Reduced Services

Accessing Council Services:  

By accessing our wide range of 24/7 online services
By emailing directly to the relevant service
By phoning First Contact on 01268 882200 (8.45am to 5.15pm Mon to Thurs, and to 4.45pm on Fri). 
By pre-booked appointment at the Kiln Road office (9.00am to 4.00pm Mon to Fri) - these can be arranged by phoning First Contact on 01268 882200.

ICT FOI Answers

Staff

  • The total number of IT staff employed by the organisation:
    • 4
  • Contact details for the IT senior management team including CIO, IT Director, Head of IT and Infrastructure Architects if applicable:
    • Mike Greenwood, Contract Manager mgreenwood@castlepoint.gov.uk 

Castle Point outsource to ABS who provide Network, Server and Desktop support. This contract runs to from October 2020 for 5 years.

Tender process

Castle Point will go to tender on all major projects, these follow the OJEU framework. Please register at https://www.tendersdirect.co.uk/ to get notification of contracts put out to tender.

Infrastructure

  • Annual IT Infrastructure Budget 2016/2017
    • £325,000
  • Current primary storage vendors and replacement/refresh dates.
    • Hitachi, no refresh date installed January 2016, to be refreshed January 2021
    • Storage backed up is 4.5TB
    • We use Veam and Net Vault for storage management.
  • Desktops
    • Lenovo
    • 350 odd
    • Equipment is replaced on a break fix basis
  • Servers
    • HP
    • 51 Virtual Servers
    • 6 Physical Servers
    • Use VM Ware
    • Windows 2008/2012
    • Estimated refresh date 2021, last refreshed 2016
  • Current backup/data recovery vendors and replacement/refresh dates.
    • Quantum, no refresh date
  • Server vendor and replacement/refresh date:
    • HP, no refresh date set
  • Data centre refresh date.
    • None
  • Amount of used storage and number of virtual / physical servers.
    • 60TB, 54 Virtual Servers, 7 physical
  • Do we utilise desktop virtualisation technologies?
    • No
  • Which hypervisor do we use?
    • VMware
  • Total available budget for IT infrastructure.
    • No specific budget for infrastructure. Monies are allocated on a project by project basis.
  • Network
    • Cat 6 cabling, installed 2017
    • Huawei switches
    • public wi-fi
    • Staff do not access the network via wi-fi.

Data Connections

  • Broadband provider : Duckle

Third Party Software utilised

Vendor Modules/Service Cost Contract End Date
Third Party Software
Uniform Building Control, Planning (Development Control), Local Land Charges, Environmental Health. £28.000pa  
  Grounds Maintenance

None - Service is outsourced

  
GGP GIS and Address Management (LLPG) £15,000 pa  
Lalpac Licensing (inlc Taxi's, alcohol, etc.) £3,500 pa  
  Private Sector Housing don't use  
  Trading Standards ECC Function  
  Waste Management     

Standard Software Used

  • MS Office 2016
  • Office 365
  • SQl Server
  • MySql
  • Oracle

Mobile Apps

Castle Point has no mobile developer or invested in mobile apps. All apps developed are for the web and are reliant on being css compliant to make them mobile friendly.

MFD/Printers

Currently under contract to Ricoh until August 2023.

Castle Point have the following number and model of MFD's. All these machines are connected to the network via cable. Print management is handled through Papercut and users access the devices with a swipe card.

 

  1. Number of printers currently within the organization, including MFD´s & photocopiers.
    • Ricoh C4500 - 3
    • Ricoh C3000 - 5
    • Ricoh Desktop - 1
  2. Colour vs mono?
    • All but 1 have colour capabilities. Default printing is black and white.
  3. Annual yearly page volumes?
    • A4 800,000 2019
    • A3 7,000
  4. Main manufacturers for the printers (hardware)?
    • Ricoh
  5. Main supplier(s) of print consumables (Toner, spares, etc.)?
    • Banner/Ricoh
  6. Start and end dates for the print support contract(s) if applicable?
    • Ricoh Printers are supported by the ABSContract.
    • Ricoh MFD's are supported by Ricoh. Contract runs from 20/08/2020 for 4 years
  7. Approximate spend on printers and consumables during the financial year?
    • £2,500
  8. Length of the MFD contract(s)?
    • 4 years
  9. Approximate spend on MFD’s and consumables during the last financial year?
    • Paper spend £4,800
    • MFD Click charges 2016/2017 £9477.31
    • MFD Rental/Quarter £3,502.00
  10. Which procurement route or framework was used to procure this service?
    • OJEU
  11. The named person and their role in your organization is in charge of the procurement for printing and any managed print contracts.
    • Richard Macaskill

 

Network Breaches

Cyber Attacks
Year Type of attack Details Consequences
2017 None    
2016 Ransomware Two separate attacks Affecting one user on each occasion Minimal disruption, rebuilt machines and restored user data from backup. No ransom was paid. No data was lost.

The council outsources network infrastructure and hardware support. Part of this payment includes security and as such a breakdown on costs specific to security resources is not possible. The third party is responsible for ensuring that we have firewall, server and client antivirus as well as spam filters in place.

Recycling of IT Equipment

IT equipment is recycled through Capita, who provide IT support to the Council. The equipment is thoroughly cleansed and a certificate of destruction provided.

Hosted Environments

Castle Point utilises Microsoft Office 365 for email and personal file storage, supported by Cloud Direct

The website www.castlepoint.gov.uk is hosted off site, supported by VerseOne.