Decision details

It is recommended that the Cabinet Member:  

1.      Approves that Appendices 1 and 2 in this report are exempt from disclosure on the grounds that they contain information relating to the financial or business affairs of a particular person (including the authority holding that information) under Paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. 

2.    Approves the purchase of the required Office 365 licenses, from 1^st July 2022 to 31^st May 2024, under the existing contract with Microsoft Limited via its license partner Trustmarque, using the Kent Commercial Services, “Software Products and Associates Services 2” framework.  

1.         The council has changed its working practices and additional O365 security is required to safely support remote working, pro-actively protect against cyber-attacks and reduce the potential risk of a security breach.

2.         The council has changed its working practices and additional telecoms services are needed to improve the quality of calls being taken remotely.

3.         The telecoms decision is needed for a better resident facing service experience whilst enabling flexible working from any office space including eventually at the Civic Campus.

4.         Moving to Teams phone system will avoid a lengthy and resource consuming telecoms migration as part of an enabling upgrade project which is already in flight. Not moving to Teams would mean extensive migration work will be required to maintain current services with mobiles and software phones for contact centre staff.     

As described in the report.