Decision details

To consider and approve the required budget to fund the Service Management Platform convergence project as well as the required budget to procure the system for Environmental Health, Licensing and Trading Standards (including Farming, Food and Health).

The funding of an implementation budget of £577,784 for the 5768 Regulatory and Licensing Services System and Business Process Convergence Project is approved.

The current set up of multiple systems working across multiple localities does not provide the flexibility for the workforce that the new structure requires. Each locality operates in a different manner in terms of processes within different IT systems which makes cross-locality working currently very difficult.

The core aim of the Regulatory Services harmonisation is to integrate the Environmental Health and Trading Standards functions. Both services currently operate on the Civica platform which also provides increased functionality for Licensing. Licensing now also falls within the Regulatory Services service area. Convergence onto the Civica system is the most suitable and cost-effective option when considering the cost of a change to an alternative system, timescale, data migration and staff training requirements.

The ‘do nothing’ option would mean that the various regulatory services would continue to operate across different systems and utilise different processes to produce reports and case management depending on which legacy area the team was based in.

This option was discounted because the basis of the service restructure is that elements of the Environmental Health and Trading Standards Teams will be fully merged, and the Environmental Protection team needs to be able to operate in a uniform manner across the whole of the North Yorkshire geography. There is also the potential to explore integration between these teams and Licensing. The services cannot operate following the Target Operating Model with the existing multi system set up which also causes inefficiencies within the services in terms of responding to FOI queries and reporting and similarly in terms of causing additional support requirements for Technology.

An alternative option - IDOX Uniform was discounted primarily because it would not effectively facilitate the integration of the Environmental Health and Trading Standards functions which is a key outcome requirement of the Regulatory Services restructure.

Technically it would be possible to put Environmental Health, Licensing and Trading Standards onto the IDOX platform but the loss in functionality from the existing Civica system would render the restructure ineffective as the cross-service working would be hugely inefficient.

Trading Standards currently operates on the Civica system and had previously discounted IDOX as a viable option based upon user feedback from other local authority Trading Standards teams. As part of the current project two Trading Standards teams currently using IDOX were contacted to obtain direct user feedback and they both offered the view that the current IDOX option would set the service back in terms of operational service delivery.

It is worth noting that the IDOX system is an excellent system for the Planning Service and that cross working between the Planning and Regulatory services will still be possible if Civica if chosen as the Regulatory Services option. This was demonstrated in the former Hambleton Locality where a similar structure operated and it was proved that efficiencies in internal response times could be made.