1.Do you look after your own IT or is it outsourced?
We have an internal support and development team who maintain the more bespoke applications, and an outsourced infrastructure support contract responsible for the rest of the infrastructure. This is currently held by Capita.
2. How much did you pay in last financial year for software licenses?
£243,144.44
3. How many computers users do you have?
All our staff are computer users. As of 31 March 2015, PHSO had 490 employees. The number of computer users fluctuates depending on how many people are employed.
4. When do you need to renew the contract with Microsoft for software licenses? What was the value of your last contract per year?
The contract needs to be renewed in September 2015. The value was £70,821.84 at the start of year 3 of the subscription period.
5. Do you currently measure software usage versus the number of licenses purchased? If so what is used for software usage metering?
Yes. This is done through a combination of manual monitoring and monitoring of virtual machine allocation, as licences are restricted by the number of virtual machines made available.
6. Do you use a software asset management tool?
No
7. Please also provide details of IT Contracts Managers and any person(s) involved in IT Software procurement.
Tom Stoddart (Head of ICT)
FOI/DP Officer
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman