Decision details

Cabinet were asked to approve the provision of additional budget to support the transition of the single housing management system to TDC in-house management, including on-going maintenance and support of the system. This involves migration to a cloud hosted system.

Cabinet agreed the following:

1.  To approve a 2020-21 only supplementary HRA revenue budget of £187,000 for the transition of the single housing management system to TDC in-house management, to be funded from HRA balances;

2.  To approve a recurring 2020-21 supplementary HRA revenue budget of £82,000 for the on-going maintenance and support of the housing management system, to be funded from HRA balances in 2020-21 and incorporated into the budget setting process for 2021-22 and beyond.

Approving the provision of funds will ensure that this significant element of transitioning the housing service to council operation can be progressed. It provides the most secure means of transferring the system and provides a basis for providing a stable service upon transition.

In addition, it offers better management of available project resources, the ability to share some costs and assists with the timing of the project as many early activities can be done collectively. By March 2021 each council would then effectively have its own housing management system in its own control and would have the ability to make future decisions on the long term plans for the system, and its ongoing development and associated costs without being tied into any requirements of the other councils.

The commitment to move the system to the cloud also offers the prospect of long-term savings, which include no servers to manage, timely upgrades and security patches, greater resilience and lower administrative and support costs. This will also avoid periodic capital expenditure on hardware upgrades. Moving to the cloud also supports the council’s introduction of the “My Account” service which is due to be introduced as the next stage of digital transformation and will provide for much improved customer and tenant access to services in the future.

The alternative options outlined in the report were rejected on the basis they were likely to take more time, cost more, be more complex and less effective.