They received an update on progress made on the county's ICT from the seven legacy authorities - Carlisle, Allerdale, Copeland, Barrow-in-Furness, Eden, South Lakeland and Cumbria County Councils - which were abolished to form Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness Councils in April 2023.
Members of the councils' joint overview and scrutiny committee met at Cumbria House in Carlisle on Monday (December 15) to hear the progress report.
Councillor Roger Dobson (Corby and Hayton, Lib Dems) was told that it involved a process known as 'clone and delete' where the existing systems are copied and the information not relevant to each council was deleted.
Cllr Dobson suggested that it was a very complicated process which would be further complicated by the creation of a new combined authority and elected mayor and Jo Atkinson, Cumberland Council's director of corporate and transformation services, said that there would be a small number of users associated with the combined authority.
Cllr Dobson said that the office of the mayor would have responsibility for both the police and fire services which would represent a lot of users.
He was told that the process of disaggregation of the county's ICT networks related to Cumbria's existing ICT infrastructure and a council officer added: "The combined authority is something new that will be set up rather than disaggregation."
Councillor Hazel Hodgson (Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale, Lib Dems) observed that areas such as HR and payroll had been divided and the officer told her: "We are part of the way through disaggregation."
He said that combining seven systems into one was the first phase and the second was the 'clone and delete' phase. He said they were at an advanced stage of phase one and everyone was still being paid.
It was recommended that members noted the progress that has been made so far as well as discussing and noting the further planned work to ensure a safe disaggregation of the service that enables all organisations deliver effective and sustainable technology services for the future post disaggregation which was agreed.
The report states: "This report provides background to the hosted ICT service disaggregation and outlines the work that has been undertaken to date.
"The disaggregation of the hosted ICT service is a complex and voluminous programme of work, that requires careful consideration and planning.
"There has been a significant amount of work undertaken around the planning of the disaggregation, across staffing, systems and infrastructure and this report provides a summary of the current position, alongside outlining next steps for the work that is being progressed by both Cumberland Council as host authority and Westmorland & Furness Council as 'recipient' council."
According to the report the Hosted ICT Service consists of 135 staff members across 11 teams, providing support to around 8700 users and 14,500 devices.
It states: "To date, 28 applications have been split and a further five have been identified which are no longer used.
"However, there are still approximately 50 lines of business applications to be split or disaggregated, and this list still includes significant, core corporate applications including, for example, the HR and payroll system and finance systems.
"To ensure rigour, quality control and independent assurance of these technically complex and highly sensitive systems in terms of the data that they manage, key ICT projects undertaken as part of the LGR ICT Disaggregation work has proactively invited internal audits to be commissioned by both councils to gain independent assurance of key projects.
"All internal audits have so far achieved either 'substantial' or 'reasonable' assurance (the top two levels) demonstrating positive levels of assurance of some high-risk change projects that have been completed."