The Shared Technology Service (STS) has reported improvements in its Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance for operational issues, alongside a reduction in open calls. The Brent, Lewisham and Southwark IT Committee met on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, to review the service's performance between November 2025 and February 2026. The full report can be found in the Public reports pack 17th Mar 2026.
Fabio Negro, Managing Director of STS, presented the update, highlighting that despite an increase in total open tickets, attributed to a post-holiday surge and ongoing Windows 11 refresh projects, the service achieved its second-lowest number of open issues since its inception. Councillor Stephanie Cryan had inquired about the rise in open tickets in January and February. Mr. Negro explained this was due to a combination of factors, including the typical post-Christmas increase in IT issues and an additional influx of around 50 calls per week related to laptop projects. Historically, there is a small uptick in the number of calls raised after the Christmas period, with an average increase of around 14% in weekly tickets raised compared to the preceding months, attributed to people returning after their break and issues with accounts.
SLA performance for Priority 3 (P3) operational incident issues has improved, and the SLA for Priority 4 (P4) operational request calls has been maintained within the agreed targets during the reporting period. This improvement was noted alongside a reduction in open calls, indicating good progress in overall operational performance.
The committee also discussed Priority 1 (P1) and Priority 2 (P2) incidents. There were 10 P1 incidents during the reporting period, a decrease from the previous period, though the Major Incident KPI was breached in December 2025 with six incidents. These were partly caused by third-party infrastructure issues, including problems with Virgin Media (three incidents impacting multiple sites), Genesys call centre service (three incidents impacting the Southwark call centre), and Cloudflare (one incident impacting all councils staff accessing the 8x8 call centre site page).
Councillor James-J Walsh raised concerns about reliance on specific individuals and the need for continuity planning, particularly following the passing of Tim Green, Head of Strategy and Technology, and Frank Lee, Security Monitoring and Performance Officer. Mr. Negro assured members that lessons learned from P1 incidents inform incident response protocols and service resilience. The meeting also noted that reporting issues, which were due to the passing of Tim Green, the Power BI Expert responsible for reporting, would hopefully be resolved by the next joint committee meeting. Councillor James-J Walsh specifically asked how the committee could understand how the team learns from P1 incidents, and Mr. Negro reiterated that lessons learned inform incident response protocols and service resilience.
Regarding P2 incidents, 17 calls were raised, with no month exceeding the target of 15. The SLA for P2 incidents was met by 70% within 8 hours. Councillor Amanda De Ryk sought confidence that cases are being closed as quickly as possible, noting the absence of a target for the number of open cases. Mr. Negro explained that while there isn't a specific SLA for closing the number of tickets, the ambition is to close as many tickets as possible with minimal disruption. He also noted that reporting issues had impacted the ability to present all data and committed to including relevant graphs and explanations in future reports.
Several ongoing projects were also discussed, including the laptop refresh and Windows 11 upgrades, with Brent having completed its rollout and Lewisham and Southwark making good progress. Discussions around future cloud strategies, including potential moves to Microsoft Azure, are underway for Brent and Lewisham. The boroughs are expected to make a strategic decision over the next couple of weeks or months regarding their future cloud strategies.
