07 June 2019

Shire Hall in Cambridge

Plans to move Cambridgeshire County Council’s data centre out of Shire Hall to the tune of £6.8m has been backed by councillors.

The county council is planning to relinquish its current premises, which currently hosts the authority's data centre, on a long lease by December 2020.

Cambridgeshire County Council’s General Purposes Committee backed a plan and agreed funding for a move partly to the data centre run by Peterborough City Council and partly to the cloud.

The decision was made following 35 minutes of debate, with three councillors voting against the move.

Some £894,000 of the £6.8 million total has been assigned for contingency funding.

“Our systems are large, complex and highly integrated, and it is not possible at this stage to predict all the potential consequences of moving them," said the council’s document outlining the risks. "Therefore, a change of approach may be required, should an issue become insurmountable. There is a high risk that multiple elements of our data services could fail concurrently as a result of the move.”