To delegate responsibility for the award of contracts for the WAN, Unified Communications and Personal IT equipment to the Head of Service Transformation in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Resources and Customer Service.

Cabinet received a report of the Head of Service Transformation.  Councillor Watkin introduced the report and explained that Cabinet was requested to allow delegated authority for himself as Portfolio Holder and the Head of Service Transformation to award contracts for the three projects: Unified Communications, Wide Area Network (WAN) and Personal IT.  Delegated authority was requested as the contracts were not ready to come to Cabinet presently but would be awarded prior to the next Cabinet meeting. 

Councillor Watkin continued that there were a number of benefits to Unified Communications listed in the report which would improve the authority’s productivity and better management of services.  Unified Communications was key to being able to achieve Watford 2020 and would be transformational.  The Personal IT contract would ensure that officers had the right equipment for their role and four different work needs had been identified along with appropriate hardware for these roles.  WAN would improve connectivity between council sites.

RESOLVED:

That Cabinet agrees to delegate responsibility for the award of contracts for the WAN, Unified Communications and Personal IT equipment to the Head of Service Transformation in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Resources and Customer Service.