Fourth Gwent council set to join shared IT service

This afternoon, members of the cabinet from Torfaen council will discuss the possibility of Newport City Council become a participant in the group.

The SRS is the ICT provider created by the merger of ICT teams from Gwent Police, Monmouthshire council and Torfaen council in 2011.

Earlier this year, Blaenau Gwent council formally joined the agreement to take part in the information services, which is based in Blaenavon.

In the report written by Matt Lewis, the chief operating officer of the SRS, the long-held plan of the scheme is to increase the number of service partners.

“The SRS ambition has always been to expand the provision of services to other public sector partners,” he said.

“Newport City Council has completed and agreed a business case through its own authorisation and committee processes, and has requested to become a partner in the SRS.

“This is another milestone in the SRS journey, and one to celebrate the expansion of the collaborative service model,” added Mr Lewis.

In February and March respectively, the cabinets of Torfaen and Monmouthshire council voted in favour of accepting Blaenau Gwent into the SRS,

The chief operating officer added: “Newport ICT provision currently consists of 32 members of staff providing desktop, infrastructure, service desk, education services, application support project management, supporting 5,000 corporate users and 18,500 users across 45 schools.

“If agreed that Newport will be offered an opportunity to join the SRS, the proposed date for the commencement of this agreement would therefore be April 2017.”

Following on from Torfaen’s decision on Monday, two of the other partners will be holding meetings this week regarding the latest participant.

Blaenau Gwent’s executive will be considering the possible acceptance of Newport council on Wednesday, and the cabinet from Monmouthshire council will be voting on the inclusion of Newport City Council on Friday.