Agenda item

Members considered a report proposing to bring the provision of IT devices for Members ‘in-house’ in time for the start of the forthcoming municipal year.

The Democratic and Civic Officer introduced the item, and outlined how Members currently had their IT provided, and what had been done to try and provide a new solution:

·         Members could be reimbursed up to the value of £500, as agreed back in 2015;

·         They were free to purchase any device they liked; however, some rough guidelines had been provided for them to help them with their purchase;

·         The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules that had been brought in were at odds with the current process of allowing Members to purchase their own devices;

·         An invite to all Members to take part in a consultation was sent through the West Lindsey Members’ Bulletin in July 2018; following this there were two steering groups later that year;

·         There then followed a trial with 5 Members, who were asked to trial an iPad tablet to see whether they could access their West Lindsey email, committee papers, and whether they could do their everyday constituency work;

·         The feedback from the trial was largely positive, albeit with some teething issues highlighted;

·         The spend detailed at recommendation three was ‘up to £29,000’; this had been agreed in the capital programme, but the plan was to spend around half of this amount;

·         The trial Members had been selected on a cross-party basis, and a range of abilities had been chosen;

Following this introduction, three of the Members that had been part of the iPad trial provided insight into how they had coped with the device:

·         The device gave access to secure emails;

·         It was quick to use, and was light to carry.  The addition of the keyboard had been very useful;

·         Printing was available provided that Members had a wireless printer;

·         Documents could be filed and stored on the device;

·         The iPad’s battery did not run down quickly between charges;

·         The iPad performed all of the basic functions needed by Members;

·         Members would need to get used to a change in working as some of them would be used to working on a bigger screen;

·         It might not be possible universally, but some Members may need access to additional email accounts;

·         ‘Dual-hatted’ Members, i.e. Members who were County Councillors as well as West Lindsey District Councillors could potentially have to carry around two devices with them;

·         Members would need to be migrated to Microsoft Office 365 to enable access to Microsoft applications;

·         The built in keyboard would enable those Members who are not familiar with Apple devices to interrogate documents as they would have done previously;

Debate ensued following these comments, and the points raised in favour of iPads are highlighted firstly:

·         Democratic Services and the IT team at West Lindsey were not linked with their counterparts at Lincolnshire County Council.  Therefore, it was not possible at this time to provide one device with both email accounts and committee papers to those ‘dual-hatted’ Members affected;

·         There were numerous attacks on IT systems, from both in and outside the UK.  This was also happening on personal email accounts;

·         A secure platform for Members had been developed in conjunction with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Cabinet Office;

·         The iPads themselves were very robust, and could be supported remotely;

·         North Kesteven District Council adopted iPads in 2015, and the Leader of that Council spoke favourably of them;

·         Additional applications, such as Adobe Reader could be added to the device before being given to Members;

·         The email forwards that were currently in place for many Members were a security risk and officers would look to turn these off as soon as practicable;

·         The last few updates of iOS (Apple’s operating system) should address any concerns Members have had with previous iterations of the iPad;

·         Having two spare devices would enable the authority to get those Members who have found themselves without a device access to email in the short term whilst their original device was being fixed;

·         As many Members were being asked to use a device that they were not familiar with, ‘buddying up’, along with iPad masterclasses would be provided by Democratic Services and IT;

Finally, some Members spoke against an iPad as the chosen device, and gave the following reasons for this:

·         An iPad was more suitable as a leisure device rather than a work device;

·         Members at Lincolnshire County Council have a choice between two devices; Members at West Lindsey should be afforded the same courtesy;

·         iPads were too small to be an effective piece of kit;

·         the introduction of Member iPads seemed too complicated; there wasn’t a problem with the current setup;

·         Some members were happier using a laptop rather than a tablet.

Following the debate, the recommendations were moved and seconded, and following the vote, it was:

                        RESOLVED to:

(1)  Accept the rollout of West Lindsey District Council owned devices, and in doing so, the previous policies related to this matter were revoked;

(2)  Approve the refresh of Member devices on a four year cycle (to run concurrently with the electoral cycle);

(3)  Approve the spend of up to £29,000 for the provision of IT devices to Members; this spend to take place in the 2018/19 financial year.

Note: Councillor David Cotton requested that his vote against the recommendations was recorded.

Note: Councillor Matt Boles left the Chamber following the conclusion of this item and did not return.