Content

RESOLVED:
 
To award a contract
for the provision of a fully integrated housing management solution
to Supplier A using the Crown Commercial Service Vertical
Application Solutions Framework (RM6259) for a period of 5 + 5
years at a total cost of £3.4m.
 
Reason(s) For
Decision
 
1. 
In 2020 London Borough of Hackney (LBH) was the target of a
cyber attack which saw major disruption
to key systems and left many unavailable for Council staff to
deliver essential services – with years of painstaking work
to safely recover them at a basic level.
2. 
Prior to the cyber attack the main
system being used in Housing Services was Universal Housing
(Civica), however this was an old
system that was not going to be supported from 2022. Given the
ongoing support issue, and the strategic decision to follow a
‘build’ rather than ‘buy’ strategy for the
housing ICT platform, the Council was already working on developing
its own housing solution “Modern Tools for Housing”
(MTFH). Both Universal Housing and the work to develop MTFH was
lost in the cyber attack, requiring the
service to operate with workaround arrangements to sustain service
delivery.
3. 
Over three years on, whilst work to rebuild MTFH has progressed,
the issues presented are still acute despite the best efforts of
Housing teams and our colleagues in ICT. Processes remain unrefined
and subject to a myriad of workarounds, in some key areas there is
still no functional ICT solution, data is hard to collate and
interrogate, turn-around times for basic services are slower than
they ideally would be and staff find it difficult to manage
day-to-day tasks without the support of a robust and fully
integrated system.
4. 
All of this coupled with increasing regulatory requirements means
that there is a critical need to ensure adequate and appropriate IT
provisions across the board that enable staff to deliver services
effectively and to expected standards.
5. 
The quickest and most cost effective route to a fully integrated
Housing system that addresses the above issues is the purchase of a
tried and tested configurable housing system provided by a market
leading supplier.
 
Alternative Options
(Considered and Rejected)
 
1. 
Continue with existing workarounds
This option is not viable as the
current workarounds are not fit for purpose, lead to a number of
poor outcomes for residents and staff, and can
not be used to adequately meet regulatory requirements.
 
2. 
Develop a Housing Management System internally
The current build programme is not
able to give any cost and timescale parameters around this option,
making it uncertain as to whether we can deliver within required
timescale and budget. Recent experience has also shown that the
functionality provided is costly to develop and significantly
limited when compared to off the shelf solutions.
 
Without a functional IHMS we severely
hinder our ability to deliver good quality housing services and run
the risk of breaching our obligations under new housing
regulations.