2014-01-13 Deamalgamation Report Attachment

4.5 Information & Communication Technology Transfer Action Plan (TAP)
Information and communications technology (ICT) is vitally important to local government as it
enables councils to achieve their corporate outcomes, efficiently and effectively. It enables service
delivery, technical analysis, design, procurement, record keeping, project management, financial
management and communication.

A competent and appropriate level of ICT will support an organisations flexibility and productivity
which reduces the cost of service delivery, and enhances and provides greater levels of
communication and engagement with the community.

ICT good governance will ensure the investment in information and communication technology
generates business value and mitigates associated risks.

The ICT TAP Team were charged with researching, identifying and implementing low cost, efficient
and effective ICT infrastructure and systems to meet the needs of the new Noosa Council. This
involved:

    Commissioning a review of the ICT options available to take the organisation forward, such
     as mirroring the Sunshine Coast Council ICT systems, shared ICT service agreement with
     the Sunshine Coast Council or building our own infrastructure and business application.
    The Sunshine Coast Council best of breed ICT systems was deemed more complex than
     what would be needed by a much smaller council. Such a system requires a lot of
     customised integration between applications, increased staffing levels to operate and
     maintain.
    The above factors drove the decision by the Transfer Manager to adopt an Enterprise
     Resource Program (ERP) approach. An ERP system is provided by a single supplier and is
     fully integrated and therefore customisation is greatly reduced. However some minimal
     changes may be necessary to business processes in order to accommodate the system.
    A review of options for the provision of infrastructure to support the business application was
     undertaken. It was agreed by the Transfer Manager to move from a capital model to an
     operational model and buy the necessary service in a secure hosted environment (cloud)
     rather than build the infrastructure (servers etc.) on site which would again have a larger
     staffing requirement, and be costly to build initially in order to ensure future storage capacity.
    An Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) arrangement is entirely flexible in that storage
     requirements can be expanded or decreased as necessary, you need only pay for what you
     use, has international standards applied, provides high levels of security, and provides the
     most up to date equipment and solutions.
    A Panel was established to consider the issues and review tenders for the provision of ICT
     business applications and infrastructure. In undertaking its review, the panel sought
     technical and legal advice and commissioned an independent due diligence specialist.
     Subsequently TechnologyOne and Nexon Asia Pacific were appointed as the successful
     providers.
    Agreements were negotiated which identified service levels and performance targets and
     cause and no cause termination clauses.
    A rationalisation process of existing programs being used was undertaken which reduced the
     number of business applications in use at the Sunshine Coast from 36 down to 16 and were
     either hosted locally or with the new service providers.




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