Dual Assurance: Information Technology
Minutes of the meeting held at 1.00 pm on Wednesday 22nd March 2012 in room 100A, Northcote
House.
Attendees: Sally Wilcox, Lynne Tucker, Julia Edwards (Minutes)
Apologies: Michele Shoebridge
12.19 Minutes
The minutes of the meeting held on 22 February 2011 were received and approved.
12.20 Service Performance
SW expressed some concerns on the Performance Tracker (DA-IT/12/07) where there was a
significant amount of amber on the Portal entry. LT explained that this was to do with
problems they had last year but there has been significant improvement and will shortly
upgrading to 11G, and then moving Portal Support into Academic Systems to provide an
improved customer focus.
12.21 IT Vision
(a) A paper outlining the IT Vision was received (DA-IT/12/09).
(b) SW reported that the paper LT had produced was excellent. LT reported that her
meetings with the College Deans and Managers had generally gone well, although there
were mixed responses. SW reported that it was very positive that these meetings had
taken place.
(c) LT also reported that the document had been received at the AS SMT. The next steps
were to take it to ISG on 19th April 2012 and then to meet individually with MIS to
discuss engagement with Colleges (perhaps form College Focus Groups). There was
discussion on how the IT Vision would be implemented. LT agreed to write a further
piece to bring focus. (Action LT)
12.22 Business Continuity
(a) The following papers were received:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
IT Business Continuity (DA-IT/12/10)
Exeter IT Service Continuity Plan (DA-IT/12/11)
Team Service Continuity Plan (DA-IT/12/12)
IT System recovery document (DA-IT/12/13)
(b) SW reported that she had a few concerns with the documents and asked what would
happen if there was a major ‘worst case scenario’ incident where the campus or
buildings were taken out over night? The documents are word-heavy, but what would
actually happen is not explained. LT reported that the 24/7 activity currently being
looked at would improve this. It was noted that Geoff Williams from HR had been
extremely helpful with 24/7 discussions. LT noted that she felt that the BC planning
required additional focus.
(c) LT reported that she would be leading a holistic and strategic review of business
systems.
(d) SW queried whether the University had an Asset Register held centrally, and there was
some discussion about what information was held, ie Exeter IT holds records for Exeter
IT, but not for Colleges or any other Service. It was agreed that from a Business
Continuity point of view that we needed to find out more about this. It was agreed to
invite Paul Sandy to the next meeting (Action JE).
(e) It was also reported that an annual ‘scenario’ exercise should take place to see if Exeter
IT can deal with a major incident. LT reported that it worked well at other institutions
she worked at and would like to introduce it here.
12.24 AOB
(a) SW noted that DW had moved from Head of IT Operations and she was concerned that
this would lead to a lack of focus on Strategic IT from the CIO. LT reported that it was
intended to backfill temporarily.
(b) There was a short discussion on our links and working with the Met Office.
12.25 Date of Next Meeting
It was noted that the next meeting will be held on 12th April 2012, at 3pm. Post meeting
note: this meeting will be re-scheduled to the following week in April.