predominantly from the architects and my leadership team, yes, it is routinely practised.

Deputy K.M. Wilson : Yes, okay. Thank you.

Deputy D.J. Warr :

Can I just ask more one and then we will move on?

Deputy K.M. Wilson : Yes.

Deputy D.J. Warr :

What collaboration do you have with Digital Jersey? Why have Digital Jersey not been engaged to assist Government in developing I.T. strategies and best practice I.T. procurement strategies given their expertise in that area?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

I meet regularly with the Digital Jersey Leadership Team. Myself and colleagues attend their events and conferences. I have been working very closely quite recently on A.I. strategy, talking with Tony their leader. Tony is leading an Island A.I. strategy. I am facilitating and leading the steering committee for A.I. and public sector. As to your question, developing the I.T. strategy, it is about enterprise architecture. It is about infrastructure. It is about cloud and on-prem and data centres. We have the skills in my team. I am not aware of those skills in Digital Jersey. We are not excluding them. If there is something specific that I have not been told, please raise it. We meet very regularly with them. I am a bit confused by the question, to be honest with you.

Deputy D.J. Warr : Okay.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services: What have you heard?

Deputy D.J. Warr :

I personally have not heard anything, but I know that this has been mooted as an issue. I think the other answer is in health sorry.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

I think if I could just respond to this, in the sense I think it is the question is and you alluded to it yourself in terms of improving the quality of the project management and the P.M.O. (Project Management Office) and the expertise and the capacity that you have within Government to be able to deliver on things. You talked about overtrading. So given that we have got an arm's length organisation called Digital Jersey whose expertise is entirely that, what we are trying to understand is: what is the relationship between you in terms of developing strategic frameworks that benefit the Island in terms of the whole digital space that you are both engaged in? That is where the line of questioning is coming from.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Okay, so I think it is good and my other 2 examples I will give, my team would like to use more skills on Island and a number of review reports and audits have talked about an over-reliance outside of Jersey. We had a conference, I worked in alignment with Digital Jersey, on 21st January where we invited in all the leaders of the digital companies on the Island, laid out our challenges very, very openly and very transparently and we got good feedback for that. We explained that we wanted to set up some innovation councils to get new ideas and new skills from the Island and how we work closer with digital companies on the Island. Digital Jersey were present at that event, gave some guidance before and some feedback after. The second area is digital health. There is an ambition with digital health to have a much more joined up, much more integrated health system across the Island, the main 4 domains. There is a board I sit on with the I.T. leaders in H.C.J. (Health and Care Jersey) and Digital Jersey are on that board and very, very engaged in that forum, so I think it is very good which is why I am a bit confused by your question.

Deputy D.J. Warr : Well, I am encouraged.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

All right. Thank you. Okay, I am going to pass over to Deputy Kovacs now, please.

Deputy R.S. Kovacs :

We are going to move to the procurement and supplier engagement so this will be more for Ruth and Jason. What steps have been taken to simplify the bidding process for small and medium sized enterprises on Government I.T. contracts?

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services: Sorry, I think that is probably a Caroline question rather than an us question.

Deputy R.S. Kovacs : Okay.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

In terms of the bidding process, it again does depend on the value of the contract. Currently, the thresholds are anything over £100,000 has to be tendered and that requires the full suite in terms of going out to tender, open bids, expecting people to return bids and we evaluate them in a structured way. Anything under £100,000 is subject to 3 quotes. Now, that threshold has been in place since 2006 and we are doing some work to consider the impact of possibly raising that threshold so that we are making it more proportionate in terms of the activity that needs to be undertaken for a smaller supplier bidding for work. So instead of anything over £100,000, it may be a £200,000 or whatever.

We have not determined a new threshold yet but certainly that work is underway within the team, and we have been looking across other jurisdictions of a similar size to Jersey and also looking at best practice in New Zealand, who are very good at documenting all of their processes and procedures and we have used them as a sort of study in recent times. We are live to the concerns and some of the issues that have been raised over the last few months since I have been back in this role and that is one of the first things we are doing is to look at the thresholds with a view to raising them so that a proportionate effort in terms of bidding for work is more proportionate to the value of the work, if that makes sense.

Mr. G. Kehoe :

How do you define an exemption?

Group Director, Commercial Services: An exemption?

Mr. G. Kehoe :

Yes, from that process.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

An exemption from the process, and there are some, so if it is a sole supplier - there is only one person or one provider - that has to be demonstrated. It comes to a board to be decided upon whether that is correct and then there is a document you would expect this, but we have a document for this which it goes through and is recorded as an exemption for a particular reason. It can be because it is so secret that we cannot advertise that we are doing it so there are a number of different categories which will automatically be exempt and then there are the borderline cases which are: have we only got one provider? Is it so urgent we need it right away and we have not got time to go out and therefore we are agreeing to do a piece of work quickly? Those are the key areas; there are others.

Deputy R.S. Kovacs :

What I was saying before was maybe for Ruth as well, so would be between the 3 of you, are there any specific measures that have worked well for the small and medium businesses which transpired in better relationships with the clients and what is needed?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I do have one example. I am going to use the I.T.S. programme for that which was the biggest I.T. project at the time. I know there are views on the success or not of that programme, but we did engage very early on with the local supply chain in Jersey and we continue to do that. We are

working more closely with Ruth, her team and Jason to do that, which is evidence of the industry meeting just recently. Through that process and going back to the I.T.S. programme, we did obtain a number of bids and interest from online and suppliers. We held an event at Digital Jersey, and we had one in Jersey and we had one in London, and from that we managed to set out the requirements. We took feedback from the suppliers and that helped shape the way we approached the procurement. We encouraged partnership with some of the bigger companies that were capable and had experience of dealing with a project of that size and that relationship with a local provider continues to this day. It is very proactive and we would like to repeat some of that success in some of the other procurements as I work with Jason and the team going forward.

Deputy R.S. Kovacs :

Thank you. Just another one between the 2 of you. How is the role split between the departments - Commercial Services and Digital Services - in the procurement process?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

In the procurement process so we are separate departments within Treasury and Exchequer so we have one the Treasurer is our lead but

Deputy R.S. Kovacs : But as in roles

Group Director, Commercial Services:

In terms of roles, so we do not buy very much. Procurement, we provide the mechanism to buy things, but we do not spend a lot of money because we do not have money to spend. We are spending departmental money or we are spending project money so the relationship comes with if I am using I.T. as an example, the requirements and specification will come from the technical teams and the experts in Jason's area. Then we will decide through the procurement strategy, which I have shared with you some examples of procurement strategies, have I not, in previous so the procurement strategy will set out the approach to market, possible entrance to the market, considerations around that procurement and how that should be structured, whether it should be openly tendered, whether we should do it restricted, which means we do a sift through first on a number of different requests that come down to a top 3 of our top 5 and then that is put out. Then we manage that process and the bigger projects we will have a team working on that, a procurement expert, a financial expert, technical expert, customer

Deputy R.S. Kovacs :

The teams co-ordinate to ensure smooth procurement process.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Exactly, so we work together. Yes. That was a long way of saying that, sorry.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Okay, I am just conscious of time. We have about 20 minutes left and we have got quite a lot still to get through so if I can hand over to Vijay.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Sure. We have recently had an example of a joint procurement process with Guernsey which led to a pretty ordinary outcome. What I would like to understand is how do you set your evaluation criteria such that when you are examining a bid, you come up with a unique, repeatable and objective assessment of the value or the merits or demerits of a particular bid so that you can carry out an objective assessment?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Okay. Shall I take the question first and Caroline might be able to add to it? The best practice for a bid evaluation is to have a weighted decision tree so typically the top 6, 7 domains of the decision, how the decision will be made, things like cost, functional requirements, non-functional, basis of the company that is bidding. That is defined in the procurement strategy upfront of the project. The procurement strategy would lay out the approach to the bid process and that is done very much in consultation with Caroline's team. Then the Scoring Committee. So it is important that you have a wide team with representation from the different domains.

[14:00]

We would always want for the larger bids, for example, someone from our financial business partner making sure that we are looking at the commercials well. From a technical side for the bigger bids, I would always want one of my lead architects looking at the technology being proposed, be it function or non-functional side and then on the commercial contracting side, that would typically be led by someone in Caroline's team in the scoring evaluation. I think the other part - in general in industry I am answering this, not for Jersey - is to have a good facilitator that facilitates the bid process and makes sure that you bring in a proper committee type approach and you are moving towards a consensus approach and sometimes that is the Project Manager, sometimes it is someone from Caroline's team. That just depends on the situation of the project in hand. Anything else to add, Caroline?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

No, I think that is a 10 out of 10 answer. Thank you.

I suppose the context of the question is that we had the same sort of information sent to Guernsey and to Jersey after a similar procurement strategy had been evolved jointly and yet we arrived at 2 wildly different conclusions from the same data. How do you give us assurance that your assessment process is objective and will only come up with one answer? The correct answer ideally.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I think the particular example you are referring to, there may have been other circumstances there. In terms of our approach, we do have a very clear guidance in terms of what is preferred. When I say preferred: what is the usual breakdown between price and quality, and that may vary depending on what you are buying and what is most important. You might want to put a higher weighting on a particular specification and a lower weighting on price because that is the most important criteria. So these discussions are really important at the beginning to ensure that we are clear about what is important and where we are placing value. Typically, they are 60/40 split, 60 per cent quality, 40 per cent price, if we believe that quality is the most important thing because it is very particular quality is the most important and we do not have lots of options in the requirement. There does have to be some market knowledge and expertise involved because if you are not close to the industry, you can get the scoring wrong. You can get a weighting wrong and then of course once that is wrong or is not as optimum as it should be or could have been, then you do run the this is where you need experienced people doing that role or experienced people reviewing what is being prepared. As part of the procurement strategy, we review the weighting. Sometimes we challenge the weighting and get it documented as to why a particular procurement is looking to do a 50/50 split. Does that make sense? There is some science behind it.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Thank you. I guess that leads on to we understand that some of the scoring is done off-Island and I guess that must be to address the lack of experience you just mentioned?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I do not think it is lack of experience. I think the size and the speed with which that project or programme needed to be completed and also there was a particular specialism in that particular area which made it a bit more complex.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Which is a type of experience, I suppose. Can you give us an indication of how much takes place off-Island and how much takes place on-Island out of, say, the 102 projects that are ongoing right now?

Group Director, Commercial Services: In terms of evaluation?

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Yes, on-Island versus off-Island.

Group Director, Commercial Services: Or in terms of award?

Mr. V. Khakhria:

In terms of the scoring.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

The scoring. We do not score on-Island/off-Island.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Sorry, my understanding is that some of the scoring takes place off-Island, that you employ non- Island local scorers.

Group Director, Commercial Services: No.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Okay. Let us move on. That must be a misunderstanding.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I do not understand the I have misunderstood the question.

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services: It is the evaluation panel is the question.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Yes. No, we may have a contractor who is working for Government who happens to be in the U.K. so that is probably it, but they are contracted for us. They are not some random person who has been asked to

Mr. V. Khakhria:

No, I would not expect you to employ a random for these sorts of purposes, so you do use external contractors.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Occasionally, but they would have been involved in the project. For example, we have got some third-party contractors working on a couple of projects in Jason's area and they may be part of the process in terms of deciding where the weighting sits but it would be within our guidance, what we expect it to be.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Okay. Thank you. Let us move on. Briefly, do you systematically collect feedback from unsuccessful bidders and how do you use that feedback?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Again, this has come from one of the questions, has it not, one of the answers from one of the surveys which was a very small sample. In terms of feedback within our guidance and our best practice, feedback is a requirement to unsuccessful bidders and that should be documented and the rationale as to why they have not won the business and also guidance and some advice or where they have fallen short so that they can improve for the next time. We do not want people to keep going round this loop at the same time repeating the same mistakes because it is not in our interest and it is a waste of people's time. We do spend some time there is guidance but that does require people to read it. When it comes to we provide help occasionally to support feedback because some people are uncomfortable giving negative feedback and we do give some guidance as to how that should be done and, hopefully, we will want to see people bidding. We do not want to see people put off through the process.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Okay, and you are satisfied that that process is effective?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I would say because of feedback we have had it may not be consistent and therefore it is not as good as it could be because it should be consistent when people are getting feedback from across the Government.

Mr. V. Khakhria:

Okay. One last question from my section: have you considered publishing a pipeline of future complex projects and engaging with local suppliers earlier to give them the opportunity to address, for example, skills gaps and to understand your requirements better and leave them better placed to bid?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Yes, that is on the horizon, a very short horizon. We have been working with colleagues in I. and E. who have a pipeline and that is quite well developed. I am using that as a template for other sectors. In terms of how we present that, where we present it to the different groups, so the construction hub is one, for example, I am working with, and we will be providing that guidance to ensure that we have got that capability.

Deputy R.S. Kovacs :

Will the pipeline at least be published online?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Yes, so that is the plan. The plan is to publish the pipeline across a number of categories but that does require us working with the business to make sure it is not going to be completely out of date by the time we publish it so there is some work to be done there.

Deputy R.S. Kovacs : Thank you. Okay.

Mr. G. Kehoe :

I think this is going to be to yourself, Jason, really. It is about managing supplier relationships. You mentioned earlier today that you are reducing the amount of suppliers. For my context, it is just understanding is that going to be a one.gov approach to these I.T. suppliers or is this still relationship built within separate departments that have connections into different ones or are we looking to pool this into a single authority over who says that supplies are and are not?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

It is both. Let me just explain why I made that statement. We are definitely not trying to stop and reduce suppliers on Island. I more than understand that theme and that criticism. What is behind that statement is of the thousand systems, approximately Digital Services relies on 600 suppliers, which is huge, and you cannot professionally supply a relationship management that large a supply base. The goal is to have less and have more strategic relationships, more partnerships for it as opposed to we have any problems with particular suppliers, just to make my point clear. The majority of those suppliers are managed by Digital Services, as we manage the majority of the technology estate. There are a few examples, for good reasons, where departments manage their own technology relationships for it. We have not mandated, made a plan, made any statements across Government that those need to be reduced. I am leading, from a departmental perspective, the simplification of the 600. That will happen over time, and I do not envisage it being like one.gov and going from 600 to 400 in 12 months. I think it is likely to be a 5-year plan to optimise. Also, for practical reasons, we are in commercial contracts, you cannot change things fast overnight.

Mr. G. Kehoe :

Yes, that probably leads on to my next question which is: how are you going to monitor the performance and the risks to those ones that you are now going to focus more on rather than the 600 really?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Yes, we want to improve that. That is another reason for the simplification. Having more partnerships, so service level agreements, monthly status reports on attainment of those service level reports, contracts managed on outcomes, more than inputs.

Mr. G. Kehoe :

Perfect. Yes, so you have got some underperformance things that you would be able to remove suppliers from that process if it was required.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services: Indeed.

Mr. G. Kehoe :

Excellent. Yes. The only other one I have got is obviously you have talked about the way that these suppliers are going to be coming together. How do you share their performance with other departments and how is that all working as a relationship between everybody? It is just to try and understand that mechanism that is in place and those monitorings that go on. Maybe this is for yourself, Ruth.

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services: I think it is probably a Caroline. Sorry.

Group Director, Commercial Services: That is okay.

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services: I think it is a Commercial Services

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I will just try and talk, yes. Jason is going to talk for me, and I will just butt in if I think it is different.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

The majority of those contracts, those relationships of 600, are managed by Digital Services, so we do not have a plan to report back to departments performance unless there is a significant exception. Frankly, if a service provider is failing and normal management escalation procedures do not course correct then it is the natural part of the way we work to bring in the department. Typically for each of the systems is a business system owner so you would have an individual manager to go to and it would be very clear but no plans, no intent to publish a great big scorecard and share it across Government. Also, I do not believe that is right from a business ethics perspective because things go wrong, mistakes happen, individuals sometimes let companies down. Recently I had an example of a situation which was quite disappointing. I raised it to the Chief Operating Officer of the company who absolutely was not aware. He was quite shocked when I told him about the issues and the incidents and we had a really good conversation, and next time we use that type of service I do not think we will have those issues with that company.

Mr. G. Kehoe : Okay. Thank you.

Deputy K.M. Wilson : Okay. Thank you. Philip.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Okay. Thank you, Glen. If we are going to embark on a project, before we move ahead with it, you are going to have some assumptions about the particular project: is it technically feasible, is it within a timescale we can deliver it on, and can it be delivered within the assumed cost? How do you go about assuring that all those assumptions are valid before you award a contract?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Wow, that is a great question. Do you want to start and I will pick up after outline business case process?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

I was going to say I think there is a process in place which the C.P.M.O. sorry.

Mr. P. Taylor :

It is all right, I suffer from the same problem.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Yes, so the C.P.M.O. manage and have a framework in terms of where these major projects are managed and there are gateways through those projects. We do have a process of monitoring at various stage gates.

Mr. P. Taylor :

No, I am talking about before you award it, not while you are doing it.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

No, this is while we are doing it. That is while it is going on. In terms of the stage gates before it is awarded then in terms of a procurement process or a tender process you build in in your process certain gateways for passing or failing or not scoring well.

[14:15]

That is in your requirement in terms of the information that you want back from them, evidence that they have provided that they can do this, reference sites. Is that the sort of thing you are looking for?

Mr. P. Taylor :

Do you get independent assurance of any of it from third parties?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Occasionally, yes. Occasionally, we will go to a third party or I will get someone who is an expert or has got previous experience in a particular area of spend to test whether that is valid or within a tolerance and there are other organisations we can use, like Gartner we use to run the I.T.S. There are other organisations we use to guide us in terms of what does the industry expect and does this look in step with that or are we an outliner? Notwithstanding that Jersey has its own environment which we always have to take into account as well.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Okay, so we have now got a project which we are comfortable that it can be delivered technically, on time and within a reasonable budget.

Group Director, Commercial Services: Budget, yes.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Then we start off. During the process of implementing that project, how do you make sure that the deliverables are going to be delivered, and the cost is going to be what we originally thought it was going to be during the process because it is no good having projects that do not deliver the benefits you assume you are going to get?

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Well, if I take one particular project I have in mind, there were a number of people involved in the management of that whole procurement. You obviously had the plan in terms of when things should happen, so we have selected our provider. We have got some key performance indicators that we are expecting them to work towards. We have got some key deliverables. We have got some quality measures and all of those are measured in sort of a balance scorecard, so we are measuring all of those across the piece. Overarching that there is typically a project board, and overarching that there is probably an S.R.O. who is responsible for the overall delivery of that project, expecting regular reports on progress, deliverables, are they meeting their targets to the standard? Have we got the right people doing the right things? Then there is the stage gate reporting so if it is a project that sits under C.P.M.O. then they are required to report formally to the C.P.M.O. on the status of the project. If there are any red flags starting to be flagged then interventions can be put into place to either bring the project back on track, or recognise that there has been some unforeseen event which is understandable and can be recognised and it is not just poor performance on a number of people's parts or the programme being overwhelmed by business as usual work, and that reporting goes to the Chief Executive. We have got a process through the C.P.M.O. - I am talking on behalf of Lizzie who is not here today in terms of the C.P.M.O. - and from a procurement perspective then obviously we will have built into our terms and conditions and the requirements of the specification certain remedies if they are falling short, so it requires good contract management.

Mr. P. Taylor :

We are halfway through a project and it is becoming quite likely that this project is going to overrun unless there are radical changes made to it or it may not deliver what we thought it was going to deliver unless we make some radical change. Who says: "Stop. Put that right before we move forward to the next stage"?

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services: The S.R.O.

Group Director, Commercial Services: It is the S.R.O.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services: S.R.O.

Group Director, Commercial Services: Yes.

Mr. P. Taylor :

You cannot just carry on willy nilly.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

If it is a large programme, which it typically is with that type of challenge, then there is a board and the S.R.O. would typically be the Chair of the board and the board would make that formal decision. I would also draw you back to my answer at the beginning about the importance of project and programme management skills. All across the process, the structure, the frameworks that Caroline has just talked to, well-managed projects that deal with scope issues or timing issues is down to the skills of the project programme management and vice versa in the challenging situations.

Mr. P. Taylor :

In the business case, does that include all the lifecycle costs that will come through on licensing, maintenance, updates? All that is built into the original business case for the project.

Group Director, Commercial Services: Yes, it should be.

Head of Business Enablement and Customer Support, Digital Services: It should be.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

Yes, and in stages so the first stage is a high-level case. Then we have a formal process outline business case and then for the larger, more strategic programmes, we have a full business case. There is an optimism bias in the early stages that should be dealt with with contingency and good project management, good programme management will validate the assumptions all the way through the stage gating. Good project and programme management will take it back to the board and back to the S.R.O.: "We are late. We have got a risk. We have got a blocker. Help us make a decision and halt." Then as you know, there are 3 main levers you have to what do you do in that situation.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Okay.

Group Director, Commercial Services:

Occasionally, that has to be descoped. Occasionally, if we have got to a point in the programme and it is clear that we have had overruns, we have had other issues unforeseen, there has to be a decision taken up sometimes to descope the project.

Deputy K.M. Wilson : Okay, I am going to

Mr. P. Taylor :

Can I just ask one quick question?

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Very quickly because we are just 5 minutes over. Yes.

Mr. P. Taylor :

I just want to pick up on what you were saying with a well-run programme we know what is supposed to happen, it does not always happen so what has gone wrong in the past? Three things that have gone wrong in the past. Sorry, Chair, but

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

That is okay. No, it is important.

Mr. P. Taylor :

a seemingly reasonable question to ask.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

I will refer you to Lynn's report. I mean in general we have not had the best project and programme management. We have over relied on outside, external organisations, in my opinion. Secondly, all of the change at once has been too much. We have been overtrading, so resources have been spread too thinly and, thirdly, things go wrong in business change, process re-engineering, cultural change and the interventions have not happened that we have just talked about, so they are the exceptions. That would be my summary 3 points.

Mr. P. Taylor : Okay. Thank you.

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

But I was not here so we are reflecting and learning from the points.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Okay. That is fine. Sorry. Thank you.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, we have come to just 5 minutes over our allotted time. I am going to draw the hearing to a close but just with one final question and there are many questions that we had. We will write to you if you would be kind enough to respond to those for the purposes of completing the process of the scrutiny, but do you have a plan for phasing out any unsupported or legacy systems that pose security risks?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services: Yes.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

You do. Okay, and can you provide in your response some detail for us around that in terms of what that looks like?

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

At the high level, yes. Because across the thousand systems there is a lot of complexity and the strategy work which will lead on to enterprise architecture work which lead on to data strategy and supplier management. There are many, many, many stages and steps but I do not think it would be appropriate to publish a list of specific applications, specific projects for specific systems.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

No, it is just basically in terms of the plans that you have in terms of the way that you would go about removing some of those legacy systems and over what period. You do not have to answer it now, but you can give

Chief Information Officer, Digital Services:

We can answer it at high level. The I.T. strategy when it is published will describe the framework and the model

Deputy K.M. Wilson : How to do that.

and the approach, how we will manage that from a service management perspective. That is what we are articulating in a nice summary report.

Deputy K.M. Wilson :

Okay. Thank you, Jason. Well, thank you. Firstly, my apologies for the slight problem at the beginning trying to speak but thank you for coming today and to members of the panel for their questions. Thank you.

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