IT & Computer Hardware 

1. Do you have a computer data centre?
2. What IT manufacturers supply server equipment housed in the data centre?
3. Are your servers virtualised?
4. What IT manufacturers supply storage equipment housed in the data centre?
5. Is your storage virtualised?
6. What IT manufacturers supply network equipment housed in the data centre?
7. What is the total cost to run this data centre per year?
8. How much do you spend on Air Conditioning in the datacentre per year?
9. How much do you spend on Power consumption in the datacentre per year?
10. How much do you spend on Support staff in the datacentre?

Under the Freedom of Information Act, could you please provide information, relating to your IT Department, as follows:

1. How much did you spend on computing technology hardware for each of the last 3 financial years?
2. How much did you spend on IT services for each of the last 3 financial years?
3. Please list all Information and Communication Technology (ICT) contracts over £40K per annum?
4. Which contracts will come to an end this tax year?
5. Do you use outside ICT suppliers to support your hardware and user needs and who are they?
6. How many staff in total are in your IT department?
7. How many full time staff are involved in desktop supprt?
8. How many full time staff are involved in application support?
9. How many full time staff are involved in datacentre support?
10. How many full time staff are involved in development?
11. How many full time staff are involved in project management?
12. How many contractors do you typically employ?

Under the Freedom of Information Act, could you please provide information, relating to your IT Department, as follows:

1. How many printers do you have?
2. How many are network printers printers?
3. How many are single user printers?
4. How much do you spend on paper per year?
5. How much do you spend on ink per year?
6. Do you have specific cost reduction targets to address this year ? Please list your targets.
7. Do you have specific staff reduction targets to address this year ? Please list your targets.
8. What is your procedure to dispose of old/redundant computer hardware?
9. What company do you use to dispose of outdated hardware

With reference to the Freedom of Information Act, could you please answer the following questions relating to your IT Department:

1. What software is used to capture installed software license information for Personal Computers (PCs, Laptops etc) and Servers?
2. Which Vendors Software Asset Management (SAM) service do you use?
3. How frequently do you run software license compliancy reports to show discrepancies between installed software applications and procured licenses?
4. How many copies of Microsoft Operating Systems do you have installed (i.e. the total number installed on PCs, Servers etc)?
5. What Microsoft License agreement model do you subscribe to?
6. When is your Microsoft License agreement due for renewal?
7. What applications do you run on Oracle?
8. When was the last time an Oracle license audit was conducted?
9. Please provide details of who, including names and job title, of any person(s) involved in Oracle License and Application procurement?
10. Please also provide details of who is responsible for Software License Compliance, including names and job title
11. What version of Oracle Database are you running?
12. What Oracle Enterprise Database option do you have installed?
13. Which Reseller do you currently procure Oracle licenses from? 
14. Which Software vendors Endpoint Protection\Antivirus software do you use to protect your Personal Computers?
15. What is the date, year and month, of when the subscription for your Software vendors Endpoint Protection\Antivirus software is due to be reviewed\renewed?
16. Which Vendors software and version do you use for Email provision?
17. What centralised email archiving solution do you use?
18. What centralised data archiving solution do you use?
19. Approximately, what is the combined size of your email data storage?
20. Is software used to track and restrict confidential data movements*?
21. What Vendors software is used to track and restrict confidential data movements*?Clarification: “track and restrict confidential data movements” – where confidential or sensitive data is held, in electronic format, relating to the organisation, employees or citizens, are there any controls in place via the use of software to prevent, or at least track, where this data is being stored or sent to and by whom. An example of “data movement” is where the data is emailed or printed or copied to removable media (USB devices, DVDR, CDR etc) or stored on a mobile device (Laptop, mobile phone etc).
22. Please also provide details of who, including names and job title, of any person(s) responsible for your electronic data security? 
23. What software solutions do you use for providing Virtualised Applications?
24. What software solutions do you use for providing Virtualised Desktops?
25. Approximately, what percentage of your desktops are virtualised?
26. Are you considering adopting Windows 7 for your PC estate in the next 12 months?
27. How are you looking to roll out Windows 7 - PC Reimage, Hardware refresh, Virtualisation or other, please state?
28. What client virtualisation projects have been identified within the next 12 months?
29. When is your PC hardware due for replacement or to be reviewed? 
30. Which hardware vendors storage solutions do you use?
31. What percentage of your Servers are virtualised?
32. What server virtualisation projects have been identified within the next 12 months?
33. What software vendors products and versions are used to backup your virtual environments?
34. Please explain what Disaster Recover solutions, and associated vendors products, are used to provide cover in the event that your central IT systems become unavailable? 
35. Please also provide details of IT Contracts Managers, including names and job title, and any person(s) involved in IT Software procurement?
36. What Information Technology functions have been outsourced and who is primary outsource partner?
37. Do you have a purpose built data centre?
38. How many Data Centres do you use and are they on your premises or third party premises? If third party please specify the company and when the contract expires.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, could you please provide information, relating to your IT Department, as follows:

1. Please can you tell me the number of sites where you keep servers?
2. For each site, please can you list the number of servers by operating system (eg Sun/Solaris, IBM/AIX, IBM iOS, IBM MVS, HP VMS, HP-UX, or other), plus contact details for the IT person responsible for that site.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, could you please provide information, relating to your IT Department, as follows:

1. How many Desktop Computer users do you have?
2. How many Laptop users do you have?
3. Which manufacturer do you use for desktops?
4. Which manufacturer do you use for laptops?
5. How much do you spend per year on Desktop computing hardware?
6. How much do you spend per year on Desktop computer software?
7. How much do you spend per year on Desktop computer support services?
8. Do you own your desktop computers ?
9. Are your Desktop Computers virtualised?

In accordance with Section 12 (4) of the Act:

The above request along with 5 similar requests all relating to IT information and all received together and made by one person or by different persons who appear to the Cheshire Constabulary to be acting in concert have been aggregated. The estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with them all. Such estimate in this case would exceed the appropriate limit.

The appropriate limit is defined in the Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004, which is covered by statutory Instrument Number 3244 of 2004. Furthermore, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to refuse to respond to a request for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit as defined by the above mentioned regulations.

I would also refer you to publication scheme on our web site in which you will find various amounts of information relating to this subject area.

Publication Scheme