Archived decisions

Agenda Item 11

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Report

1. Purpose of the Report

1.1. At the last Policy and Resources Select Committee, Members asked about the position regarding IT disaster recovery, and requested that an update report be brought back on the subject.

2. Progress over the last 12 months

2.1. A little over a year ago, Members asked about IT disaster recovery (DR) capability and the extent to which departments were aware of the need to reflect the limits of IT DR in their own service continuity plans, in the event of a major disruption to IT provision.

2.2. A Cabinet briefing was also given on the plans to improve IT disaster recovery capacity. This included:

· The provision of a new Data Centre in the new Elizabeth II Court refurbishment;

· Funding made available through the corporate insurance resources to put in place a secondary disaster recovery contract for critical applications in the event of a disaster to ensure speedy resumption of core services;

· Specific work to be undertaken with each service departmental management team, to ensure an understanding of the IT capabilities and that these be reflected in business continuity plans of departments.

2.3 Since that time progress has been as follows:

· The new Computer Suite is in place and the service are now over half way through the migration of services from the old Data Centre;

· Following a detailed tendering and negotiated procurement, a secondary disaster recovery contract has been let to Adams Continuity;

· A cross-departmental group has identified and agreed 31 critical applications to be recovered as a priority in the event of a disaster, enabling a skeleton, but effective service to be established quickly;

· Full rehearsal recovery of all critical applications and data has taken place successfully, resulting in more precise validation of capacity and timescales to recover, should a disaster occur;

· Detailed discussions have been undertaken by the Emergency Planning Officer and Head of IT with all Departmental Management Teams on their own business continuity arrangements following the Cabinet discussion, and these are now being repeated with the further information on the Adams Continuity service provision and recovery rehearsals.

3. Looking Ahead

3.1. Each departmental service owner is once again assessing their reliance on IT and their own business recovery plans to consider whether further investment is required. If they believe further investment in IT is required, they will need to make a business case working with IT, taking account of the impact of services on the public and any alternative non-IT arrangements to ensure business continuity.

3.2. In parallel, IT is looking at ways of further enhancing and extending current IT disaster recovery capacity, including:

· Alternative technologies such as replacing all magnetic tape recovery with disk archiving (faster, but more costly);

· Looking at secondary data centre facilities;

· Working with other public service organisations such as Dorset County Council to jointly share disaster recovery capacity and/or establish effective IT business continuity between data centres.

3.3. Each of these options will have costs associated with them, and any investment will need to be justified by the business case for continuity of frontline services.

4. Business Continuity

4.1 Having clear and effective IT disaster recovery policies, procedures and facilities is only part of business continuity planning in a modern organisation. Whilst IT disaster recovery is important, many other factors are important such as: property, availability of scarce skills, communications, etc.

4.2 Therefore, service managers across the County Council have been tasked with ensuring effective business continuity plans for their service exist, considering the level of insurance provided through IT disaster recovery facilities.

4.3 These business continuity arrangements are reviewed by the Corporate Risk Board, and across departmental Risk Steering Groups.

5. Conclusions

5.1 Members are asked to note the progress in linking IT disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

5.2 Additional investment will be required if enhanced IT Disaster Recovery and IT Business Continuity facilities are needed by the organisation.

CORPORATE OR LEGAL INFORMATION:

Links to the Corporate Strategy