This meeting of the Decision Notices considered a report regarding the implementation of single sign-on (SSO) for the council's NEC Housing software system. Abi Robinson, Head of Technology and Resilience, made the decision regarding the single sign-on implementation, which was then noted by the council. The report pack recommended that the procurement and implementation of single sign-on for the NEC Housing software system be approved.

Single Sign-On Implementation for NEC Housing Software System

The council was notified of a decision made by Abi Robinson, Head of Technology and Resilience, to approve the implementation of single sign-on for the council's NEC Housing software system.

The report pack included a report by Andrew Way, Technology and Security Manager, which recommended the procurement and implementation of single sign-on (SSO) for the NEC Housing system.

The NEC Housing system consists of two integrated modules: the NEC Enterprise system, which acts as a document management system, and the NEC Housing system, which holds data about the council's housing tenants. According to the report:

During implementation of NEC Enterprise SSO was enabled for this system. Previously only separate 2 factor authentication (2FA) was available for NEC Housing which does not give the same level of security of SSO, which is now available.

The report considered two options:

• Option 1: Procure and implement SSO in NEC Housing system.
• Option 2: Do not implement SSO in NEC Housing system and continue with 2FA¹.

The report argued that implementing SSO would provide additional security benefits and monitoring of authentication into the main Housing system, which is important due to the level of personal data stored in the NEC Housing system. The report stated that the alternative, continuing with 2FA, is a manual process to manage per account and is not easily reportable to ensure everyone has enabled it.

The year 1 cost for SSO on NEC Housing was estimated to be £5,000, including one-off licence and implementation fees of £4,500. Annual support and maintenance costs for subsequent years were estimated to be £500. These costs would be financed from the Housing Revenue Account revenue budget.

The report also included comments from the Section 151 Officer² and the Solicitor to the Council, who had no further comments to add, and from the Equalities Officer, who noted that the report did not specifically highlight any equality implications, and reminded members to comply with the public sector equality duty as set out in Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010³.

The report also included a link to NEC's sustainability report, which states that the NEC Group has the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2040 and has reduced their Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 31% since 2021.

Councillor Gordon Cowan, Portfolio Holder for Transport, Licensing and Environmental Services, was also named in the report.