Decision details

To approve the proposed changes to build on the existing Disaster Recovery infrastructure for Council Information Systems currently housed at County Hall Preston and to agree to the required funding.

The Executive Leader presented a confidential report which proposed a comprehensive Disaster Recovery (DR) solution that would also support more effective Business Continuity (BC) for the Council.

Councillor Morgan requested a copy of the ICT program and plan.  This would be forwarded to him before the next meeting of the Executive Cabinet. 

Decision made

Approval granted to the proposed changes to build on the existing Disaster Recovery infrastructure for Council Information Systems currently housed at County Hall Preston and agreement to the required funding.

Reason(s) for decision

1.      The Council has effective DR arrangements in place for protecting its data. The need to enhance this would support more effective business continuity and significantly speed up the process of recovering information systems in the event of a disaster. If this work is not carried out, the Council would experience a delay in the event of a disaster resulting in the provision of day to day business being affected.

2.      The changes that are being proposed are also part of the Internal Audit recommendations made in September 2012.

3.      The proposed enhancements would protect the investment already made to improve the information systems and support remote working.

Alternative option(s) considered and rejected

1.      Accept the risk that whilst data is backed up off site there would be a significant delay in operational access to it. This has been rejected on the basis that the delay would be unacceptable to the Council’s business continuity plans.

2.      To bring all DR infrastructure back to Chorley Council from County Hall. This would remove the geographical distance between the live and DR solutions. A Chorley wide incident could result in complete data loss which is the principle reason for the rejection of this solution.

3.      The procurement of Infrastructure and Disaster Recovery as an outsourced service provided by a third party company; some testing of market costs for this type of service has been undertaken. The significant cost of this type of solution was the reason for its rejection.