The Joint Information Communication Technology Committee of East Hertfordshire Council were scheduled to meet on Monday 8 September 2025 to discuss the IT partnership between East Herts and Stevenage Borough Council. The main item for discussion was the IT Partnership Dashboard for April 2023 to July 2025, which included analysis of IT infrastructure uptime, network infrastructure uptime, service desk performance, and email and web security performance. Some of the information relating to the IT Partnership Dashboard was marked as Part II business, meaning that the press and public were scheduled to be excluded from the meeting while it was discussed.

IT Partnership Dashboard

The Public Reports Pack included the IT Partnership Dashboard for April 2023 to July 2025. The dashboard was split into several sections:

IT Infrastructure Uptime and P1 Incidents

The report pack stated that IT infrastructure includes:

the fundamental components and resources that underpin IT services and operations. It serves as the backbone, facilitating the functionality of technology. These elements are crucial for operating various systems, including websites, email services, complex business applications, and data storage.

The report pack analysed system uptime and the management of Priority 1 (P1) incidents¹. The stated operational objective was to maintain a minimum 99% uptime across all core services. For the fiscal year 2023-2024, the East Herts site reportedly achieved 100% uptime, while the Stevenage site achieved 99% uptime. A significant P1 incident occurred in May 2023 at the Stevenage site, resulting in 17 hours of system downtime for 150 personnel within the Housing department, due to a legacy Windows 7 vulnerability.

For the fiscal year 2024-2025, the East Herts site maintained 100% uptime, while the Stevenage site achieved 99.83% uptime. The sole reported P1 incident occurred in March 2025, involving a minor SBC Pool VDI issue that was resolved in less than 20 minutes.

The current reporting period, 2025-2026, was reportedly marked by a series of operational challenges. The uptime for April 2025 to July 2025 was:

• April 2025: East Herts 99.73%, Stevenage 100%
• May 2025: East Herts 95.85%, Stevenage 95.85%
• June 2025: East Herts 91.19%, Stevenage 91.19%
• July 2025: East Herts 97.17%, Stevenage 97.17%

A P1 incident was recorded on May 1, 2025, impacting both East Herts and Stevenage, causing applications to become unavailable and preventing users from reauthenticating from their Hosted Desktops. The root cause was attributed to a blade server losing its time synchronisation with the domain controller². On June 25 and July 2, 2025, some VDI desktop users were unable to access their profiles due to permissions being removed from user profile folders on some servers. The source of the problem was traced to a new version of FSLogix, which included updated Group Policy templates that were not fully compatible with the existing configuration.

IT Network Infrastructure Uptime and P1 Incidents

The report pack stated that IT network infrastructure consists of:

the hardware, software, and services that enable computers and devices to connect and communicate. This includes components such as routers (to direct traffic between networks), switches (to connect devices within a network), firewalls (for security), cables (such as Ethernet and fiber optic), and wireless access points.

For the fiscal year 2023-2024, the IT network infrastructure achieved a total uptime of 99.8% for both East Herts and Stevenage sites. A significant P1 incident occurred in November 2023, impacting both sites and resulting in 5.5 hours of downtime, due to a fiber cut.

The fiscal year 2024-2025 was characterised by a few notable incidents that impacted overall network stability. The East Herts site concluded the year with an uptime of 99.81%, and the Stevenage site with 99.73%.

• In April 2024, reports of intermittent Wi-Fi issues were addressed by connecting the majority of staff to public Wi-Fi for a more stable connection.
• A server storage issue (pure array) in September 2024 prevented the creation of data copies due to network connectivity problems.
• In January 2025, a CAV Wi-Fi internet connection outage, stemming from a national Virgin circuit issue, caused a brief period of downtime before a failover to the DHH internet connection was successful.
• In February 2025, a 10-minute network loss on ZC/Desk Phones at the Wallfields site was recorded.

For the current reporting period, from April to July 2025, both the East Herts and Stevenage sites maintained a 100% uptime, with no reported P1 incidents.

IT Service Desk Performance

The report pack included analysis of the IT Service Desk's performance, including the number of calls logged, the number of incidents resolved within four hours, the number of service requests meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and the Service Desk first-line fix rate.

Number of Calls Logged

During the 2022-2023 period, the Service Desk recorded an average of 63 calls logged per day, with a corresponding average of 6.3 calls logged per hour.

The 2023-2024 period showed a decrease in call volume, with the average number of calls logged per day dropping to approximately 55, and the average number of calls logged per hour decreasing to 5.5.

The trend of decreasing call volume continued into the 2024-2025 period, with the average number of calls logged per day at approximately 46, and the average number of calls logged per hour at 4.6.

For the current reporting period from April to July 2025, the call volume showed a mixed trend. In April and May, the number of calls logged per day was 44 and 45, respectively, but in June and July, the volume increased to 59 calls per day.

Incidents Resolved Within Four Hours

Over the entire period of April 2022 to July 2025, East Herts demonstrated a slightly higher average incident resolution rate within four hours compared to Stevenage. The East Herts average was approximately 91.4%, while the Stevenage average was approximately 88.4%.

• 2022-2023: East Herts 90.60%, Stevenage 87.53%
• 2023-2024: East Herts 94.25%, Stevenage 93.12%
• 2024-2025: East Herts 88.63%, Stevenage 83.23%
• April 2025 to March 2026: East Herts 92.62%, Stevenage 86.04%

The decline observed in 2024- 2025 was reportedly linked to an organisational restructure and challenges in filling new Service Desk positions due to employment market conditions.

Service Requests Meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

• 2022-2023: East Herts 83.03%, Stevenage 79.19%
• 2023-2024: East Herts 88.58%, Stevenage 89.21%
• 2024-2025: East Herts 82.46%, Stevenage 82.89%
• April 2025 to March 2026: East Herts 88.61%, Stevenage 87.50%

The decline in performance during the 2024-2025 period was reportedly due to a combination of factors, including the two elections, a departmental restructure, and challenges in filling new service desk positions due to employment market conditions.

Service Desk First-Line Fix Rate

• 2022-2023: East Herts 87.31%, Stevenage 77.85%
• 2023-2024: East Herts 84.62%, Stevenage 77.44%
• 2024-2025: East Herts 78.18%, Stevenage 82.05%
• April 2025 to March 2026: East Herts 96.50%, Stevenage 96.24%

The decline in the first-line fix rate for both councils during the 2024-2025 fiscal year was reportedly due to a combination of factors, including the two elections, a departmental restructure, and challenges in filling new Service Desk positions due to employment market conditions.

Email and Web Security Performance

The report pack included data on email volumes, inbound malware detected and stopped, unsafe attachments, and unsafe website clicks.

Email Volumes and Malware

• 2023-2024: The average monthly inbound email volume was approximately 537,000, with a peak in September 2023 of over 1.1 million emails. A total of 269 inbound malware incidents and 133 unsafe attachments were detected.
• 2024-2025: The average monthly email volume was approximately 508,000. A total of 176 malware incidents and 122 unsafe attachments were detected.
• 2025-2026 (Partial Year): The total number of malware incidents was 25, and unsafe attachments totalled 11, with a monthly average of approximately 444,000 emails.

Unsafe Website Clicks

• 2023-2024: A total of 231 incidents from unsafe website clicks were recorded.
• 2024-2025: A total of 329 incidents from unsafe website clicks were recorded.
• 2025-2026 (Partial Year): A total of 380 cases were recorded from April to July 2025, with a particularly high volume of 273 incidents in May alone.

Combined Security Incident Analysis

• 2023-2024: A total of 633 security incidents were recorded, with the majority being email-based threats (63.5%).
• 2024-2025: The total number of security incidents remained relatively consistent at 627. However, incidents from unsafe website clicks increased to become the dominant threat vector (52.5%).
• 2025-2026 (Partial Year): The total number of incidents for the current period was 416, with the overwhelming majority coming from unsafe website clicks (91.3%).

Analysis of Inbound Malware Detections

The report pack included a detailed breakdown of the 296 total inbound malware instances detected and stopped by the council's security systems from April 2023 to April 2024. The analysis identified the types of threats, their prevalence, and a brief description of their functionality.

Phishing attacks were reportedly the most consistent and dominant threat, often utilising HTML and JavaScript attachments to bypass defences.