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PoW003.2 Digital NL - Programme Review

North Lanarkshire Council · 1 December 2022
Back to Policy and Strategy Committee — 1 December 2022 and its agenda

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North Lanarkshire Council
Report
Policy and Strategy Committee 
Does this report require to be approved? ☐ Yes   ☒ No
Ref DM/KH/EK Date 01/12/22 
PoW: 003.2 DigitalNL – Next Steps 
From  Chief Executive 
E-mail murrayd@northlan.gov.uk Telephone 01698 302350 
Executive Summary
DigitalNL, is a core part of the Council and Strategic Partnership’s vision for North Lanarkshire. 
This large-scale transformation programme was designed to improve digital connectivity and
skills across North Lanarkshire and transform the way in which council services are delivered. 
As part of the development of the Full Business Case (FBC) in 2019, the Council undertook
extensive research and design work to understand the current digital state and opportunities to
improve and transform services, to change the way the Council interacts with citizens, and to
create efficiencies. It engaged Agilisys Ltd as its System Integrator partner in October 2019 to
build and deploy the outcomes from the service redesign sprints within the new digital solutions
and technical components. 
It should be recognised though that the breadth of DigitalNL is much wider than just becoming
a digital council.  It also covers developing skills in the community and providing digital
infrastructure. The Council recognised that investing in digital technology would help to deliver
on The Plan for North Lanarkshire with the delivery of improved digital infrastructure and
networks. It therefore approved, in 2019, the progression of two complementary and
interdependent programmes; (a) Digital Economy and Place (SmartNL), and (b) Digital Council
Transformation (DigitalNL). Once SmartNL delivers upon its improved connectivity outcomes,
the council will have increased opportunities to deliver on its planned projects to help support
and attract businesses, build digital skills, and minimise the risk of digital exclusion. 
In January 2021, Audit Scotland published its report “Digital Progress in Local Authorities” with
North Lanarkshire participating as one of six selected fieldwork sites for the national
performance audit on digital progress in Local Government.  Audit Scotland acknowledged that
North Lanarkshire Council had a digital vision that went beyond technology and focussed on
people and outcomes, upskilling staff, residents and stimulating economic growth. The report
also went on to advise that “the council is seeking new products and systems to align with The
Plan for North Lanarkshire to maximise the reuse of solutions and integrate them with the
council’s digital platform”. 
Delivering digital savings during the pandemic has been extremely challenging as services
rightly reprovisioned their staff to provide and maintain as many frontline services as possible.
Several reports to the former Transformation and Digitisation and Policy and Strategy
Committees describe how responding to the pandemic and recovering service delivery to a
‘new normal’ have adversely, but appropriately, impacted the Council’s ability to progress
Digital NL redesign activity and deployment of the Digital Platform to ultimately deliver the
indicative savings and corresponding 668 FTE reduction outlined within the approved FBC.

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1. Background 
1.1 Through the Future Organisational Ambitions report (December 2017), the former Policy
and Resources Committee noted a range of specialist resources would be required over
a five-year period to develop and deliver the significant and ambitious DigitalNL
transformation programme.  Approval was granted to recruit resources when demand for
roles could be evidenced, with such being funded on a one-off basis from the established
Digitisation reserve.  
The necessary reprofiling of the service sprints as a direct result of Covid-19 also led to a
consequential delay in the anticipated implementation of the full Customer Service Hub model.
This, allied with changes to council operations throughout the pandemic, has led to some
residents experiencing difficulties contacting the council by telephone particularly where an
alternative digital option is either not available or not yet fully developed.
Having considered a report summarising the findings of a root and branch review of PoW003.2
at its September 2022 meeting, the Policy and Strategy Committee requested that further
details of the DigitalNL Programme and associated financial benefits be provided at the next
committee cycle. This report, therefore, reviews programme deliverables achieved to date
against those outlined within the FBC approved by members in March 2019. It describes what
has gone well alongside the challenges encountered in generating the indicative level of
financial benefits which our Digital Business Partner had identified – based on their experience
of similar transformations – could be realised from deploying and reusing a modern digital
platform. 
Recommendations
It is recommended that the Policy and Strategy Committee: - 
1) Recognise the financial benefits and associated FTE reductions available from this
transformation programme are very different post-pandemic to those identified – based
on pre-pandemic historical experience – by our Digital Business Partner. 
2) Recognise that the Year 4 Roadmap and future digital developments build upon lessons
learned and knowledge and experience gained from progressing the transformation
strands of DigitalNL and SmartNL.
3) Acknowledge the successful delivery of the Digital Workplace and Cloud Migration
components of the Digital NL Transformation Programme. 
4) Recognise that commitment to the continued development of the Digital Council and
associated governance alongside enhancements and reuse of the Digital Platform
create scope to deliver digital processes, automation, and financial and non-financial
benefits.
5) Acknowledge that the Connectivity Framework, and partnership with Commsworld,
provide the underlying infrastructure to transform and innovate council services,
ultimately placing local people, Elected Members, and communities at the heart of the
council’s revised operating model.
6) Recognise that the actions outlined within paragraph 2.52 below enable the Council to
drive forward its ambition to become a leading Digital authority. 
7) Otherwise note the report. 
The Plan for North Lanarkshire
Priority  All priorities
Ambition statement All ambition statements

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1.2 The DigitalNL Transformation Programme Business Case (FBC) approved by the Policy
and Strategy Committee in March 2019 highlighted that transformation had to go beyond
Council walls and operations, with a whole place approach required to turn the Council’s
Digital Vision and The Plan for North Lanarkshire into reality. Recognising the complexity
of change required to operational and customer-facing infrastructure, IT services and
culture, this FBC proposed 2 complementary and interdependent programmes; (a) Digital
Economy and Place (SmartNL), and (b) Digital Council Transformation (DigitalNL), be
progressed to enable the Council to use technological advancement such as ultra-fast
broadband, artificial intelligence and next generation smart devices to redesign services
around the needs of our communities and businesses. Whilst non-financial benefits were
identified as the key drivers of these complementary programmes, our Digital Business
Partner’s experience of similar transformations indicated the proposed digital solution
deployments could also be financially beneficial to the council.
1.3 In approving the FBC and indicative budget of £28.8m in March 2019, the Policy and
Strategy Committee acknowledged costs and work packages were illustrative and subject
to finalisation with financial benefits realisable to be confirmed on an iterative basis as
functions progressed through the redesign process. The Full Business Case also
indicated Voluntary Redundancy Severance (VRS) would form an element of
transformation, with these additional costs estimated to be in the region of £20m. 
1.4 A Systems Integrator Partner was identified as essential to the build and deployment
aspects of the technological transformation, with Agilisys Ltd engaged in October 2019
following consideration and approval by the former Transformation and Digitisation
Committee. This engagement provided clarity and a deeper understanding of costs
associated with deploying the key technology components (Azure, Dynamics and M365)
of the Digital Council Transformation Programme, with findings from this
Discovery/Mobilisation phase and an indicative deployment roadmap reported to the
former Transformation and Digitisation Committee in February 2020.
1.5 The planned roadmap changed significantly due to Covid-19, with proposals scaled back
considerably to allow resources and priorities to flex to maintain critical services and to
ensure, throughout 2020, that the recovery of services was recognised in line with the
“Scottish Government’s Covid19 Route-map out of crisis”. 
1.6 The Transformation and Digitisation Committee, at their meeting of 2 September 2020
received a report “Covid-19 – Response and Recovery – Business Solutions” and
recognised the significant effort and level of activity deployed by Business and Digital in
response to the pandemic and its recovery. This included enabling the infrastructure,
hardware, software, and solutions to ensure the delivery, not just of the most critical
services required to respond to the pandemic but also business as usual activities. 
1.7 Members considered and approved several revisions to the original business case
assumptions to reflect the essential reprioritisation of resources, approving the updated
investment profile detailed within the October 2020 report to Policy and Strategy
Committee “PoW 003.1 DigitalNL - Transformation Programme: Updated Investment
Profile”. This committee also received a report detailing the Council’s response to Covid,
and the actions taken by the Council to maintain as many frontline services as possible. 
1.8 A further and more serious wave of the Covid-19 pandemic came into effect following
committee consideration of these two reports in October 2020.  This required the council
to continue to refocus its resources, removing services’ capacity and ability to engage in
the redesign aspects of the revised digitisation programme and consequently creating a
need for further reprofiling of service “sprints” and associated benefits.   
1.9 As a Category 1 Responder, the Council is obligated to maintain normal service delivery
whilst providing support and responses required from emergency situations such as the

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Covid-19 pandemic. Aspirational programmes such as Digital NL and Smart NL slowed
considerably during 2020-21 and 2021-22 to enable Council functions to provide as many
frontline services as possible, with members aware for example that North Lanarkshire
was one of very few councils to keep a full kerbside waste collection. Furthermore,
employees from all Council services – including Business and Digital - were reprovisioned
to alternative back-offices services and key worker hubs for prolonged periods of time to
ensure firstly, that essential supports were available to the most vulnerable in our
communities, and secondly that parents working in essential frontline services – both
Council and NHS – could get to work to deliver their vital services.  Essential supports
also included the development of a new system which provided a secure platform to end
to end support for those identified as shielding or requiring additional support. 
1.10 As Members are aware, through the good governance principles contained within the
Council’s Corporate Programme and Project Management Framework, the DigitalNL
programme is subject to annual review.  The outcome of each annual review has been
reported to the former Transformation and Digitisation Committee as such had
responsibility for the governance of the DigitalNL Programme.  
1.11 As the council’s Recovery Planning continued during 2020/21 and into 2022/23, further
reviews of the DigitalNL Roadmap were carried out.  These root and branch reviews
focussed on: -  
• The planning of future years for capital and revenue expenditure
• The future years’ road map for service redesign and technology build
• Envisaged financial and non-financial benefits and targeted savings
• Progress in achieving targeted savings
• Overview of the updated DigitalNL investment model 
1.12 In June 2021 the “PoW: 003.2 DigitalNL – Financial Overview and Resourcing Report”
was presented at Policy and Strategy Committee.  This report set out the cumulative
impact of the delays highlighted previously to Members, with such outlining the financial
implications and savings impacts for the DigitalNL Programme
1.13 The Year 4 Roadmap was developed following the annual review 2022-23 with the most
recent “PoW: 003.2 DigitalNL – Year 4 Roadmap” being reported to Policy and Strategy
Committee on 29 September 2022.
1.14 The DigitalNL programme focused on modernising the organisation making it a Digital
First organisation.  However, two further aspects of this had to be considered.  Firstly,
how the organisation would consume this digital service in an agile and mobile manner
and secondly recognising that service users must be enabled to consume those services
digitally.  As initially proposed, these aspects are being progressed through the
complementary Digital Economy and Place (SmartNL) programme, which was developed
via the procurement of a Connectivity Framework (PoW: 088).
1.15 Successfully concluding a significant period of market engagement, discovery, and
awareness the connectivity contract was awarded to Commsworld on 23 February 2022,
for an initial period of 180 months (15 years) with the Council reserving the right to extend
such for additional periods up to a maximum of a further 60 months (5 years).
1.16 The value of the Framework Agreement is £150m exclusive of VAT and has five initial
Call off Contracts with an aggregated value of circa. £26m.
1. Wide Area Network (WAN) Connectivity 
2. Analogue Services replacement 
3. CCTV Leased Services Connectivity 
4. Internet Access 
5. Public Wi-Fi.

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1.17  Delivery of these contracts is well underway, with 9 sites migrated to the new WAN service
and over 105km of fibre already installed, working to a target of 340km and some 300
active WAN sites by June 2023.   The contract will see Council offices, schools and sites
provisioned with a minimum service of 1Gb (currently 50mb), with some key sites and all
high schools receiving dual 5Gb (currently 100mb or 1gb) services providing improved
resiliency.
1.18 Beyond the direct requirements of the Council the procurement had ambitions to
positively influence the fibre broadband market, bringing fibre connectivity to the residents
and businesses located in North Lanarkshire quicker than if left to normal market forces. 
In addition, the Tender was also weighted to delivering community benefits and added
value. 
2. Report 
Digital Council Transformation Programme 
Financial Implications - Investment
2.1 The Council’s Best Value Assurance Report (BVAR), published in May 2019, outlined that
Council investment in digital technology was a core part of its vision.  The report
highlighted that part of the council’s ambition was to become a ‘digital council’ simplifying
and joining up services across the council. 
2.2 The BVAR report advised that the full business case (FBC) for this part of the strategy
was approved by the Policy and Strategy Committee in March 2019. As part of the
development of the full business case, the council undertook research and design work
to understand the current digital state at that time which highlighted an opportunity to
improve and transform services, to change the way the council interacts with citizens, and
to create efficiencies.
2.3 The FBC which was approved at Committee advised elected members that all costs
would be funded from HRA, IJB and General Fund sources. It further outlined an
investment requirement of £28.8m one-off costs comprising capital spend of £16.8M and
one-off revenue costs of £12m over the five-year period starting 2019-20.
2.4 Per paragraph 1.4 above, the DigitalNL aspect of the Transformation Programme sought
to focus on three distinct areas
➢ Digital Workplace (M365) – to improve collaboration
➢ Cloud Storage Solution (Azure) – to create agility and efficiencies
➢ Digital Platform (Dynamics Customer Relationship Management System, new
website, Business Intelligence Hub, and Robotic Process Automation) – to transform
the way the Council interacts with its citizens. 
2.5 In addition to this one-off investment, the business case recognised there would be
recurring annual funding required for the digital vision, these costs were estimated at that
time as £1.8m in year 1 rising to £2.2m by Year 5. This equates to a further £10.5m costs
over the five-year period.
2.6 Appendix One details the actual investment made since 2019-20 and the projected spend
up to March 2024 showing a total investment requirement of £23.913m, comprising
£9.500m one off revenue funding and £14.413m of capital investment. The recurring costs
to date have been lower than originally anticipated, however, these are expected to grow
as cloud consumption across the council increases. 
2.7 Paragraphs 2.8 to 2.25, and Appendix Two below, briefly describe the status and spends
against each of the critical components of the DigitalNL programme, with additional

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commentary included in respect of the related service redesign (building blocks),
governance and additional fixed term staffing costs in respect of the programme. 
Paragraphs 2.26 to 2.34 provide an update on financial benefits realisable from the
programme to date. 
Service and Solution Design (Business Partnership)
2.8 Upon appointment of the council’s Business Partner, PwC (June 2018), in-depth Service
Design, Solution Design and Cloud Readiness assessments were undertaken as part of
the detailed design phase.  At that time, it was clear that the extent of IT systems and
architecture in need of modernisation was significant and complex, with sums of £2.807m
invested between April 2019 and March 2020 to create the building blocks and
foundations for the DigitalNL Programme.  This resulted in the development of the sprint
process, activity analysis for council services, the framework for Purchase 2 Pay,
procurement of the System Integrator and the council’s Data and Information Roadmap. 
In addition, this initial work provided the Outline Business Case (OBC) for the Digital
Economy and Place (SmartNL) Programme, approved by the former Transformation and
Digitisation Committee (September 2019), to ultimately lead – per paragraph 1.15 above
– to the appointment of our Connectivity Partner CommsWorld earlier this year. 
Governance and Staffing 
2.9  As outlined in 1.1 above, additional resources were required as the Digital Programme
gathered momentum and we recruited as roles became necessary.  During years one to
four, additional staffing costs of £2.714m were incurred to create the skills-base and in-
house capacity required within the areas of business change, programme management,
infrastructure operations and IT security.
2.10 The governance for the programme was developed in line with the Council’s Programme
and Project Management Framework at a cost of £2.260m.   
Digital Workplace – M365 
2.11 The FBC highlighted that investment in modern digital workplace toolkits would enable
staff to ‘work from anywhere, with anyone and at any time’, with all supported through
relevant training to use the right tools for their jobs. The focus here was on efficient
processes, collaborative working practices and improved skills and training, rather than
generation of financial savings. The onset of Covid-19 in early 2020 resulted in the
majority of programme resources being deployed to accelerate the roll out of O365, our
new Digital Workplace technology component. In delivering this element of the
programme in eight rather than the planned eighteen months, the recurring revenue costs
associated with the required licences were also accelerated, giving rise to costs to date
totalling £1.772m. 
2.12 This programme component also accelerated efficiencies within device management,
with Business and Digital now successfully using a modern cloud-based management
platform to secure, upgrade and maintain End User Devices. This facilitates enhanced
and advanced compliance and improved identity, access, and application
management.  Whilst this operational efficiency largely goes unnoticed by users and
services, all are benefiting from the agile flexibility delivered through the Digital Workplace
component of the programme. 
2.13 A further related consequence of the programme has been the large-scale device refresh,
which has seen circa. 2,500 devices modernised over the last three years, and a
programme in place to continue managing that process.  End User Devices now come as
standard with increased RAM and processor capability which facilitates the use of the
modern digital tooling envisaged within the FBC (MS Teams, SharePoint, etc) as well as
the agile requirement of users operating multiple applications simultaneously.  In

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considering this alongside built-in and enhanced hardware security and threat/information
protection, the success of the Digital Workplace component of the Programme can be
clearly evidenced through the workforce having a higher performing, agile and more
secure experience. 
Cloud Storage Solution – Azure 
2.14 A Cloud Migration Strategy was developed in conjunction with our Digital Business
Partner. This included the development of a line-of-business application catalogue that
contained more than two hundred and sixty (260) items detailing the range of software
systems used across the Council. This catalogue was used, along with a set of criteria,
to record the current status and suitability of applications for migration to Azure.   This
ensured that the following items could be excluded: 
• Those applications due to be retired
• Any to be replaced by new Microsoft technology
• Infrastructure tools
• Desktop applications
• Those not suitable or capable of operating in Azure
• Those already hosted by a third-party supplier.  
2.15 As a result, twenty-five (25) applications were prioritised into two phases which ran during
November 2020 until September 2021. Whilst the FBC referenced cloud migration would
significantly reduce the level of technology hosted and maintained within the Council’s
data centre, creating scope to consequently reduce the need for future capital funding to
replace discontinued hardware, it did not reference any specific financial benefits from
the cloud migration component of the programme. Investment to date totals £1.740m. 
Digital Platform 
2.16 It was highlighted in the FBC in March 2019 that non-financial benefits, including process
efficiency, upskilling of the workforce, and development of data as a strategic asset were
the key drivers for the DigitalNL programme.  However, during financial year 2019-20,
with the Council moving towards a challenging 3-year budget, the emphasis on financial
benefits for the programme became the most prominent driver.
2.17 In line with the FBC, maximising service redesign and use of Digital Platform tooling and
functionality presented the greatest scope for council services to generate financial
benefits. This required investment of both time and money, and of the investment values
outlined within paragraph 2.3 above, circa £10.5m was anticipated over the programme
duration to build the digital platform and its associated components of Dynamics
Enterprise Solution, Business Intelligence Hub, and Internet of Things (IoT) / Artificial
Intelligence (AI) tooling and functionality.
2.18 The implementation of the Digital Platform resulted in a new Customer Relationship
Management system being developed on Microsoft Dynamics. This plays a pivotal role in
changing how council services are delivered, and crucially provides a valuable and
reusable asset to support the council’s longer-term transformation ambitions. The first
deployment of the Digital Platform was the Customer Services Hub in November 2020
which ran in tandem with the introduction of the Council’s new website. Investment to date
totals £8.986m.   
2.19 The Digital Platform has enabled the Council to act as a broker, linking residents to digital
services.  By reducing demand and providing proactive personalised services to
customers the platform has introduced a modern self-serve option to enable customers
to select the following Waste services.  In addition to these there are several future online
services in the pipeline -

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• Change request to bin collection due to health reasons
• Request a special uplift of household waste
• Report an issue relating to household waste
• Book a van or trailer of household waste into a recycling centre
• Request a new or different bin
2.20 Employees within the Customer Services Hub (CSH) have benefited from new digital
capabilities along with customer care skills and detailed service knowledge to answer
enquiries.  Management information within the CSH displays live dashboards with the
capability to track enquiries in real time allowing capacity to look at higher impact areas
of work. 
2.21 Following thereafter with PoW072, the Council is developing a Business Intelligence (BI)
Hub that utilises statistical techniques to draw insight from data to provide improved
information, intelligence, and insights on service delivery. This has developed over
several phases to date, following a successful proof-of-concept phase (Phase One) within
Housing Solutions between May to September 2020. Phase 4 is currently progressing
with spend to date totalling £1.661m.
2.22 Finally on the Digital Platform, Automated Intelligence (AI) was introduced in December
2020, with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) deployed within Revenues and Benefits to
automate and execute repetitive business processes without human intervention. 
2.23 An investment to date of £1.973m has improved processing time for customers and
enabled employees to spend time in other areas. ‘Bots’ are live within the following areas
of Revenues & Benefits.  In addition to these there are several future RPA developments
in the pipeline:
• Unpaid Direct Debit (DD) process - downloads a report from the BACS user
portal and updates Unpaid Direct debit information to the Council Tax system
• Bank detail changes - downloads a report from the BACS user portal and
updates changes to customer Direct Debits details account changes and
cancellations
• Community Care Grant - orders the items awarded on Community Care
grant application on the PECOS system  
2.24 Whilst developments in this area have slowed recently due to capacity issues within both
services, this platform functionality will be enhanced over the coming months and years
as fibre in the ground provides a world class infrastructure to build upon throughout North
Lanarkshire.
2.25 It is acknowledged that responding to the pandemic and recovering service delivery to a
‘new normal’ has adversely affected the Council’s ability to implement Digital NL, and the
Digital Platform in particular, as originally planned. It has also been acknowledged through
several Internal Audit reports regarding Digital NL that the indicative financial benefits and
associated FTE reductions derived from PwC’s historical experience of similar digital
transformations, are now less likely to be realisable given we are operating in a very
different world post-pandemic. Efforts will therefore continue, in line with the appended
Roadmap, to maximise use of the Digital Platform which the Council has invested in to
achieve both financial and non-financial benefits. 
Financial Implications – Budgeted Savings
2.26 The Council’s Best Value report (May 2019) also referenced the estimated savings to be
delivered from the proposed five-year programme as £24.4m with the programme
forecast to break even in year 4.  The potential savings figures calculated as per the FBC
however were £28m, thereafter a 30% optimism bias was applied resulting in a reported

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value of £19.6m across the General Fund (£8.8m), IJB, inclusive of Children and Families,
(£7.8m) and HRA (£3m). 
2.27 The financial benefits realisable from this programme were subject to council functions
iteratively redesigning their services to maximise self-service to meet customer needs
and deliver the wider ambitions outlined within The Plan for North Lanarkshire.  Members
will remember that the FBC also indicated Voluntary Redundancy Severance (VRS)
would be required to deliver these recurring savings, with such also estimated to be in the
region of £20m.
2.28 When the Council set its three-year revenue budget in February 2020, £10.616m was
included in relation to achievable savings to be generated from Digital projects including
Digital NL, Digital Classrooms, and digital savings within the Employee Service
Centre.  Of this total, £10.114m specifically related to the DigitalNL programme across
the general fund and IJB, phased as detailed in Table 1. The HRA did not budget for the
original £3m projected savings, as it recognised savings would be shaped by the
developing Housing Strategy Transformation plan detailed in paragraphs 2.35 and 2.36
below.  
2.29  As a result of several restructures, budget savings and movement within services
following FBC approval, the baseline was recalculated in January 2021 to recognise
current service budgets identified by Financial Solutions. A further re-baseline and
verification exercise was undertaken in July 2021 to ensure that values identified by our
Digital Business Partner at the original Service Design and stakeholder engagement
workshops in respect of Housing services and functions were accurately recorded within
the General Fund and Housing Revenue Accounts. These reviews identified several
anomalies. Having progressed the resulting reclassifications through the potential savings
model developed by our Digital Business Partner, the indicative savings identified per
fund were amended to £8.6m General Fund, £7.2m IJB and £4.2m HRA respectively.
2.30 Budgeted savings levels were thereafter amended in February 2022 with the Council
recognising the adverse impact of well-publicised demands and pressures in respect of
absences, recruitment and retention on the Field Services Pilot and Home Support
service redesign activity. As a result of these challenges facing the delivery of Adult Social
Care services, it was deemed prudent to reverse £6m of the 2022-23 DigitalNL Savings,
as such were anticipated to be met from employee reductions within Adult Social Care. 
This reduced the savings target to £4.114m. 
2.31 Complexities in relation to finalising the projects required to generate these savings within
the prescribed years has resulted in the actual value of savings being considerably less
than that initially anticipated.  In order to help address the in-year shortfalls, additional
one-off funding of £2.035m and £1m was allocated to Digital NL in years 2021-22 and
2022-23 respectively.  Tables 1 and 2 below shows the level of net savings achieved.  
Year Approved Saving Revised Saving Actual Saving
(Net)
Remaining
Saving
2020/21 £1.110M £1.110M £0.459M 
2021/22 £2.806M £2.806M £0.365M 
2022/23 £6.198M £0.198M - 
Total £10.114M £4.114M £0.824M £3.290M
Table 1 – Savings Delivery
2.32 Delivering savings during the pandemic was extremely challenging given services –
including Business and Digital – had reprovisioned their staff to respond to the pandemic
and maintain as many frontline services as possible. Notwithstanding this, gross recurring
savings of £1.061m were delivered to 31st March 2022 as illustrated within Table 2 below.
Offsetting £0.237m of these digital deliverables to fund the new posts required within the

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Customer Services Hub (CSH) delivers the net saving value of £0.824m illustrated in
Tables 1 and 2. 
COMPLETE
Service Sprints Project Workstream Actual
Savings
Realisation
Date
Business Solutions Business Solutions £0.118m Apr-20
M8.2 Waste PH1 Waste Solutions £0.578m Dec-20
M8.3 POD (ESC) Employee Service
Centre £0.249m Nov-21
M4.2 RPA Phase 2 Revenues & Benefits £0.116m Mar-22
Gross savings achieved £1.061m 
Recurring Funding of new CSH posts -£0.237m 
Net savings achieved £0.824m 
Table 2 – Savings achieved to March 2022
2.33 Paragraphs 2.28 through to 2.32 illustrate that a budgeted balance of £3.290m remains
to be delivered on a recurring basis through redesigned activity in financial year 2022-23.
Services continue to liaise with Business and Digital Teams to progress the remaining
sprints with a view to delivering these savings, but in recognising the technical capacity
issues outlined in paragraphs 2.38 and 5.9 below, it is acknowledged the full £3.290m
may not be delivered solely through digital means.
2.34 Paragraphs 2.31 and 2.32 above illustrate that service redesign activity has generated
gross recurring savings to date of £1.061m (net £0.824m), and a net reduction of 26.5
FTE. Members will wish to note these reductions did not give rise to any VRS, therefore
protecting and ‘releasing’ the Council’s change management fund from the estimated
VRS of £20m referenced within the approved Digital NL FBC.
Current Status - HRA and IJB Transformation Activity 
2.35 Turning now to savings opportunities within HRA noted at 2.29 above, the savings
modelled by our Digital Business Partner amounted to £3m and were subsequently
reclassified as £4.2m. Whilst redesign activity throughout 2021-22 and 2022-23 largely
focussed on opportunities within housing repairs, a team of officers from Housing
Solutions, Business and Digital and Agilisys developed a draft Housing Strategy
Transformation plan to assist Housing Solutions in delivering identified key outcomes
such as: preventing and addressing homelessness; tackling climate change/fuel poverty
and improved housing delivery. A phased approach is progressing, with Dynamic
Scheduling in housing repairs going live in October 2022. 
2.36 With the first phase of the Housing Strategy Transformation completed, next phase
developments are focussing on allowing tenants to report a repair online and book an
appointment.  Other on-line transactions available to residents will be the ability to view
their balance and pay their rent on-line, apply for a council house and report anti-social
behaviour. Per paragraph 2.21 above, BI Hub work has continued following the
conclusion of the successful proof-of-concept within the service with several reports
complete or nearing completion and the service progressing well towards reporting
becoming more automated. Working in conjunction with Business and Digital officers, the
service is also focussing on completing reports linked to the council’s Strategic
Performance Framework in and on implementing of the operating model for the BI Hub.
2.37  Paragraph 2.30 above references the reversal of the budgeted saving of £6m which was
anticipated to be met from employee reductions within Adult Social Care. Members will
wish to note though that whilst this resulted in business process redesign and deployment
of the Dynamics platform for AH&SC suspended from a Business and Digital perspective,
the requirement for a scheduling system within AH&SC remains. Work to identify and

Page 11

procure an appropriate solution remains ongoing, with proposals expected to be
considered by the Council’s Enterprise Architecture Governance Group in due course. 
Development Roadmap
2.38 With the Agilisys contract concluded, responsibility for the development and build of the
Council’s modernised digital architecture fully resides with the small in-house
development team within Business and Digital.  The Corporate ICT Operational Risk,
referenced in paragraph 5.9 below presently carries a high residual risk of 16 in
recognition of lean ICT resource levels and capacity issues. With financial benefits
currently driving redesign activity, and ongoing concern over in-house capacity levels, the
findings of a full root and branch review of the Programme, and the corresponding
development Roadmap (Appendix 3), were reported to the Policy and Strategy Committee
in September 2022. The Business and Digital Delivery Board will monitor roadmap
progress to ensure timely delivery, and maximisation of opportunities and financial
benefits available from completing digital sprint activity. 
SmartNL - Connectivity Framework 
2.39  The Scottish Government’s R100 programme looks to provide fibre connectivity to all and
is a follow on from the previous Digital Scotland project. It has awarded 3 LOTs (South,
Central and North) across the country to enhance the fibre footprint quicker than if left to
a traditional market led approach.  An aspect of the programme is the use of Vouchers
that can be claimed by eligible property owners whose property will not be covered by the
R100 delivery. 
2.40 The business case for the procurement identified that at that time some 3,500 properties
across the Council area were eligible for the Scottish Broadband Vouchers Scheme
(SBVS), with some also eligible for the UK Government Rural Gigabit Voucher (RGV)
(4,274).  These schemes can provide funding of £5,000 and £1,500 and can be combined
to achieve a total fund of £6,500 at an eligible site. 
2.41 Market engagement identified that Openreach plans for full fibre coverage in North
Lanarkshire was as follows: 
By Dec 2026 Wishaw, Shotts, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth, Bellshill
By Dec 2025 Airdrie, Moodiesburn, Stepps
By Dec 2024 Motherwell 
With Coatbridge, Viewpark, Newarthill, Holytown, Salsburgh and many rural areas with
no planning currently available. 
Virginmedia have a strong presence in the west and centre of North Lanarkshire but
limited coverage in the east or in rural areas. 
The business case concluded that there was an opportunity to improve the rate of fibre
delivery and coverage within North Lanarkshire by offering a combined contract for all
aspects of Council connectivity with a long-term contract focusing initially on a fibre
implementation. 
2.42 The offering from Commsworld specifically included a full fibre backbone that traverses
all North Lanarkshire towns and many of its villages and can be found in Appendix Four.  
The initial build out of this ambitious plan has all Council sites migrated across to the
supplier by end of June 2023, with further fibre build out continuing over the remainder of
that year.

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2.43 A main aspect of the procurement was for Commsworld to actively work with local
communities to create aggregated Voucher value to support the implementation of fibre
into these less well supported areas. In addition, in more urban areas the aspiration was
to engage and measure local demand that would be attractive to 3rd party Internet Service
Providers (ISP’s) who would utilise the Commsworld backbone as a distribution service,
thus providing greater market choice and tackling affordability. The bid guaranteed that
Commsworld would provide access to their infrastructure to both Internet Service
Providers (ISP’s) and Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s) at a value significantly below
market baseline.
2.44 Community Board engagement and active promotion of the vouchers schemes is planned
to start in March 2023, allowing for immediate target of fibre delivery to Council sites,
providing that backbone service.
2.45 It should be noted that in March 2022, the SBVS was significantly changed, this has
resulted in a reduction of eligible properties within North Lanarkshire to 1,254,
Commsworld are committed to working with local communities to make best use of these
but will now have to rely more on the RGV scheme.
2.46 The implementation of a single Public Wi-Fi service provided by the Council is a further
key cornerstone of its Connectivity plans, taking the previously disparate solutions within
the former CultureNL and NL Leisure and across town centres, the new solution not only
consolidates those sites, but brings in additional areas, such as Country parks (in limited
areas), supported accommodation units and secondary schools.  This single solution will
provide much needed user interaction data that could be used to help design future
service delivery models, whilst also providing free connectivity to the internet and thus
ability to digitally interact with the Council in line with the wider aims of the programme.
2.47 The Connectivity framework was viewed as a delivery mechanism to uplift existing
Council services and provide improved connectivity for residents and local businesses;
however, it importantly also provides an enabling infrastructure for our workforce and
workplaces of the future, providing enhanced connectivity to community hubs to facilitate
service redesign.
2.48 There was a strong Community Benefits and Added Value aspect to the procurement,
these are set out in Appendix Five, however the main benefits to draw attention to are:
• Investment in fibre delivery by Commsworld and partners estimated at circa £73m
• 340km of direct fibre delivery passing some 101,000 properties
• Commitment to Fibre to the Home for >1000 properties
• Guaranteed significant percentage rate lower than prevailing market sell on to
Internet Service Provider (ISP) and Mobile Network Operator (MNO)
• Social Housing resident offering:  1gb fibre for £20p/m
• Wide Area Network revenue cost at an estimated £200,000p/a reduction
• 3 x 2-year Modern Apprenticeships (delivered September 2022)
2.49 Through the report to Policy and Strategy in September 2022, members are aware of the
Council’s longer-term ambition to address digital poverty for all housing tenants through
delivery of an affordable, reliable, superfast, and secure internet service. CommsWorld
developed several scenarios and financing packages at the Council’s request. Any
consideration of these scenarios would require significant amendments to approved and
future capital and revenue budgets, therefore considering such alongside the current rent
freeze and wider economic challenges facing the Council (higher inflationary pressures,
high interest rates/borrowing costs, and decreased opportunities to generate income to
fund investment), then despite the longer-term benefits for tenants and service delivery,
perhaps now is not the right time to seek approval for this investment. Notwithstanding
this, a further report detailing options available to provide broadband services to tenants

Page 13

residing in council-owned properties will be presented during the next committee cycle for
elected member consideration and determination.
2.50 Through previous reports to the former Transformation and Digitisation Committee,
elected members are aware of the Councils ambitions to use 5G connectivity to transform
community access to experiences and services. Early dialogue with BT during the first
phase of the pandemic confirmed Education as an appropriate function to develop a 5G
user test case, with an enabled immersive experience pod thereafter installed within the
ground floor multi-purpose rooms of the Muirfield Community Centre.  Focussing initially
on the ‘Learn’ strand of The Plan for North Lanarkshire, and prevailing Covid-19
restrictions, access was initially restricted to four local educational establishments.
2.51  In October 2022, immersive experience access expanded to the Cumbernauld Academy
and Our Lady’s High School Cumbernauld Clusters, with the Digital School Team also
currently liaising with Summerlee Heritage Museum and Cumbernauld Living Landscapes
to use the 5G technology to create local landmarks tours, and local firefighters and
paramedics for the schools-based ‘people who help us’ topic. There is also some early
dialogue to develop a care academy video series to support young people with routes into
work. With a view to expanding immersive experiences across the authority area, all
experiences undertaken within the Cumbernauld test pod to date will be evaluated to
inform a future procurement – subject of course to available capital funding.   
Next Steps 
2.52 Following a review of the lessons learned and taking account of the knowledge and
experience built over the past two years the transformation of Council services will
continue, as outlined in the report, to realise the ambition to be a Digital First organisation. 
Future actions will include: - 
(a) Services being supported, through the DigitalNL Programme, to deliver where possible
on the approved Year 4 Roadmap and outstanding savings target of £3.290m.  This will
involve all services ensuring that resources, skills, and knowledge are available as
detailed within the defined timelines of the Roadmap.  Thereafter, to develop future years
of the Council’s transformation, ensuring alignment with the developing council operating
model. 
(b) Maximising the use of the Digital Platform to achieve both financial and non-financial
benefits remain a key objective.  This will be further evidenced during December 2022
with further online forms and applications becoming available. 
(c)  Continue to manage inbound enquiries to services through a single telephone number
and single system, which will allow for comprehensive analysis of inbound demand and
the ability to direct resources to those services experiencing the highest demand at any
given time. The Customer Service Hub model will continue to be developed in parallel as
service sprints complete. 
(d) Revenue recurring costs, particularly with regards to licensing requirements, will continue
to be closely monitored to ensure they remain within budget. 
(e) Further deployment of enabling fibre, in line with the Commsworld Framework by June
2023, to facilitate the wider council transformation and innovation envisaged within the
DigitalNL and SmartNL business cases and Delivering for Communities report (December
2020), ultimately placing local people, Elected Members, and communities at the heart of
the council’s revised operating model.

Page 14

(f) Community engagement commencing through Community Boards regarding the voucher
scheme in early 2023, and the continued delivery of associated Community Benefits. 
(g) Continued development of the supplier relationships delivered by the programme,
Microsoft, Commsworld, etc, bringing awareness and opportunities for use of technology
to the organisation to facilitate and drive modernisation. 
(h) Continuation of the development of the Digital Organisation, supporting the Digital
Strategy and the digital governance introduced through Enterprise Architecture
Governance Group and Data Governance Board, building the capacity of the organisation
to both self-serve and innovate whilst maintaining appropriate level of governance. 
3. Measures of success 
3.1  The complementary programmes referenced within the Digital NL FBC continue to
provide huge opportunities to support The Plan for North Lanarkshire and its key themes
of Live, Learn, Work, Invest and Visit. Success will be evidenced through technology
being efficiently and effectively deployed, in an agile manner, to support the Council’s
visions relating to Digital Council, Digital Economy and Digital Communities. 
3.2 Measures of success are detailed within the Digital and IT Strategy, annual refresh,
considered by the former Transformation and Digitisation Committee in February 2022.
These include for example, increasing number of premises able to receive superfast
Broadband, increasing numbers of young people engaging with the digital consortium and
immersive experience pod, reducing digital skills gaps within residential and business
communities, and addressing employee digital skills gaps. A summary of non-financial
benefits generated to date in respect of the key themes of Digital Community, Digital
Economy and Digital Council, and their links to the Council’s 25 ambition statements,
existing Programme of Work and The Plan for NL is provided for elected member
consideration in Appendix Six.   
4. Supporting documentation 
4.1 Appendix One  – DigitalNL Capital and Revenue Investment Profile 
Appendix Two  – DigitalNL Investment Spend – 2019-20 to 2023-24
Appendix Three – Year 4 Sprint Roadmap 
Appendix Four  – CommsWorld Infrastructure and Connectivity Framework
Appendix Five  – CommsWorld Community Benefits & Added Value
Appendix Six   – Nonfinancial Benefits Summary 
Des Murray
Chief Executive

Page 15

5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 
5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty
Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public Sector
Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty?
Yes ☒ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
Creating a new website and Customer Service Hub, though central to the council’s
ambition to become a leading digital authority, has the potential – through promoting
self-service and digital first - to be disadvantageous and out of reach for older people,
low-income groups, and those with a disability. Ofcom’s Online Nation 2022 Report
states that 6% of UK adults do not have access to the internet at home, with this issue
increasing with age. This report further illustrates that one fifth of individuals aged 65+
either don’t have home access or choose not to use it due to a lack of necessary skills. 
In recognising the pandemic created potential to make the impacts of digital exclusion
worse for individuals in the most vulnerable situations, our most recent refresh of the
Digital and IT Strategy contains plans to improve the connectivity and accessibility of
North Lanarkshire as a place, and to also improve the ability of local people and
communities to gain the skills and confidence required to help them benefit from the
opportunities of being digitally connected. The Driving Digital Locally digital subgroup is
a key factor in enabling local communities to participate in designing and deploying
modern council services and ensuring that no one is left behind or digitally excluded. 
If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website?
https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer-
scotland-duty-impact-assessments 
Yes ☒ No ☐
5.2 Financial impact 
Does the report contain any financial impacts?
Yes ☒ No ☐
If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with
Financial Solutions?
Yes ☒ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
All financial implications are detailed within paragraphs 2.1 to 2.6 (investment) and
paragraphs 2.26 to 2.34 (budgeted savings). 
5.3 HR policy impact 
Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People and
Organisational Development?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
5.4 Legal impact
Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory
considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)?
Yes ☒ No ☐

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If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal and
Democratic Solutions?
Yes ☒ No ☐ 
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
In respect of PoW088, the Connectivity Framework, the Council procured legal advice
from a 3rd party specialist “Pinsent & Mason” to support the development of the ITT, the
challenging negotiation phase, and the award process. Advice was also sought to
mitigate procurement and subsidy control risks. 
The advice in respect of subsidy control examined whether the contract award
constituted a subsidy and if so whether that subsidy would be allowed. 
The advice concluded that the award of the contract and the requirement to deliver
specific services to the council (i.e. WAN, Wi-Fi, Internet, etc) was not considered a
subsidy.  It also determined that a resident specific Broadband package (not financially
backed by the council) was also not considered a subsidy, but a benefit that any supplier
may offer residents.  Lastly it concluded that a social housing Broadband package
supported and financed by the council would be considered subsidy and if pursued must
be treated as such, with the appropriate process followed. Such a subsidy was noted to
be an acceptable intervention within the market due to delivery of fibre broadband
services significantly quicker than if left to the traditional market forces. 
5.5 Data protection impact 
Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal data?  
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data
subject?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e-
mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk 
Yes ☐ No ☐
5.6 Technology / Digital impact
Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital
transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or
connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi?
Yes ☒ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact?
Business and Digital is responsible for the design, deployment and maintenance of all
ICT and digital assets required by the Council. It has approved revenue and capital
funding available to maintain supportable applications and transition Council services
towards increased self-service and community-focussed delivery. 
Two complementary programmes (a) Digital Economy and Place (SmartNL), and (b)
Digital Council Transformation (DigitalNL), are being progressed to enable the Council
to use technological advancement such as ultra-fast broadband, artificial intelligence,
and next generation smart devices to redesign services around the needs of our
communities and businesses. These programmes are leading to significant changes
regarding connectivity, IoT, software and hardware, with all being duly and appropriately
considered by the Council’s Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG) as part
of the overarching deployment process.

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Deployment of these programmes also enhanced the Council’s corporate governance
arrangements, with two new Governance bodies – the Enterprise Architecture
Governance Group (EAGG) and the Data Governance Board (DGB) – developed and
subsequently embedded within Council operations.   
Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been
carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG)? 
Yes ☒ No ☒
5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact
Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any
environmental or carbon matters?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
5.8 Communications impact
Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s
communications activities?
Yes ☒ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact?
Paragraph 2.44 indicates that active and targeted promotion of the voucher schemes
which align with our fibre delivery programme and improved connectivity is required
through Community Boards in March 2023. 
5.9 Risk impact
Is there a risk impact?
Yes ☒ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts,
highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g. Corporate or Service or
Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed?
The Council’s Corporate Risk Register 2022/23 was considered at the Corporate
Management Team in June and November 2022.  The following corporate risks require
oversight from Business and Digital and specifically the DigitalNL programme. 
Corporate Risks
(Operational) 
LikelihoodImpact  RatingEvaluation  Last Review
Date 
Next Review Date 
Information Security and
Information Governance 
5  4         20High  15/10/2022  15/01/2023 
ICT Operational capability  4  4         16High  04/09/2022 04/12/2022 
Corporate Risks (Strategic)  LikelihoodImpact  RatingEvaluation     
Digital and IT Strategy  3  3         12 Medium  01/08/2022  01/02/2023 
Risks are reviewed on a scheduled basis at a Service and Programme level through the
governance arrangements approved at the DigitalNL Delivery Board.  The Annual Risk
Review took place on 24 October with the outcomes due to be presented to the Delivery
Board in December 2022.
With regards Connectivity, commentary within the Legal section on subsidy control and
procurement, reflects a low risk to the delivery of the agreed services, and a low risk
against the proposals for resident broadband offerings (non-funded by the council). 
Should the council position change and the social housing inclusive broadband be
reconsidered, the subsidy control conditions would be reviewed, recorded, and posted
within the relevant UK government portal, clearly a risk-based approach would be
undertaken in conjunction with this.

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Appendix One 
DigitalNL Capital & Revenue Investment Profile                                                                                                       
Note:  These figures exclude the one-off funding of £3.035M allocated in years 2021/22 and 2022/23.

Page 19

Appendix Two 
DigitalNL Investment Spend – 2019-20 to 2023-24 
Year 1
(Actual)
Year 2
(Actual)
Year 3
(Actual)
Year 4
(Projected)
Year 5
(Projected)
Total
Projection  
£m £m £m £m £m £m
Activity 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24   
Service & Solution Design             1.974           0.833                 2.807 
Governance & Staffing 1.712 0.815 0.818 0.769 0.860           4.974 
Digital Workplace - M365 0.506 1.196 0.031 0.039            1.772 
Cloud Storage Solution - Azure 0.355 1.184 0.201              1.740 
Digital Platform 0.887 2.720 4.350 0.808   0.221          8.986 
BI Hub Development 0.122 0.327 0.588 0.624            1.661 
IoT and AI 0.459 0.586 0.723 0.205            1.973 
Total             6.015           7.661           6.711          2.445  1.081         23.913

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Appendix Three
Year 4 (2022-23) Sprint Development/Build Roadmap   
Sprint Process Priority
Development
Start Date
Development End Date
(inc UAT and
contigency)
Date to live
production
Proposed Year 4 Development
Housing Field Services (Dynamic Scheduling) complete complete complete
Environmental Assets Report It On-line forms 1 01/09/2022 30/09/2022 25/11/2022
Waste Special Uplift 2 01/10/2022 13/10/2022 14/10/2022
Fleet MOT and Taxi Compliance 3 17/10/2022 25/11/2022 25/11/2022
Financial Inclusion Debt Advice Management 4 28/11/2022 27/12/2022 05/01/2023
Environmental Assets all remaining processes 5 03/01/2023 22/08/2023 23/08/2023
Continued Development Activity
Education & Families Financial Management System 01/09/2022 02/12/2022 05/12/2022
Financial Solutions RPA
BI Hub reporting 01/01/2020 28/02/2023 01/03/2023
Year 5 Development
Waste Business Waste 6 10/03/2023 01/11/2023 02/11/2023
Legal Licencing 7 23/04/2023 22/08/2024 23/08/2024
Potential Year 4 Development
Housing Anti Social Behaviour 8
Back Office Processes Elected Member enquiry system 10
Back Office Processes Complaints (additional requirements) 11
Housing Rents on-line 9
Continued Service Sprint Activity )Non-Development/Business Change) - Year 4
Estate Management
Facility Support Services
Housing Repairs Phase 1 - Request a repair online process
POD design of case management system and AD
Education & Families
Enterprise & Economic
Development design of case management system
Legal design of case management system
Back Office Processes Purchase to Pay (P2P)

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Appendix Four
Commsworld - Fibre Build and Connectivity

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Appendix Five
Connectivity Framework – Added Value and Community Benefits 
Added Value - Commsworld will invest over £73m in North Lanarkshire as a direct result of this procurement, delivering a GVA of
c£1.3bm over 15-years 
Pillar 1 - COVERAGE
• 340km of fibre infrastructure passing 101,752 properties, with FTTH covering:
• FTTH for minimum 1,000 rural properties using Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme 
• All main business parks to be connected.
• Guaranteed significant % lower than prevailing market rates sell on to ISP’s and Mobile Operators to generate investment
• Further Fibre investment in North Lanarkshire of £90m being considered 
Pillar 2 - TAKE-UP
• Social Housing resident package:  1gb fibre for £20p/m
• Resident package: 1gb fibre for £45p/m
• Business package 1gb fibre for £300p/m
• Work with ISPs to promote infrastructure investment 
Pillar 3 - CHOICE & INNOVATION
• 10% of profit from connecting new customers to re-invested into Council technology programmes
• Provision of 4 additional Omni Flow units for Palacerigg Country Park, building upon POC for smart park.
• Provision of 10 CCTV cameras as a POC for cloud-based CCTV technology solution
• Provision of 15-days consultancy to explore the 20-minute Neighbourhood concept and establish a pilot project – potentially leading
to a bid for Demonstration project funding 
Pillar 4 - FUTURE PROOF
• Inclusion of a Cloud-based Firewall within service offering for Council
• Provision of 20 specialist consultancy days to support Business Intelligence Hub

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Connectivity Framework 
Community Benefits to be delivered over the first 3-years of the framework... 
Theme - Employment, Education & Skills
• Delivery of 10 events per annum to enhance digital skills and employability, preparing young people for the world of work
• Invest £3,000 per annum to create opportunities & initiatives for young people who face the greatest barrier to work
• Delivery of 3 apprenticeships per annum from priority groups* (9 in first 3-years of Framework) 
• Delivery of 4 5-day work placements per annum over 1st 3-years for 14–16-year-olds.
• Delivery of 4 education/community events per annum to raise awareness of Digital Careers and Pathways
• Delivery of 6 Industry Awareness Events per annum targeting 4th, 5th & 6th years. 
Theme - Business Advice & Supply Chain Development and Opportunities
• Delivery of 4 events per annum to engage, raise awareness and maximise of supply chain opportunities for local SMEs, 3rd sector
organisations and supported businesses
• Delivery of 4 events per annum to provide digital advice and support to local SMEs, voluntary & 3rd sector organisations. 
Theme – Community Engagement, Empowerment & Capacity Building
• Commitment to work with the 9 Community Boards & Digital NL: 
• To develop and support initiatives (4 events per annum) to improve local decision making
• To develop and support initiatives to address digital skills and inclusion (4 events per annum)
• Commitment to work with VANL and Digital NL partners to provide donations of kit and to support access to data through
the TechShare NL initiative (4 engagements per annum) to address digital capacity 
Commitment to best Practise, continuous improvement & innovation in community benefits - including delivery of community benefits over
the lifetime of the Framework beyond first 3-years
Communication, Monitoring & Reporting – Formal plan, quarterly KPI reporting, 3-year reviews, marketing & communications including case
studies

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Appendix Six

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