Government Technology Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk | VOLUME 8.12

IT TRAINING Please visit www. government technology.co.uk for the latest news and events

DATA CENTRES

GREEN IT

Simple ways for a greener workplace

SOCITM REVIEW - Radical thinking, practical solutions - PLUS MORE INSIDE

konicaminolta.co.uk

Make I.T. work for you ...stop fire-fighting!

Konica Minolta can help you capitalise on your I.T. investment with solutions packages to improve your document management; increasing your productivity, enhancing your security and ensuring your legislation compliancy.

We understand that in today’s I.T. environment, when you are always busy ‘fighting-fires’ it is often difficult to find the time to integrate all of your organisational processes into one cohesive strategy.

By using our highly trained solutions consultants, our advanced solutions packages and our bizhub multifunctional devices we can help you manage the pressures often imposed on I.T., recognising and implementing I.T. opportunities that deliver real benefits and advantages.

Contact Konica Minolta now for details on how you can improve your processes and ultimately make I.T. work for you.

Call us on FREEPHONE 0800 833864 or email : feedback@konicaminolta.co.uk for your FREE consultation!

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Dear Reader,

8.12 gy.co.uk | VOLUME

hnolo www.governmenttec

Do you tweet? Part of Web 2.0 and the social network revolution, everyone seems to have a Twitter-account these days (apart from me that is) The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, headed

by Lord Mandelson, recently revealed that it spends £3,175 a year on Twitter as, on average, one of its press officers spends half an hour a day posting updates and replying to the followers of the Department’s three accounts. The Department argues it’s a cost-effective way of getting its message out to a different audience and it helps them respond to people’s queries quickly.

Is it warranted to spend this money – the three accounts having 9,894 followers between them? Furthermore, it has been estimated that the time workers spent on Twitter cost the British economy £1.38 billion a year – is this sum justified? The IITT discusses whether social computing is friend or foe on page 15.

DATA CENTRES

IT TRAINING

GREEN IT

Please visit www. government technology.co.uk for the latest news and events

Simple ways for a greener workplace

MORE INSIDE ical solutions - PLUS

al thinking, pract SOCITM REVIEW - Radic

editor@psp-media.co.uk

Government Technology Online If you would like to receive 12 issues of Government Technology magazine for £95 a year, please contact Public Sector Publishing, 226 High Road, Loughton, Essex IG10 1ET. Tel: 0208 532 0055, Fax: 0208 532 0066, or visit the Government Technology website at: P NEWS P FEATURES P PROFILES P CASE STUDIES P EVENTS P AND MORE

8 www.governmenttechnology.co.uk GT MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY PUBLIC SECTOR PUBLISHING LTD 226 High Rd, Loughton, Essex IG10 1ET. Tel: 020 8532 0055 Fax: 020 8532 0066 EDITOR Sofie Lidefjard ASSISTANT EDITOR Angela Pisanu PRODUCTION EDITOR Karl O’Sullivan PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Reiss Malone PRODUCTION DESIGN Jacqueline Grist

MEMBER OF THE PERIODICAL PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION

ADVERTISEMENT SALES Justine James, Luke Humphries, Jane Fraser, Sally Brockman, Nicola Charter PUBLISHER John O’Leary SALES ADMINISTRATION Jackie Carnochan, Martine Carnochan ADMINISTRATION Charlotte Casey, Victoria Leftwich GROUP PUBLISHER Barry Doyle REPRODUCTION & PRINT Argent Media

© 2009 Public Sector Publishing Limited. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the editorial content the publisher cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher. ISSN 1362 - 2541 THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

03

A practical strategy for transforming paper processes into connected government

Your roadmap to effective eGovernment

eGovernment initiatives not only facilitate enhanced services and cost savings, but also open the door to new challenges – from navigating paper-based processes to securing digital records.

Learn more about how EMC can help: http://uk.emc.com/government – Download our white paper “Solutions for National and Local Government”

EMC2, EMC, EMC SourceOne, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

CONTENTS GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY 8.12

7 NEWS 9 INFORMATION SECURITY What are WARPs and what role can they have in helping organisations stay on top of information security threats?

11 GREEN IT There are simple, every-day ways for end-users to green their workspace as demonstrated by the British Computer Society’s GreenIT Specialist Group

14 DIGITAL BRITAIN New istop kiosks are proving successful in helping digitally excluded gain access to jobs and local information

15 IT TRAINING Is social networking friend or foe? asks the Institute of IT Training

21 SOCITM REVIEW We take a look at what happened during Socitm’s annual conference

27 ICT CONSULTING How can chief information officers streamline ICT and achieve cost reductions, and avoid the risk of an indiscriminate slash and burn policy?

31 DATA CENTRES We look at some of the storage technologies that will shape the storage strategies of tomorrow

35 CALL CENTRES What steps can you take to improve your call centre operations without incurring major capital expenses?

40 AUDIO VISUAL TECHNOLOGY When it comes to multimedia conferences, you can select the sustainable option without limiting the possibilities for interaction and communication

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

05

Is Your Data Centre Running Out of Power?

The rapid growth of ‘High Density Computing’ has led to increased power demand that cannot always be met by the electricity supply.

New technology such as “Virtualisation” is reducing the rate of in‐ crease of HDC hardware but power consumption in data centres continues to out grow supply.

By using an intelligent power management solution from Raritan & AIT Partnership you can:

    

Monitor down to the individual IT device with outlet metering Generate reports for billing, kwh, CO2 and energy rebates Increase uptime through monitoring, alerting and load sharing Identify stranded unused power capacity Know which racks are running hot or cold

..helping you to take control of the power used by your data centre and plan for future use more effectively…

www.raritan.co.uk / www.ait‐pg.co.uk

Find out more today by calling AIT Partnership Group, Raritan’s Premier Integration Partner. All enquiries will receive a free ‘power saver’ : 0845 017 7018, E‐mail: info@aitdirect.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

Children’s database ContactPoint to be rolled out nationally ommunication between children’s services professionals across England will become faster and better as ContactPoint starts to be rolled out nationally to local authorities and frontline practitioners.

ContactPoint is an online directory holding basic contact information for all children and their parents as well as contact details for any professional working with that particular child. It was developed in response to a key recommendation of the Laming Inquiry into the tragic

C

death of Victoria Climbié and has been designed to help frontline practitioners work across organisations, arming authorised professionals with a quick and easy tool to find out who else is working with the same child as early and as quickly as possible.

An evaluation report of the initial phase of the ContactPoint rollout shows how ContactPoint is making a positive difference daily to the practitioners already using it, with over 75 per cent saying they believe it will be helpful in their future work.

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

NEWSINBRIEF 100th site for fast-growing N3 voice services Use of N3 voice services across the NHS is increasing dramatically and there are now 100 sites using N3 Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). The N3 broadband network was VOIP enabled in July 2007 and the past 12 months has seen a 600 per cent increase in call volumes and this figure is set to rise.

The N3 network delivered by the N3 Service Provider (N3SP) and managed by BT connects more than 1.3 million UK health sector employees and is one of Europe’s largest private networks.

Over three million calls have been made since N3 Voice Services launched in 2007 and one million of these have been between NHS N3 connected organisations enabling these calls to be free.

Len Chard, N3 programme manager at NHS Connecting for Health said: “An increasing number of NHS organisations are taking advantage of our voice offerings and reducing the cost of their telephone calls. N3 Voice Services are not mandated, they are a local choice and sold on merit so the statistics really speak for themselves.

“By the end of April of next year we expect the number of calls across N3 to have hit 10 million and we are on track to reach 100 million calls by May 2011.”

New computer designed for the over 60s

Call centre managers urged to go green o you have a box of unwanted or broken headsets under your desk? You can now exchange them for something you need, from a selection of over 12,000 products supplied by Voice Active, Tele Active and Active USB. After filling in the online form at RecyleMyHeadset.co.uk detailing the equipment you’d like to recycle, you’ll receive an estimate of your reward value and a freepost label. Once your equipment has been received your vouchers will be issued.

Recyclemyheadset.co.uk has been created in partnership with Voice Active, Tele Active and Active USB, to provide a service to recycle your old and unused telecommunications equipment and in return, reward you with credit to spend on new equipment.

D

A new computer aimed at people over 60 who are unfamiliar with PCs and the internet has been unveiled. SimplicITy is a simplified desktop which has just six buttons directing users to basic tasks such as e-mail and chat. Each made-to-order computer takes two weeks from request to delivery and can be ordered by post. Television presenter Valerie Singleton gives 17 video tutorials that are pre-loaded to the computer. The computer has been developed in partnership with Wessex Computers and a website aimed at older people called ‘discount-age’, set up by Ms Singleton.

£200m to develop broadband in Scotland Superfast broadband will bring an array of social, economic and health benefits to consumers and businesses across Scotland, Stephen Timms, Minister for Digital Britain has said. He has emphasised the government’s commitment to ensure towns, cities and remote areas of Scotland will have access to next generation networks by 2017.

Stephen Timms said: “The government will spend some £200m on improving the broadband networks of areas that have little or no service, including remote parts of Scotland. Already the market in Scotland is delivering innovative ways of connecting people to these superfast networks. The Fibrecity initiative is already delivering 100Mbps broadband to residents in Dundee via fibre optic networks beneath the city. It is this kind of marketled investment, supported by government funding that I want to see rolled out more widely so that all parts of Scotland can enjoy a brighter Digital Future.”

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

07

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

NEWSINBRIEF SNIA Europe announces new board of directors The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Europe has announced the new board of directors elected by its members for the 2009-2011 term. This group of 10 industry leaders will work closely together to deliver on SNIA Europe’s mission to promote the acceptance, deployment and confidence in open storage–related architectures, systems, services and technologies, across the IT and business community.

New chairman Bob Plumridge said: “My aim as chairman of SNIA Europe is to continue to build on the successes we have achieved in the nine years since its formation. Having just returned from the largest and most successful SNW Europe event ever and seeing the overwhelming interest from end users in many new innovations such as cloud, data de-duplication and solid state storage makes this an exciting time to a part of the storage industry.”

BT invites more businesses to trial 40Mb broadband Free to eligible business customers in the exchange area of Glasgow Halfway, the fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) trial will give local businesses the chance to sample download speeds of up to 40Mb and upstream speeds of 2Mb until the end of March 2010.

The trials, which have already been established in Muswell Hill, London and Whitchurch, Cardiff, are part of BT Group’s first major investment program into super-fast broadband. The provider has pledged to spend £1.5 billion by 2012 to ensure 40 per cent of UK homes and businesses (around 10 million properties) will be able to make use of fibre-based broadband.

New paper gives advice on software as a service Intellect UK, the trade body representing the UK technology industry, has launched a paper designed to explain and promote the benefits of Software as a Service (SaaS) products to senior managers and directors.

The paper, entitled ‘The business case for Software as a Service’, lays out the technical and cost benefits of SaaS, together with checklists covering selection criteria, legal considerations and comparisons of SaaS applications to traditional in-house systems.

Written in association with many of the leading companies in the UK’s SaaS community, the paper looks to help key decision makers navigate the hype that currently surrounds SaaS and determine whether it is right for their business. It also sets out to illustrate why there is a growing interest in SaaS, why it is having such an impact on both the technology industry and its customers, and why it isn’t really about the technology at all but about service to customer organisations.

08

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

Government to consult on penalties for breaches of data protection he government has launched a consultation seeking views on implementing a maximum penalty £500,000 for serious breaches of the data protection principles.

The consultation, ‘Civil Monetary Penalties: Setting the maximum penalty’, asks whether new fines of up to £500,000 will provide the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) with a proportionate sanction to impose on those seriously contravening the data protection principles.

Justice Minister, Michael Wills, said: “The government is committed to ensuring that personal data is handled and processed responsibly and lawfully. We want to ensure that the Information Commissioner’s Office has the powers it needs and is able to impose robust penalties on those who commit serious

T

breaches of data protection principles.”

Following discussions with the ICO, the government proposes that a fixed maximum penalty will give the ICO the flexibility and discretion to deal effectively with a large number and range of data controllers. The consultation closes on 21 December 2009.

TfL plans online lost property system ransport for London (TfL) has awarded PDMS for the development and implementation of a new lost property system. The new system, scheduled to go live in mid 2010, is expected to provide real-time data on lost property so that items can be returned to customers more efficiently.

Functionality planned for the

T

system includes a browser-based feature that allows customers to register a lost item as well as search for lost items over the web. TfL handles over 220,000 pieces of lost property a year from London’s buses, the Tube, London Overground, the Docklands Light Railway, taxis and Victoria Coach Station.

Written byTony Proctor, principal consultant/WARP manager, the University of Wolverhampton

INFORMATION SECURITY

SHARING SAFETY INFORMATION Warning, Advice and Reporting Points (WARPs) play a valuable role in helping the public and private sector stay on top of information security threats, incidents and solutions WARNING, ADVICE AND REPORTING Points (WARPs) have been operating for six years. Starting with a trial serving the 33 London boroughs, the WARP concept is now an established aspect of Local Government Information Assurance in many parts of the country. However, WARP are not exclusive to the local government sector. There are now 15 active in the UK and in 2007 the concept was “exported”, with the creation of the first overseas WARP by the electronics giant Hitachi in Japan. More recently a WARP has been set up for the Irish Republic.

Each WARP is made up of members that have a collective interest. This could be a common business sector, geographic location or other common factor. In the public sector WARPs exist for local government and the health sector, in the private sector BT has a WARP and in the voluntary sector the Radio Amateur’s Emergency Network has a WARP. TRUST IS EVERYTHING Trust is a key aspect of the programme. It is recommended that a WARP should consist of less than 100 members; more typical is 25-50.

In this way members will get to know each other and develop the trust essential to enable a genuine sharing of experiences without fear of consequences. Each member typically represents an organisation (e.g. a local council).

WARP was instigated by a government department, the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure (CPNI). Their role is to safeguard the physical, personnel and information security of the UK National Infrastructure. The growth in local government WARPs was aided by initial funding from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

THE FUNCTIONS OF A WARP WARPs have established relationships with national government Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs). In the UK these are GovCERTUK and CSIRTUK (CSIRT is a computer security incident response team, a variation on a CERT). Essentially, a WARP performs three major functions: • issuing warnings and news on information security threats, vulnerabilities and exploits. Importantly, members receive only the information that they request. This is achieved via automatic filtering software that they input their choices to. These alerts can be reworded to ensure that they are appropriate for the member audience.

• advice via regular face-to-face and virtual meetings for the sharing of experiences, best practice and access to a network experts in information security

• a reporting point for information security incidents Local councils have been going through the process of Government Connect. This is a programme to create a secure network between central government and every local authority in England and Wales (Scottish local authorities have a similar network).

Known as the Government Connect Secure Extranet, participants have to satisfy the Code of Connection in order to join the network. This is a list of security requirements that need to be satisfied and has been a hot topic in local government IT. WARP members have found it useful to share their problems and experiences with their peers at the local WARP Forum meetings. It is now a recommendation within the code of connection itself for users to be WARP members.

INFORMATION SHARING The University of Wolverhampton have been involved in WARP since 2007, helping to deliver WARPs to local government in both the West and East Midlands. We have also piloted an NHS WARP, the experiences of which were are sharing with the Department of Health. We are also working on extending the concept to the Smaller Business sector and are in discussions regarding the prospects for a WARP to support the needs of the London Olympic Games in 2012.

The information that we send out is from numerous reliable and credible sources. As a WARP Operator, we research what is currently over 25 sources each day. We also receive alerts from GovCERTUK and each WARP can set up peer-to-peer links to facilitate information sharing from one WARP to another. We encourage

reports from our members. This is because there will be occasions when a member may experience a problem before any information is publicly available. In these instances, WARP will be invaluable in being able to inform the relevant people very quickly. An example occurred recently where a WARP member was running one antivirus programme on their servers and a different programme on their end users computers. They experienced a virus infection that was not picked up by one of the antivirus programmes. Via the WARP network, we were able to very quickly inform over 50 councils in the Midlands about the issue.

WARP OPERATORS FORUM The WARP Operators Forum is the National group for WARP. The regular participants in this are WARP Member Representatives, CPNI, GovCERTUK and representatives from other government departments. There may be other participants as required, e.g. from industry.

Each year there is also the Annual WARP Forum that features expert presenters and workshops. This attracts a broader audience including international interest from countries that has previously included Japan, Canada, Estonia, Greece, Switzerland, Holland and Italy.

Tony Proctor is principal consultant/ WARP manager for the University of Wolverhampton and a member of the Information Security Awareness Forum.

FOR MORE INFORMATION E-mail: t.proctor@wlv.ac.uk Information Security Awareness Forum: www.theISAF.org

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

09

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

Councils can save £1 billion in hidden costs OUNCILS ACROSS the country are missing out on annual savings of £1 billion by continuing to run inefficient document production processes, according to new research from Limehouse Software, an Objective Corporation company and specialist government software solutions vendor.

Research, conducted across over 2,000 documents from a sample of 134 councils, was undertaken to map activities, costs and resources supporting the conception of documents through to their publication. The findings have identified a huge untapped area for cost savings and performance improvements in the process from initial conception through the collaborative authoring and consultation

C

10

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

processes to final publishing of these key documents.

Given the sheer number of documents – many of which are statutory – that are produced each year by local government, the study aims to highlight where, when and how real savings can be delivered against a backdrop of declining government support grants and increased pressures for substantial operational cost and headcount reduction. In addition, the research suggests business transformation and efficiency programmes, and offer local authorities a ‘new’ area to target to make savings.

FOR MORE INFORMATION For your free copy of the White paper go to www.limehousesoftware.com

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

GREEN IT

END-USER GREENING Margaret Ross MBE, secretary/vice chair of the British Computer Society’s GreenIT Specialist Group, demonstrates simple, every-day ways for end-users to green their workspace ALTHOUGH I EXPECT, ON STARTING to read this, you will say “I know this” and “I’ve done this”, maybe, just maybe, there will be a few new ideas here to help you improve greening at low or often zero cost.

The justification to go green is well known, not only to reduce the carbon footprint, save power and water (both increasingly limited resources), but also to enhance the feel-good factor, improve reputation, as well as issues like saving the polar bear. Other outcomes of these low/zero cost green changes discussed below often lead to saving money, and in one case to improve security not only for the organisation but also for the staff. For instance, for the cost of a few chocolates, power could be saved and minor changes in another area could result in water usage going down by 30 per cent.

Much has been written about changing data centres and data storage to become more green, but I am going to consider our use

of computers as end-users. Many of these ideas can be utilised also at home when using your personal computer to reduce your own costs and improve your carbon footprint.

CHANGING OUR ATTITUDES It has been found that we are much more conscious of saving power and reducing our carbon footprint at home than at work. Over 80 per cent of us turn off our computers and over 90 per cent turn off the lights when not wanted at home compared with about 66 per cent in both cases at work.

Staff should be encouraged to adopt the same green attitude at work as at home.

One of the first acts is to establish a senior manager as a green ‘champion’ and then to win-over and engage all staff by encouraging them to come up with their own ideas. One method could be to explain the implications of acting in a more carbon efficient manner, not by

using technical terms but by utilising everyday examples, such as these from the Carbon Trust: • A computer left on 24/7 will cost about £37 in year, whereas by switching it off at night and at weekends, the charge can be reduced to about £10 a year – saving enough energy to make 34,900 cups of coffee • A PC monitor switched off overnight saves enough energy to microwave six dinners • Turning off all non-essential equipment in an office for one night could save enough energy to run a small car for one hundred miles.

One creative way to illustrate the amount of cartridges and paper used in a month is to create a ‘mini mountain’ of used cartridges.

Somehow the physical volume is memorable.

Some photographs could be taken with members of staff against the ‘mini mountain’, and then again in six months, hopefully showing the same staff standing against a much smaller ‘hill’ of used cartridges. These photographs could then

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

11

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

GREEN IT

be put on display on the staff portal proving the saving. A series of these photographs showing the reduction of used printer cartridges could be used to raise awareness, possibly on the department’s Internet portal.

For lights that are not on automatic timers or motion detectors, stickers could be placed by the switches and everyone encouraged to switch off lights when not needed.

SAVINGS THOUGH SIMPLE ACTIONS Savings could be made if computers were switched off or put into sleep mode. Software, some freely available, can assist with this. The brightness on monitors could be reduced, with visability compensated by raising the contrast level. One manager, from a local authority walked round the departments after staff had gone home, either putting a chocolate on the desk of those that had turned off their computers, or sending an e-mail to those that had not.

When his action was repeated about a month later, he had to buy a lot more chocolates!

Active screen savers should be removed, as the same power is used to run the screens savers as to run a working monitor.

Photographs of family, pets and holidays could be encouraged instead. It was reported that HM Revenue & Customs expects reductions of 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £2 million savings per year by enabling active power management on PCs and laptops.

Sharing printers and other devices and applying time switches to non-networked equipment, e.g. photocopiers, can also result in savings.

It is predicted that there is an approximate 50 per cent increase in storage each year.

Therefore everyone should be encouraged to remove unwanted files on a regular basis, possibly by allocating a half day every three months or alternatively the last day before Christmas and New Year break, to remove unwanted draft copies of reports.

SAFETY, SECURITY & SAVINGS The concept of ‘hot rooming’ could be utilised for those times when only a limited number of staff are present, or when staff are working late or over weekends. By using specified areas only, rather than their normal desks and offices, reductions in heating, lighting and airconditioning can be achieved, also improving the security for the building and the personal security for those working outside normal hours.

The concept of home working or teleworking, even on a casual basis could be investigated, which might, depending on the individual’s personal situation, result in the reduction of their carbon footprint. This could also prove valuable as part of a business continuity plan; if staff could not go to the office due to a flu outbreak or transport problems, they could continue to work from home.

Reducing the waste of consumables and equipment is another key activity. For example, the default setting for printers could be double-

12

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

sided and we should all ask ourselves if it is really necessary to print. It was reported that the Department of Work and Pensions could save two million sheets of paper per year, reducing pressure on the environment (both trees and water to produce the paper) as well as carbon footprint and cost. The use of partially or wholly recycled products and materials is good, as is requiring information from suppliers on the ‘greenness’ of their products and services, not forgetting the implications of transportation.

Consideration of up-grading rather than

The BCS has also now introduced a Green IT Foundation qualification, consisting of multi-choice questions, aimed at enduser departments’ local Green IT experts, teachers, and those that use computers at work or at home. The BCS GreenIT Specialist Group was established to help end users, their departmental managers, home users and SMEs to achieve a more ‘green’ approach, such as by changing their use of computers. The group currently arranges events, mostly free, in different locations

The justification to go green is well known, not only to reduce the carbon footprint, save power and water (both potentially limited resources), but also to enhance the feel-good factor, improve reputation, as well as issues like saving the polar bear purchasing new equipment is useful. It was estimated that the carbon footprint to produce desktop models was more than generated by its usage for a three-year period. The Crown Prosecution Service saves £2.35 million by replacing computers every five years instead of every three years.

LEGISLATION & INITIATIVES The effect of the WEEE (Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment) legislation must be always taken into consideration. Ensure that an asset register is kept up-to-date, particularly with respect to the disposal of all equipment. You should also make sure that data is properly destroyed when disposing of redundant computers. Contracts could always include ‘new for old’ type clauses.

Unfortunately there are ethical aspects when sending old computers to Third World countries; although the immediate benefit is widely accepted, there is the long-term problem that eventually the equipment itself will have to be disposed of at the end of its life.

A simple action to encourage recycling is to provide easily accessible bins so everyone is able to recycle paper, plastic, batteries, and so on.

Various initiatives have been developed to encourage the reduction of carbon footprint, such as ‘10-10’ which encourages everyone to reduce their carbon footprint by 10 per cent in 2010. There is also the European Union CleanTech initiative that aims by 2020 to achieve savings of 20 per cent of primary energy consumption, reduction of greenhouse emissions and raising the share of renewable energy by 20 per cent. The EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres provides an opportunity for commitment and measurement of reduction of the carbon footprint. The BCS (Brisith Computer Society) has produced an ISEB Intermediate Certificate in EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres which is based on multi-choice questions on understanding how to implement and gain benefits from this code.

and produces short guidance e-leaflets, to assist, at zero or low-cost, improved ‘greenness’ in both the office and home.

WIN-WIN GREEN ACTIONS By looking for win-win actions, departments and organisations can gain the benefit of improving their ‘greenness’ and also provide other advantages. An example of this is the logistics provider. Wincanton plc, that has introduced, in addition to many of the actions already discussed, a variety of low-cost actions that have already solved problems in addition to improving their carbon footprint considerably. Employees were encouraged to car-share, by paying for the MoT of the driver, after the car share has been in operation for three months. The carbon footprint saved by the passengers can be measured, in addition to easing potential car-parking problems.

By purchasing six bicycles, which staff can borrow free for one month, the reduction of their carbon footprint can be measured. Many of the staff then realised the advantage in terms of personal fitness and financial savings of using a bicycle rather than a car. The company has also introduced a system of reducing their water consumption by 30 per cent by the introduction of motion sensors in the male toilets. This provides water flushing only when needed rather than on a regular 24/7 basis. A lesser saving was made by modifications in the ladies toilets.

The company is now participating in the EEF & British Gas Energy Challenge, at no cost to the company, which will identify other savings.

By looking for win-win situations such as these, there can be major long-term financial savings, improved staff morale, fitness and safety as well as improving the carbon footprint and ‘greenness’ of departments and their employees both at work and at home.

FOR MORE INFORMATION E-mail: margaret ross@solent.ac.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

GREEN IT

Our best now even better. fi 5900C fi-5900C fi-4860C22 fi-6670 / fi-6670A A

fi-6750S

fii-66770 / fi-66770A

PRODUCTION N SCANNERS

VRS Professional inclu uded

DEPARTMENTTAL SCANNERS S

WORKGROUP P SCANNERS S

VR RS Professional includ ded

VRS Proffessiona al inclluded

fi-4340C

What makes a good family?

You can rely on every single member.

With Fujitsu you are in safe hands and can rely on us and our product family members. With decades of experience, market and technology leadership*, Fujitsu scanners are state-of-the-art.

Fujitsu has exactly the scanner that suits your specific needs.

fi-6614 140 fi-5530C C2 fi-6240

fi 6230 fi-6230

fi-6130

How can our best grow even better?

By finding the ideal partner and combining industry proven solutions.

Fujitsu scanners are now supplied with VRS capturing tools right out off i the box. Document capture with Fujitsu scanners will thus be even easier, faster and more reliable by basically pressing a button.

Simply said: A good family unit.

www.milk-and-honey.de

For further information please visit http://emea.fujitsu.com/scanners

* Infosource Scanner Market Report Spring 2006

All names, manufacturer names, brand and product designations are subject to special trademark rights and are manufacturer‘s trademarks and/or registered brands of their respective owners. All indications are non-binding. Technical data is subject to change without prior notification.

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

13

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

DIGITAL BRITAIN

THE SOLUTION TO DIGITAL EXCLUSION? Trials of the new istop kiosks have proved successful in helping digitally excluded gain access to jobs and local information

AS MARTHA LANE FOX LEADS THE government campaign for digital inclusion, successful trials of a new initiative, istop kiosks, in the north east has demonstrated how to help the digitally excluded gain access to job and local information more easily as well as to reduce the cost of visits and resources from Jobcentre Plus. The project now rolls out south with Central Bedfordshire Council choosing istop kiosks as the preferred medium to communicate to the digitally excluded locally.

Successful tests in the north east have shown that a new approach to communicating information to those without online access can provide valuable benefits to both the public both locally and nationally and to the government in reducing the cost of providing this information.

HELPING THE UNEMPLOYED While istop kiosks are a boon to local authorities, it is Jobcentre Plus and its customers that have been capitalising most on this initiative.

During a period when the number of unemployed has risen sharply and is forecast to reach well over three million this year, many Jobcentre Plus offices in smaller towns have been closing as part of a long established strategy.

This has meant that many jobseekers who do not have internet access at home – almost 40 per cent of the population – have to travel up to 10 miles to view details of jobs available. Meanwhile Jobcentre Plus staff are stretched to serve them efficiently.

To overcome this, over the last year 70 touch screen information istop kiosks,

14

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

similar to those provided in Jobcentre Plus offices, have been introduced in the north east within local shops and post offices in outlying villages and suburbs. They not only provided access to jobs available but also to information about local services provided by councils such as Sedgefield and Alnwick.

This has reduced the time taken and costs incurred by the unemployed who lack computer access to check what jobs are on offer more frequently while, for Jobcentre Plus, the kiosks have significantly cut the cost of serving the jobseeker.

Currently the cost of serving a jobseeker through the kiosks, even within the unpromoted tests and before the number of unemployed increased, is just £1 per person per month, a sum that will drop quickly as more people use each terminal. Through Jobcentres, call centres and mobile phone data, the cost of providing the service is many times greater.

POSITIVE FEEDBACK The kiosks have proved popular with jobseekers. Louise Cairns said: “I think it’s the best thing ever! The nearest Job Centre costs me nearly £5 in bus fares to get to. I want to get back to work so when I pop out for my bread and milk I take my baby with me and check on the kiosk while I’m in the local Spar. I’ve printed out a couple of jobs and I’ve spotted one for my friend who’s looking for a teaching assistant’s post.“ Donna Neale of Coxhoe, County Durham said: “There is no local job centre, even the nearest was too far away. I had looked in local papers and by word of mouth.”

An istop kiosk was then installed in her local Londis store. “I used it three to four

times per week and after two weeks a vacancy appeared that was suitable. I applied and started my new job in Bowburn in September. I think the istop kiosk is great.”

Vince Robinson, former North East Director of the Department of Employment & Jobcentre Plus, commented: “The istop kiosks have been a major plus to Jobcentres and jobseekers. They have made a substantial difference and provided enormous savings and benefits to both.”

WORKING WITH GOVERNMENT Jonathan Savitt, managing director of istop kiosks, said: “Many MPs in the north east who have seen the kiosks in use in their constituencies have recognised the benefits.

We also received many positive comments from Ministers and MPs who saw the kiosks demonstrated at the Labour Party Conference.

They saw that the kiosks can also be used to communicate other national and local government information such as about swine flu. We have extended the trial to currently eight stores in the Central Bedfordshire area in co-operation with the local council.

“So far, through our chairman Arun Patel, we have invested £3m in this successful test to help the government to assist the North East unemployed to find work.

“We would next like to meet ministers at the Department of Work and Pensions to explain the trial, to discuss how the savings and benefits could be introduced nationwide and whether some of the money in the budget for this department might be spent on this way to reduce the cost of helping the unemployed nationally.

“We are working closely with the government’s outsourcing contractors who are helping the unemployed find work. We have also met with Martha Lane Fox who is considering the istop kiosk as a solution within her campaign to get the digitally excluded to seek internet access.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION Web: www.istopkiosks.co.uk

DIGITAL EXCLUSION: THE FACTS • 40 per cent of the population do not have internet access at home [National Audit Office Report July 2007] • Nearly 50 per cent of Britain’s over 50s do not have access to a computer [Source: Intel & Age Concern Report 2006] • 75 per cent of people counted as socially excluded are also digitally excluded [Source: UK Online Centres Digital Inclusion Report 2007]

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

IT TRAINING

IT’S GOOD TO TALK Is it really good to talk? The growth in social computing has been matched by the paranoia the subject generates – so is it friend or foe, asks the Institute of IT Training’s Alan Bellinger THE TOP 15 TECHNOLOGY TRENDS EA SHOULD WATCH Social computing in and around the enterprise • Collaboration platforms become people-centric • Customer community platforms integrate with business apps • Telepresence gains widespread use Process-centric data and intelligence • Business intelligence goes real time • Master data management matures • Data quality services become real-time Restructured IT services platforms • SaaS will be ubiquitous for packaged apps • Cloud-based platforms that become standard infrastructure and platform as a service • Client virtualisation is ubiquitous Agile and fit-to-purpose applications • Business rules processing moves to the mainstream • BPM will be Web 2.0-enabled • Policy-based SOA becomes predominant • Security will be data and content-based Mobile as the new desktop • Apps and business processes go mobile • Mobile networks and devices gain more power IN A RECENT REPORT, FORRESTER Research listed the top 15 technology trends EA should watch and then grouped them into five major themes. The first of these themes was “Social Computing in and around the Enterprise.

Within this area Forrester listed collaboration platforms, community platforms and telepresence as the critical technology trends.

The real problem with a discussion on social computing is that it’s automatically assumed that we’re talking about Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube et al and that immediately raises fears around both security and timewasting. Collaboration is the process of individuals interacting with their peers, within the organisation, with trusted

partners, or even wider. And to make collaboration effective you’re looking at shared workspaces and social networking tools.

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING There are four critical areas in which social networking can bring benefits to the organisation: • Closer to the citizen – the citizen can be alerted to an area of interest, can be involved in the discussion process, and, as a result, they will feel more involved in the community (whether it’s a local community or a community of interest) • Internal productivity – employees, at all levels, should benefit from

collaboration, and cross-function issues will be handled more expeditiously • Market awareness – networking with peers is a great way to cut through supplier hyperbole • Partner liaison – the ability to interact with partners at multiple levels can be a huge benefit.

ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL COMPUTING You can be sure that social computing is going on somewhere within your organisation – even if you believe you’ve banned it. If that’s the case, and it’s watertight, they’ll be doing it from home. So what areas should you consider if you want to adopt a position of enabling it rather than prohibiting

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

15

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

IT TRAINING

it? There are five key considerations.

The first consideration is the selection of publishing tools – which will include blogs, wikis, podcasts, and content feeds. Next come the interpersonal communication and collaboration tools such as instant messaging, texting, e-mail,

already using this resource? And, if so, what are they getting out of it? By comparing issues that your staff are confronting with their peers around the world creates a fantastic resource for decision-making, planning, problem solving and risk avoidance.

There are a number of social networking sites for your L&D staff, and many of the discussions are extremely thought-provoking forums and shared editing. The next issue is searching and navigating; people must be able to find what they’re looking for, and it’s always helpful to include bookmarking, tagging, and rating the content. In penultimate place comes community creation and management; as communities won’t develop by osmosis, they need help by using techniques such as forum moderation, user ratings, content promotion and role management (domain champion, contributors, and users). And finally we come to managing the system which involves single sign-on, authentication and access management.

WITHIN ICT Social networking will have enormous benefits within the ICT department. Most suppliers have a strong networking programme in place; an example is Cisco. Their goal was to establish a peer-to-peer social networking group that would create a community of product champions to promote and support the business. In its first 12 months the Cisco Learning Network received over 10m hits, has 90,000 registered users, and a visitor to user conversion rate of six per cent. The challenge for Cisco was to “let go”, and allow the community to create its own momentum.

So, if you’re a Cisco site, are your people

WITHIN THE ENTERPRISE Now if social networking’s such a benefit to your staff, why restrict its use to the ICT group? Each of the functions within the organisation may well find it beneficial to be able to network with each other. For example, collaborating on a knowledge base will create an invaluable resource from which the less gifted within the organisation can benefit.

But that’s not where the real benefit lies – social networking across functional areas, as opposed to within them – will facilitate the process of breaking down the “stovepipes” and will be the basis of harnessing the collective intelligence within the organisation.

Virtually all public sector organisations have a sophisticated partnering network and creating closed (i.e. restricted to invitees only) social networks between your organisation and your partners will make communications more open and immediate. By having multi-level communications to your partners you are better able to penetrate the organisation and get to the individual(s) with the knowledge or decisionmaking power you need at any particular time.

WITH THE CITIZEN And so to the real challenge – opening up the collaboration process to the citizen.

That concept may well set the pulses racing.

But, if you’re daunted by the thought, think back to that Cisco example above. To make the social networking site as successful as it has been, Cisco had to back away from the position of “we know best” and accept that there will always be situations in which their users actually “know best” – especially when it comes to practicalities.

So, just as Cisco had to “let go” then anyone looking to use social networking has to let go at some point in time. The point is you’re not letting go too much; social networking sites are advisory rather than policy-making.

And your staff will benefit from networking with their peers – either in this country or abroad. There are a number of social networking sites for your L&D (Learning & Development) staff, and many of the discussions are extremely thought-provoking. They vary from “how do I?” to “has anyone?” and on to “what do you think about?” One far-reaching discussion was about whether the L&D function should be part of the HR department. Another was around the greatest inhibiters to L&D within the organisation. You’d be surprised how many felt that it was the ICT department.

And that, indeed, is the key point that comes out of this issue of social networking. Whilst the classroom is not yet dead, its role in skills transfer is diminishing, and in its stead, the L&D function needs to use sophisticated ICT solutions – and is dependent on your support to be able to deploy them. At least, that’s true to an extent, because if they don’t get your support they’ll find what they need “in the cloud” – unless you lock that out too!

Source: Forrester Research Inc; the synopsis can be downloaded from http:// www.forrester.com/Research/Document/ Excerpt/0,7211,54322,00.html

LMMatters – developing leadership and management excellence MMATTERS, the UK partner for Harvard Business Publishing and Fifty Lessons, focuses on providing high quality resources to develop leadership and management excellence.

Harvard Business Publishing resources are designed to help build critical leadership and management skills at all levels. The online resources include Harvard ManageMentor™, Stepping up to Management and Leadership Transitions.

Harvard ManageMentor provides tools, templates and expert advice on more than 40 business topics. This high quality and well-liked resource is the most practical resource for fostering skills and

L

applying them on the job immediately.

Fifty Lessons is an invaluable resource for organisations that want to encourage behavioural change and for individuals seeking guidance in their own career. With over 1000 inspiring and engaging videos with actionable suggestions for building on the lessons learnt, the Fifty Lessons library demonstrates memorable and powerful storytelling from over 200 of the world’s most

respected business leaders to enhance the development of individuals in your organisation.

LMMatters has a wealth of experience in sourcing the right solution for your organisation. With experience in many sectors including government, telecommunications, finance and retail, we can ensure the right resources are successfully implemented to deliver innovative leadership and management development programmes.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 08451 707 700 E-mail: info@lmmatters.com Web: www.lmmatters.com

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

17

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

IT TRAINING

MEETING THE REGULATORY PRINCIPLES FOR E-ASSESSMENT Michael Kayser, VP and director of programme management at Pearson VUE, presents a brief crib-sheet on the regulatory principles for e-assessment, what they mean to awarding bodies, and how your testing partner can help ensure compliance 4. OPERATION OF E-ASSESSMENT SYSTEMS OFQUAL: E-assessment systems must be stable and work reliably to generate valid and reliable assessments and/or results.

They must be demonstrably consistent with relevant recognised standards of good practice and be easy to navigate.

PV: This refers to the need to meet with any other regulations and to be able to demonstrate compliance, for example being able to generate key information such as results or system error reports on demand. Your testing partner should be able to show regulators at any time that the systems you are using are sufficiently robust to support high-stakes assessment.

E-ASSESSMENT IS CONTINUOUSLY growing and developing all around us, and the 13 regulatory principles introduced in 2007 by OFQUAL marked a milestone in the education industry’s acceptance of the technology. The establishment of regulation surrounding the use of electronic systems in assessment demonstrates that the regulator aims to modernise the qualifications system, encourage and develop innovation and continuous improvement, and ensure that the integrity, reliability and validity of all forms of e-assessment are upheld.

The full April 2007 regulatory principles document is available to download from OFQUAL at www.ofqual.gov.uk/461.aspx, but here we give a brief crib-sheet on what they are, and a summary of what they mean. OFQUAL’s own summaries are outlined in each section, immediately followed with our own comments.

1. VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF E-ASSESSMENT OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must ensure that assessment delivered and maintained by electronic means is fit for purpose and produces a valid and reliable measure of a candidate’s skills, knowledge, understanding and/or competence. The choice of assessment method must be independent of the technology on which it may be based.

Pearson VUE: In supporting clients with this principle, the testing partner should always propose the method, system or technology that is best suited to giving the most accurate measure possible.

18

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

Technology should never be used simply for its own sake but rather to measure something more, or better, than before.

2. SECURITY OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must maintain and review the security of e-assessment systems to ensure authentic test outcomes and protection against corruptive influences. Procedures must be in place to assure the security of hardware and software and the integrity of test data.

PV: This must be a primary area of focus for any respectable test delivery company.

Our own systems include E-encryption and item banks with features like pooling and randomisation, to ensure that, from the creation of every item, through test delivery to the final reporting of results and candidate data, there is minimal risk either of content leaking, candidates cheating, or test-takers’ data going astray.

3. DATA INTEGRITY – INPUT/OUTPUT OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must be confident that systems have been thoroughly tested to ensure that they have sufficient capacity to store, retrieve, generate and share all necessary data, including the ability to exchange data securely with other internal and external systems, as required, without endangering the integrity of the data.

PV: Many awarding bodies do not have the capacity themselves to hold and traffic data securely. This can be part of the service of the e-assessment provider, who may be able to take responsibility for this aspect on your behalf.

5. INTEGRITY OF E-ASSESSMENT SYSTEMS OFQUAL: Systems must allow for flexibility in the light of technological development. System testing must be thorough, and be reviewed at regular intervals once the system is operational.

Awarding bodies must ensure that suitable support facilities are in place for centres and that there is a comprehensive contingency plan should any part of the system fail.

PV: This regulation concerns technical support – a formal arrangement must be reached between the awarding body and the e-assessment partner to ensure that the software, hardware and infrastructure have the capacity for the functionality and volume of use with which they are expected to cope.

6. ACCESS TO E-ASSESSMENT OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must have policies and procedures in place to ensure that disabled learners are not treated less favourably than non-disabled learners when implementing e-assessment. This must include disabilities as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 and subsequent regulations and guidelines.

PV: Here we see an example of how these regulations must be met in conjunction with other existing legislation and best practice wherever relevant. At every stage of the development of an e-assessment programme, it is the duty of all those involved in developing tests to ensure compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act, not only in terms of physical access, but also in such considerations as font size, voice-activated software or any other necessary adjustments so as not to exclude anybody on the basis of disability.

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

IT TRAINING

mix of items that can be presented in a random order, and which add up to a test of the same difficulty level as the one being sat by the next candidate. With this model, you could make your test available every single day of the year, without needing to create all-new items for every test. By thorough testing of item banks and of the randomised item selection technology (where applicable), the testing provider must be able to demonstrate that every test is as robust, reliable and valid as the next.

Michael Kayser

7. AVOIDANCE OF BARRIERS TO NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR LEARNERS OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must ensure that the use of technology does not create barriers for learners by providing user-friendly interfaces for centres and learners and by enabling familiarisation and/or training sessions appropriate to the mode of delivery.

Provision must be made available for learners with particular assessment requirements.

PV: It is important to make the point that no test-taker should be at a disadvantage if they are less computer-literate or confident with technology. A test should test solely what it is intended to test, and not in any way be a test of the candidate’s skill or familiarity with the testing medium.

That medium should therefore be geared up to be as easy to use as possible.

8. BUSINESS CONTINUITY/ DISASTER RECOVERY OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must have suitable measures in place to ensure the effective management of business continuity to address business interruption and the need for disaster recovery for their e-assessment services and systems, in the event of a system’s failure. This management should be underpinned by measures to identify potential risks to those services and systems so that they can be managed to minimise disruption.

PV: This is addressed in detail at the Service Level Agreement stage. Between the awarding body and the testing partner, adaptability must be built-in to cope with all worstcase scenarios and risks; and responsibility for this is shared according to that SLA. 9. AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED ON-DEMAND TESTS OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must ensure that there is a sufficient volume of assessment items or questions to provide consistently secure, robust, balanced and unique on-demand tests, appropriate to the form of assessment.

PV: Electronic item banking means that on any given day, every candidate could be sitting a different test, containing a unique

10. TEST CONDITIONS AND ENVIRONMENT OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must have policies and procedures in place to ensure that centres manage the controls on test conditions in relation to on-demand testing, invigilation, secure test environments and health and safety.

candidate gets that one right then a harder one is selected, or if wrong an easier one. This continues until the candidate is consistently getting one right and one wrong, like an oscillating wave of limited height and depth.

This is currently used to great success in nursing exams, but is still considered very much cutting-edge rather than industry standard.

Where this method is used, the regulation requires that the system be adequately tested to ensure consistency and accuracy.

13. USE OF E-PORTFOLIOS FOR ASSESSMENT OFQUAL: In addition to regulatory principles 1–11, e-portfolio systems should store and maintain performance evidence for access by all required parties securely, meet the evidence needs for a range of qualification types and enable learners to move their

Pearson VUE provides a full suite of services from test development to data management, and delivers exams through the world’s most comprehensive and secure network of test centres in 165 countries PV: This regulation protects both the test-taker in terms of the security of the personal data that they share with the test centre, and the security of the assessment itself. It also relates to current health and safety legislation, ensuring that test centres meet their obligations in this area.

11. SYSTEM FAMILIARISATION FOR ASSESSORS AND SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS OFQUAL: Awarding bodies must provide suitable support for system users, such as familiarisation sessions and guidance for assessors and moderators.

PV: E-assessment often involves cutting-edge technology, which everybody involved in the administration of the tests needs to understand as much as necessary. While the test delivery company must ensure the required level of knowledge and understanding of the systems and software, the awarding body must take equal responsibility to give clear guidance on judgments and decision making for assessors dealing with different media of work.

12. ADAPTIVE TESTING OFQUAL: In addition to regulatory principles 1-11, awarding bodies must ensure that any adaptive testing that they provide produces robust assessment that reliably identifies the appropriate level of each learner and is comparable across different modes of delivery where this is required.

PV: Adaptive testing is an advanced psychometric method for accurately targeting an individual’s knowledge level. The test algorithm selects an item to start and if the

portfolios from one centre to another.

PV: This regulation cements the value of the achievement of each test-taker. No test-taker should be bound to one testing system or organisation by any built-in incompatibility. It is up to all of us in the industry to make sure that the test-taker’s e-portfolio can store and maintain a variety of forms of performance evidence or coursework, which is secure but accessible to any authorised party, and can be freely migrated at the test-taker’s choice.

Pearson VUE is a global leader in computer-based testing for information technology, academic, government and professional testing programmes around the world. Pearson VUE provides a full suite of services from test development to data management, and delivers exams through the world’s most comprehensive and secure network of test centres in 165 countries. Pearson VUE is a business of Pearson (NYSE: PSO; LSE: PSON), the international media company, whose businesses include the Financial Times Group, Pearson Education and the Penguin Group.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Web: www.pearsonvue.co.uk

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

19

Most cost-saving proposals aren’t this far-reaching.

MLL Telecom brings you far-reaching communications networks, purpose-designed for the public sector.

Challenge MLL to achieve the most from your next network upgrade at the lowest possible cost: contact us today at enquiries@mlltelecom.com

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

SOCITM REVIEW

RE-INVENTING LOCAL SERVICES Conference report: Socitm 2009 Re-inventing local services – radical thinking, practical solutions THE TITLE OF SOCITM 2009, Re-inventing local services – radical thinking, practical solutions, linked directly the dominant issue for anyone working in the public sector – the depth of future public spending cuts, and whether traditional approaches to change are sufficient to mitigate the crisis.

The Socitm 2009 programme provided a series of speakers who referred to this theme or tackled it head on, whether by discussing future technologies or setting out radical ways of re-allocating the increasingly limited resources available for local service delivery.

The conference’s opening speaker was Geoff Mulgan, director of the social innovation think tank The Young Foundation. His advice to delegates was that as council IT chiefs, they should be taking a leadership role in the coming period of drastic cuts – which he was anticipating as a period not just of retrenchment but also of technological revolution.

UK society was in a ‘twilight zone’ of

recession whose length and depth remains unclear and imminent political change. Based on statements from the Conservative leader David Cameron, this could mean significant change for the way ICT is deployed, not least from his promises to use technology to introduce greater transparency to government.

SOCIAL INNOVATION These developments were taking place at a time of significant social innovation powered by new technologies. Things like the School of Everything website (schoolofeverything. com/), which brings together people who can teach any skills or subject and Good Gym (www.thegoodgym.org), which joins up people’s fit routines with helping elderly people, are quick, easy examples of IT use.

They contrast with IT deployment in local government and Whitehall, which is typically over-engineered and under-delivered.

Mulgan predicted that the outcome of the

current economic confusion, pain and turmoil would not be a return to the past, but a period of innovation around institutions and regulation allowing existing ‘new technologies’ to be diffused throughout society, their benefits realised and a period of extraordinary growth achieved.

As a result in the next 10 or 20 years, even without a great amount of new investment, there will be a revolution in service delivery.

The principles that will shape the next phase of development are those of services that are lower cost; modular, incremental, and organic; simple and direct; and draw on peer support and user power, he said. Public involvement in policymaking can be enabled by the new technologies, and so too can citizens taking more responsibility for doing things themselves.

Collaboration and people-power can also be enabled within a public sector organisation. The US Intelligence Services have developed ‘Intellipedia’, a way in which any operative at any level and in any location

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

21

• WiMAX – affordable wireless city • mobile cctv – citizen safety and traffic control • licensed – secure guaranteed service • mobile working – on line anywhere • digital inclusion – no phone line required • civil contingency – true diversity

Call for further information on 0203 178 5880 or email us on info@ukbroadband.com www.ukbroadband.com

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

SOCITM REVIEW

can share knowledge and information about any subject of potential value.

KEY TRENDS Another key trend will be the rise of ‘hyperlocal media’, online information being grouped and gathered around communities the size of just a few neighbouring streets or a US city block. Up to now it has been easier to find out national information online than details of what your neighbours were doing, he said, but “in the next few years we are going to see interesting competition between people to get into this hyperlocal space, with councils, citizen-led initiatives and local media all trying to do the same.”

Ultimately, the biggest driver of innovation will be money – or lack of it. Top managers in the NHS know the health system has to change radically in the next 10 years, away from hospital models. They are starting to support social enterprises, make radically different use of IT and networks, move more IT into homes for use by individuals, and to reduce pressure on the centre.

Approaching things from a more directly technical background, Adrian Joseph, managing director of Google Enterprise EMEA spoke about the possibilities of cloud computing. It will be the most disruptive force in technology in the next five years or so, he said, but with compelling benefits.

Cloud computing is a network model whereby a third party holds all an organisation’s data and software on servers remotely – ‘in the cloud’ – to be accessed online from any device or location: software used is ’software as a service’, maintained and upgraded centrally in a ‘thin client’ model. Tough economic times will drive more and more businesses into the cloud, thanks to three main benefits.

SAVINGS The first is a potentially huge reduction in costs, stemming from savings in software installation and productivity (computing any time, any location, and over any device), and side-benefits such as better environmental sustainability.

The second is a greater facility for innovation, with software updated more frequently centrally. And the third is user empowerment: the cloud computing model underpins most of the collaborative successes already seen online such as wikipedia, Joseph said.

Outsourcing IT is increasingly cited as a way councils can save money and improve services – but not if the relationship between contractor and supplier breaks down delegates heard.

Andrew Unsworth, head of e-government at Edinburgh City Council, said Harvard University research had discovered that if a poor relationship exists with a supplier, contractors lose on average 15 per cent of the value of a contract. Conflict means a greater need to monitor and audit supplier activity; lower satisfaction levels; and ineffective

Ultimately, the biggest driver of innovation will be money – or lack of it. Top managers in the NHS know the health system has to change radically in the next 10 years, away from hospital models. They are starting to support social enterprises, make radically different use of IT and networks, move more IT into homes for use by individuals, and to reduce pressure on the centre execution. In contrast a good relationship creates time and frees up resources.

David Wilde, CIO at Westminster City Council, told how, when he started there in 2008, the council was six years into a 10 year ‘big bang’ deal with Vertex, outsourcing a huge package of services from customer service to IT. The IT side was not going well, however, with customer satisfaction at 22 per cent, and costs running at double what they should have been.

With activity driven by change requests and relationship management by conflict, productivity was poor and once, the whole service had gone down for six or seven days.

Change began with a ‘critical default notice’ to Vertix: they were given 120 days to fix the situation or face contract termination.

A review of the entire IT service, including metrics, budget, structure, and revealed problems beyond the supplier and internal reorganisation, including removal of things that undermined external delivery was set in train.

By day 90, a service improvement plan was in place. Micro management was abandoned: Westminster set out the quality of service expected, and left Vertex to deliver. As part of the plan’s implementation support staff from the supplier undertook repeated ‘floorwalking’ exercises to go out and met council IT users. It was expensive, but they fixed problems there and then, and the time was repaid because help desk calls went down.

The turnaround has been dramatic, with customer satisfaction currently up at nearly

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

23

Increase your information security by spending less The recession and subsequent impact on public spending means that many public sector bodies need to seriously consider how they’re going to meet future needs at a time of relentlessly growing demand but static (or even shrinking) IT budgets.

Vistorm, an HP company, believes that the public sector needs to break from the annualised and tactical security problem solving that only addresses isolated threats and not the overall risk, by

introducing a new holistic and integrated approach.

We call it Complete Information Security - a clearly defined, well managed and continuously optimised program that delivers substantial operational efficiencies in terms of lower composite risk.

Taking this approach will lead to increased security levels and deliver dramatic cost reductions. But don’t just take our word for it, independent figures by industry leading bodies have estimated this could reduce the security budget by up to 50%.

To find out more about Vistorm’s Complete Information Security approach visit www.vistorm.com or contact George Burgess, Public Sector Sales Manager on 07545 503818 or via George.Burgess@Vistorm.com

www.vistorm.com

an HP Company

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

SOCITM REVIEW

80 per cent, and around £1 million of savings being realised annually, and the supplier now winning further profitable business from other parts of the council.

HELPING COMMUNITIES A completely different approach to local service delivery called ‘Total Place’ was outlined by Jason Lowther, director of policy and delivery at Birmingham City Council.

Total Place, now being piloted in a number of UK locations, involves working closely with other local public services, underpinned by local area agreements, including working towards joint commissioning of services and joint appointments.

Together the partners in Birmingham have sketched out a series of principles “to get more for less”, which include ‘co-production’ – helping communities to help themselves; personalisation of services, as far as possible; and prevention – anticipating problems and intervening early to prevent much larger problems (and expenditure) later.

Project themes include early intervention for children with behavioural difficulties; learning disabilities; mental health; reducing impact of drug and alcohol misuse; and combating

gangs. For each theme, the team will visit sites that are known to be innovating by collaborative working across agencies.

They will also look at savings, since the project as a whole is unashamedly about saving money, as well as improving services.

The key is putting the citizen at the centre.

At the moment, a vulnerable young person for example, will have masses of reviews by housing, social services, mental health etc, none of them talking to each other.

As part of Total Place, Birmingham had carried out an exercise mapping total public expenditure on the area, he said, and where it was spent, and it had come out as £7.2 billion a year, excluding pensions. Very little of that money is currently spent on prevention – in the health service, less than two per cent is spent on preventing ill-health. And far more is spent on employment benefits than on regeneration and job creation.”

There are problems with a mismatch of where savings accrue. Parenting classes are known to work, and for every £1 spent by council, £4 comes back to public sector. But only £1 of this comes back to the council itself, while other partners get £3 back.

Another stumbling block is the Treasury’s

short-term financial horizons, which make expenditure impossible if savings only accrue several years’ ahead.

Conflicting performance management and regulatory or audit expectations on different public sector partners was another barrier at national level. Without a single performance management structure for public services, collaboration between public sector agencies will not work as current targets pull in different directions.

As well as these ‘big picture’ sessions, delegates were able to attend sessions on a wide rage of other topics. One of the most popular was the presentation on The Council of the Future, when Socitm Consulting manager Doug Maclean explained how every local authority can use this model to become a more agile (and virtual) organisation, making maximum use of technology and information to respond effectively to customer needs, despite the challenges of the recession and shrinking budgets.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Summaries of presentations, slides and video from the conference are available for all to view at www.socitm09.net

Revolutionise your communications with a single platform from Cable&Wireless HE CURRENT ECONOMIC climate has led to further pressure on front line services and operational efficiency drives. As a result, there has never been a better time to improve the effectiveness of your customer engagement. By offering more efficient and effective communications to your citizens and staff, you can not only save money but reduce time to delivery and offer more targeted and personalised communications.

Redefining your communication strategy and delivery medium allows you to reduce ‘avoidable contact’. As National Indicator 14, one of the 198 indicators against which local government will be assessed within the new performance management framework; by reducing transactional contact (therefore allowing you to focus on the high value calls) it enables you to spread the total call numbers and better managing the peak volumes. An example of ‘avoidable contact’ include calls from citizens to chase progress on service requests – such calls are usually of little value to either the citizen or the local authority, however, they can often represent a significant proportion of contact volumes.

By reminding citizens about both medical and social appointments, no shows could be avoided, which cost the NHS an estimated £600M per annum. Not only does this have

T

incredible cost savings associated, but reminders of this nature also improves citizen engagement with the services they are receiving.

Similarly, bill and submission reminders help forgetful payers, and helping ensuring tax returns are submitted on time changes the way you communicate with your citizens, providing useful information on important matters, via a medium of their choice.

Improved employee engagement and departmental communication systems drive many of the efficiencies needed from tighter budgets. However, with disparate and, in many cases, manual processes in place, this can be hard to achieve quickly. Employees and citizens are increasingly becoming conscious of the environmental impact of types of traditional communication and are eager for choice.

Cable&Wireless can address these challenges by offering a single platform delivering an immediate and positive impact. Personal preference and inclusion has always been a key objective for the Public Sector and this solution offers over 20 different services, presenting an extensive choice of media, which can be taken individually or as a complete integrated solution. This single platform approach meets the challenges faced by all areas of government in creating a low risk, evolutionary standard to integrate communication channels, connect different regions and agencies and drive the total cost of delivering service down.

FOR MORE INFORMATION E-mail: publicsector@cw.com Web: www.cw.com

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

25

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

Broadbandscape – untethered broadband

We run your IT so you can run your business

LUENOWHERE deploys and operates wholesale, open access, urban ‘4G’ wireless WiMAX networks to serve multiple user-communities including local authorities, business, public safety, and transport.

Imagine having the quality of a fixed line, with the portability of 3G. Untethered broadband means high capacity and high quality connectivity where it is needed, when it is needed.

Our WiMAX platform can provide connectivity for a range of applications from CCTV and digital signage, to mobile working, backup and resilient broadband circuits, sensor/meter reading, and more.

We work to make our open platform available to specialist service providers, becoming an alternative wholesale infrastructure to existing fixed networks such as BT. In this way we can integrate

W important it is to have

B

transparently with a customer’s existing service provider, whether a CCTV specialist or enterprise communications provider.

We meet with you to understand your requirements, and to help you understand other areas where our platform could benefit you.

We formulate an initial business case outlining the savings, or estimated value, of services to be provided so the costs and benefits are clearly established, before proceeding commercially.

Bluenowhere looks to invest and own the network and deliver services on a subscription basis, although we are happy to explore flexible funding models.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 0844 887 0636 E-mail: info@broadbandscape.com Web: www.broadbandscape.com

Reduce costs with Open Source from Opace PACE TECHNOLOGY Solutions is a West Midlands based IT consultancy and web development company which specialises in practical IS/IT strategies and solutions that are cost effective.

Our consultants deliver projects that help customers to achieve their business goals while at the same time reducing total cost of ownership by lowering and even removing the software and hardware costs. The use of Free/Open Source software and cloud-based solutions such as Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing are fundamental initiatives we incorporate into our business model.

Our highly skilled web development team works closely with our customers to formulate and deliver strategic online marketing solutions

O

26

that enable them to raise their online profile through Open Source CMS solutions, SEO and Social Media Marketing.

Before establishing Opace Technology Solutions, the managing director, David Bryan, held senior positions within some of the UK’s leading business/ technology consultancies. During this time, he led a number of IS/IT strategy and enterprise architecture projects for government organisations such as the NHS, HMRC, Police and Ministry of Justice. While working on these projects, he recognised the need for an IT consultancy which specialised in cost reduction using initiatives such as Open Source.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Please contact us on 0845 017 7661 or e-mail: info@opace.co.uk

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

E ALL KNOW HOW

the right IT infrastructure in place. Real Point helps, freeing up time and money by implementing and maintaining the right IT solution for you.

We start by carrying out a free systems health check, ascertaining any current issues. You receive a written report, a fantastic overview of how your IT is working for you now and into the future.

We help clients with disaster recovery, security of data and systems, viruses, malware and other threats. We also carry out software audits to ensure your licensing is legal and up-to-date.

And we don’t just leave it at what’s happening now, we work with you and your business plan to create a short and long term strategy to make sure your IT systems deliver the maximum benefit for your business.

Real Point work with all sizes and shapes of clients from starter companies, offering IT help, advice, setting up everything you’ll need to get your business up and running, to companies that have outgrown their current systems and are looking at what to do next.

So give us a call and see if we can help your systems work better for your business.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Real Point Business Technology Tel: 01676 521444 E-mail: office@realpoint.co.uk Web: www.rpbt.co.uk

Oceanus software solutions and services CEANUS WAS FORMED in 1997 and provides software solutions and services for customer acquisition and customer service environments in consumer finance, insurance, retail, telecoms and utility companies. Their Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organisational processes.

Their technologies combine content, case and process management to help customers to meet their demanding organisational goals and targets through the efficient management of work across their businesses as well as helping their customer-facing teams increase their personal productivity and improve efficiency, service, compliance and control.

Over the years Oceanus has built an unparalleled track record in delivering successful, referenceable solutions for an impressive list of blue chip clients, including

O

Zurich Insurance, Cumberland Building Society and Alliance & Leicester who use its solutions and services. The Oceanus management team have in excess of 70 man years of experience in supplying, implementing and supporting Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management (BPM) systems and in particular IBM‟s FileNet technology, who are a consistent industry leader in these markets.

Oceanus has concentrated on delivering rapid business benefit through rigorous solution design. Within its core Case Management Solution (CMS), Oceanus developed email and web form gateways, process performance reporting, Citrix deployments, extensive automated management information and proactive ECM system monitoring tools ahead of the market.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 0121 2030203 Web: www.oceanus.co.uk

Written by Steve Bannister, director, Avail Consulting

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

ICT CONSULTING

ICT COST REDUCTION – WILL IT REALLY DELIVER RESULTS? A clear understanding of the most effective ways to deliver lasting reductions in ICT expenditure is needed THERE WAS MUCH DEBATE during party conference season over which high profile areas of public spending, such as health, education, defence or transport, will face the biggest budgetary squeeze.

This debate will continue over the months to come but there does seem to be agreement that spending on front line services should be preserved if at all possible. This has clear implications for spending on supporting back office functions and ICT – these areas will be hit hardest and earliest. The Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) report, published by the Treasury in May of this year, estimated that around 20 per cent of the approximately £16 billion per annum spent on public sector ICT could be saved without compromising the quality of service delivery. ICT spending is clearly in the firing line.

In response to this, many CIOs have already started to shift priorities: away from managing complex ICT procurements and implementations towards a much narrower focus on cost reduction and cost avoidance.

UNDERSTANDING COST LEVERS To best support this prudent shift in priorities, we need a clear understanding of the most effective ways to deliver lasting reductions in ICT expenditure – steering well clear of indiscriminate ‘slash and burn’ policies.

The OEP report is a good starting point for building a cost reduction programme, but for an ICT leadership team to be really successful, it will need to understand the organisation’s specific ICT cost levers.

In our experience, the best way to start thinking about this is to consider the two sides of the equation: demand and supply. Unfortunately organisations often rely on a narrow definition

of supply side levers (e.g. people and hardware) and also tend to overlook the potential to control costs by influencing customer demand.

This article argues that in order to meet the efficiency challenge facing public sector ICT organisations there is a clear need for a stronger focus on demand-side levers but also for a much broader consideration of supply-side levers.

TWO SIDES TO THE STORY On the demand-side, the two main cost reduction levers within operational IT are reducing the scope of services delivered and smoothing out demand patterns. For example, there may currently be a demand for intensive hands-on support from particular application or desktop experts, and this demand may peak at month- or year-ends, leading to excessive staffing levels throughout the year. With careful analysis of the operational demand across all business areas it should be possible to identify reductions without compromising service quality.

In the area of ICT projects, the key demand lever is to ensure that each project is genuinely business-led and structured to deliver tangible business benefits. If an ICT project is not focused on business outcomes it should be stopped or at least re-scoped. If a particularly large ICT programme needs to be stopped, it usually makes sense to follow a formal disinvestment approach.

As with operational ICT, the smoothing out of demand for ICT projects can also contribute significantly to cost reduction or avoidance.

On the supply-side, there is a need to expand on the usual focus on people and hardware to ensure a broader consideration of supply side levers. These levers are best considered

within six distinct but inter-related areas: 1. People. The first step is to ensure that all ICT resources within the organisation are brigaded under one management structure.

Best practice would be for the structure to be consistent with industry standards such as ITIL. The staffing mix should then be analysed to ensure the numbers and skills accurately match the demand. In particular, the organisation should look for opportunities to reduce the numbers of contract or interim staff, who will invariably be more expensive than permanent staff. ITIL implementation has been quoted as saving £500 per user per annum, and against an average baseline cost of £5,000 per annum this represents a 10 per cent saving.

2. Processes. The key success factor here is to define and rigorously implement a simple set of processes that are consistent across all projects and ICT operational areas.

Again, the processes should be in line with industry best practices, such as ITIL and COBIT It may also be appropriate, particularly with very large-scale or geographically dispersed organisations, to apply lean or six-sigma approaches to ensure complex ICT processes are as simple and cost-effective as possible.

3. Technology – applications. The key cost levers here are the number of discrete ICT applications, their complexity and the level of integration. Many public sector ICT estates have built up over time in a piecemeal fashion and it is common to find multiple applications supporting identical or very similar business functions. This leads to an overall application estate that is expensive to operate

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

27

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

ICT CONSULTING

and maintain, particularly in terms of software licences, people costs and third-party support costs. The aim must be to drive towards a small number of common applications with a limited number of interfaces, and, wherever possible, using a single database, or at least a small number of different databases. For example, a government agency we have worked with was able to save over £300k per annum simply by eliminating duplicate applications and removing unused and under-used licences.

4. Technology – infrastructure. More and more of the ICT infrastructure layer is becoming commoditised. Local and wide area network components, telecommunications, servers and desktop components are all typically compliant with key industry or de facto standards, and therefore relatively straightforward to procure on a commodity basis. Again, as with applications, the other key factors that contribute to cost reduction are the simplification and standardisation of components, and ensuring sourcing decisions focus on meeting practical requirements rather than being over-specified. Server virtualisation is a particular example of simplifying and consolidating ICT infrastructure and it can lead to savings of 20-25 per cent of hardware, power and facility costs.

5. Procurement. A focus on procurement can deliver significant cost benefits for an ICT organisation, particularly if a large proportion of its spend is external. For example, in the health sector, our experience of collaborative procurement of telecommunications has shown that significant cost reductions can be achieved, typically ranging from 10-20 per cent, but in some cases as high as 60 per cent. A strategic sourcing approach to ICT procurement, and using tools such as reverse auctions, has led to a reduction of up to 20 per cent in the spend on ICT commodity items, such as desktops, laptops and peripheral components.

We have also seen how a robust approach

28

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

to contract change negotiation can deliver significant cost avoidance. For example, a central government department was able to reduce the proposed cost of a major contract change from £140m to £50m through a collaborative approach between customer and supplier, which resulted in a simplification of the requirement (demand) and reduction in the solution cost (supply).

6. Facilities. The key drivers for ICT facilities costs – such as space, light, heating and cooling – are the numbers of ICT staff and physical hardware volumes. Many of the supply side initiatives set out above, such as consolidation of the ICT organisation, reduction in expensive resources, standardisation and simplification of applications and infrastructure, will naturally lead to a reduction in space requirements and associated utility costs.

MAKING IT HAPPEN So far we have concentrated on key ICT cost levers and how they can be tackled to affect lasting reductions in ICT expenditure. However, these cost reductions must be done in the context of the wider business, in particular to avoid the ICT cost reductions leading to a reduction in the performance or, even worse, cost increases in other parts of the business.

We would therefore always recommend a holistic approach to performance improvement and cost reduction that takes all key factors into account. In particular, the organisation should think in terms of business-centric and ICT-centric initiatives, and combine these with a ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approach. Using this holistic approach will also naturally facilitate the development of an overall performance improvement and cost reduction programme, which is structured into a set of distinct well-planned phases: • Short term initiatives – quick wins to be implemented in the first three to six months.

• Medium term – improvement projects to be delivered in the next 6 to 18 months.

• Longer term actions – major initiatives to be implemented over the next 2-5 years.

This will help provide clarity on when exactly results can be expected.

The key lesson from our experience in cost reduction and performance improvement is that you need to follow a tried, tested and rigorous methodology, which is then tailored to each client situation, as illustrated below.

A rigorous methodology will not be enough, however. There are other key success factors for achieving tangible, realistic goals, being: • Make sure you have clear objectives from the outset and the buy-in of your key stakeholders • Take a top-down strategic approach, as well as focusing on the details • Make sure you gather all the facts and build a cost model for your organisation, identifying all the demand- and supply side levers and how they interact • Assign specific targets by area, rather than set broad-brush percentages • Focus on realisation – take practical steps to identify, quantify, deliver and measure real cost reductions • Apply good business disciplines including investment appraisal, good governance and programme management throughout the process • Recognise that to achieve significant cost reductions you will need to invest up-front in the right skills and experience – you will need to ‘invest to save’.

Taken together these factors will substantially increase the chances of success.

So returning to the original question posed by this article – will ICT cost reduction really deliver results? If you just take a broad brush approach and apply a ‘slash and burn’ policy, then the answer is no. However, if you take the trouble to really understand your cost levers, both demand and supply, and apply the right combination of practical skills, experience and a methodical approach, then you can deliver significant and sustainable cost reductions. Now is the time to start.

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

Simplifying software and bringing clarity to your organisation N TIMES OF economic uncertainty, Fuzzelogic solutions application outsourcing approach can help you to effectively reduce costs while strengthening your capabilities for the long haul.

Fuzzelogic solutions have successfully deployed projects in custom installations of productivity software including Sharepoint server, MS Outlook, MS Accounting and bespoke software including asset tracking, document management, resource planning, work allocation and tracking, automated training solutions, online trading and ecommerce applications, bespoke reporting and management solutions and productivity tools.

At Fuzzelogic solutions we’re committed to producing high quality, innovative intelligent Software Solutions for your organisation. By embracing change and constantly evolving our practices we are able to provide professional software delivered through the web, interactive desktops or mobile devices, allowing

I

your organisation to stay agile.

Our clients benefit from our wealth of experience in diverse market segments and deep technology expertise in a wide range of I.T solutions. By fully understanding their goals, we provide clear and concise reviews, advice and solutions that best meet their objectives.

Working together we’ll uncover the technologies that provide the most significant productivity gains.

We’ll discover innovative ways to accommodate the changing business landscape and craft the most effective delivery plan.

Simplifying software and bringing clarity to your organisation.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: +44 (0) 7624 482071 E-mail: info@ fuzzelogicsolutions.com Web: www. fuzzelogicsolutions.com

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Wired for Ideas – helping you to help yourselves EMS ARE LIKE GREAT ideas hidden in your employees and customers minds... once found they are precious, appreciated and wonderful!

Wiredforideas specialises in helping organisations achieve greater success and growth through continuous improvement by encouraging their employees to share genuine ideas aimed at improving your organisations performance.

Online management ensures timely processing so that opportunities are not lost but realised, enhancing reputation, improving efficiency and quality whilst boosting sales and employee productivity.

We help organisations achieve this by generating the right online environment, supplying a tailored online suggestion and feedback web application creating a special dedicated website.

Our passion is sharing our knowledge and experience so that you can run the most effective suggestion schemes and

G

feedback programmes deriving the best business fit and value.

Wiredforideas Elicio software application is quality certified to give you full confidence. It can either be securely hosted

by Wiredforideas or deployed on your own servers.

Elicio gives you the complete online solution from design, communication, automation, management and reports.

The suggestion box, email and spreadsheet will not encourage and engage your employees in today’s IT literate world where trust, transparency, communication and respect are now required.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit www.wiredforideas.com for information, contacts and case studies.

Evolutionary Security Solutions to protect your budget and carbon footprint with Spend2Save

E

VOLUTION (E.S.S.) has many years experience of working in MOD, public and private sectors and has built an unrivalled reputation in helping organisations get the best possible return on investment when purchasing security systems. Due to the current UK fiscal situation, Finance Directors and Specifiers now have to take into account, not just the reducing of long term ownership costs but also lowering energy bills and CO2 emissions. It is worth talking to Evolution to discover the exciting new Spend2Save developments available.

Simply choosing the right type of access control lock can provide lower energy consumption. Selecting solenoid or electric-strike locks instead of power-hungry electromagnetic locks can make significant energy savings over the life of the installation. The resultant savings reduce power supply and battery backup requirements, ultimately increasing overall system reliability. The use of PoE (Power over Ethernet) is new to access control, but there are savings that can be made in the centralisation of power sources and the reduction of main spurs and their associated cabling and containment. Savings can even be made in

access control cards. Looking at consolidating card usage with other systems, such as cashless vending, by using a common smart card can reduce your overall costs and simplify administration, generating even more savings.

External CCTV cameras requiring semi-covert IR lighting have traditionally used powerhungry bulb IR lamps, and suffer with short bulb life. Alternatively, using IR LED lights, the power requirement can drop by as much as 90 per cent, saving money, CO2 emissions and replacement costs as the working life of LED IR lights can be over five years. In addition, replacing a site’s perimeter flood-lighting, street lighting or other luminaries with white-light LED units, can save up to 75 per cent compared to sodium light bulb power requirements while providing better light for CCTV camera.

Replacing a DVR (digital video recorder) with a Hybrid or NVR variant, can result in savings when changing camera locations or adding new cameras by utilising the existing IT infrastructure data network/ ethernet cabling and ducting.

Labour costs for manned guarding can form a major part of any organisation’s security budget. Electronic Security Systems that combine Access Control, CCTV and Intruder Detection Systems can provide significant savings on this overhead while providing improvements in safety, integrity, life-time cost savings, lower CO2 emissions and overall peace of mind.

These examples above illustrate only a few of the innovative developments currently available. Evolution has the track record in electronic security and can show you how an integrated approach to security could provide a quick return on investment.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 01494 539880 Fax: 01494 539881 E-mail: ral@evolutionsecurity.com Web: www.evolutionsecurity.com

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

29

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

Telehouse – providing secure data centre facilities and ICT solutions for the public sector ELEHOUSE OFFERS UNRIVALLED data centre facilities and connectivity for businesses with mission critical IT systems. Established in 1988, Telehouse became Europe’s first purpose-built, carrier neutral colocation provider. Today, the company stands at the heart of the global Internet and Telecommunications infrastructure, serving over 1,000 major companies across all industry sectors worldwide, from small start-ups to multinationals. Telehouse is a subsidiary of the Japanese Telecommunications corporation KDDI, a Global 300 company, and offers colocation services and ICT solutions across 34 sites in 17 major cities across Europe, America and Asia/Pacific.

In London, demand for secure data centre space and ICT services has outstripped supply and businesses have been keen to work with a trusted and reliable partner. In response to this increasing demand Telehouse has announced the construction of its 35th state-of-the-art data centre – Telehouse West, in the heart of London’s Docklands.

When complete in March 2010, the 19,000 square metre facility will offer customers a superior quality housing solution for their IT equipment and extensive connectivity to over 400

T

30

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

ISPs and carriers, whilst mitigating its carbon footprint and exporting its waste heat to the local community.

After having established a major IT and telecommunications hub in London almost 20 years ago, the company is continuing its commitment to reliability and customer

service by offering complete end-toend ICT solutions on a global scale.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 020 7512 0550 E-mail: sales@uk.telehouse.net Web: www.telehouse.net

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

DATA CENTRES

THE FUTURE OF STORAGE What storage technologies will shape the storage strategies of tomorrow? asks Carla Arend, European Infrastructure Software, IDC Group EVEN IN THE CURRENT TIMES, where budgets are under increased scrutiny due to the economic situation, the storage industry is not standing still. New technologies are constantly developed, and companies need to decide which technologies will be of benefit to them in the long run.

CURRENT STORAGE TRENDS In the current economic climate, storage managers are particularly interested in expanding storage capacity as data continues to grow unabated, enhancing disaster recovery plans, and improving storage performance to service the business users better, according to IDC’s European storage survey (IDC’s 2009 Annual European Storage Survey: Understanding User Needs in a Changing Economic Climate).

However, these initiatives typically increase the operational cost of the storage infrastructure.

Adding storage capacity to cope with data growth is a very short-term strategy, which will lead to complexity and management nightmares, and ultimately, higher operational cost. Achieving a viable disaster recovery plan can also turn into a costly undertaking, if not well thought through. Finally, improving storage performance is often achieved through methods that result in low utilisation rates.

This, in turn, drives the storage capacity expansion and operational costs higher.

With the above in mind, it should not be surprising that the currently hot storage technologies enable users to achieve what they aim for, but at the same time enable them to reduce operational cost and increase storage efficiency. The timing couldn’t be better since it has become clear that storage is reaching a new phase of maturity. This new phase is one where storage resources need to be used as efficiently as possible, and where old strategies of just increasing capacity without addressing operational cost or underutilisation of storage are no longer viable. This is even true for those that have put such efficiencies aside to achieve increased performance. This is a trend that will continue beyond 2009 as it ushers in a new phase where returning to previous levels of wasted storage capacity is not an option.

There are a multitude of technologies out there, which help to tame data growth and support solving the storage efficiency challenge.

Data deduplication, for example, has been the hot topic recently, as it helps to buck with the data growth trend. But this is hardly the

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

31

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

DATA CENTRES

Cloud storage is shaping up as the future architecture for storage deployment, and storage-as-a-service is the first step in this direction. Cloud storage is essentially a way of architecting storage infrastructure by using standard building blocks, in which management is automated to a large degree and efficiency is paramount only new and exciting storage technology addressing the industries new problems.

Other technologies like thin provisioning and storage virtualisation provide greater storage utilisation and cost-efficient DR (respectively) are also in high demand. Storage management software is seeing increased interest because it enables users to manage across storage silos, whereas archiving is seen as a means to reduce primary data by off-loading to an archive.

TECHNOLOGIES OF TOMORROW So what storage technologies are shaping the storage strategies of tomorrow? Cloud storage is shaping up as the future architecture for storage deployment, and storage-as-a-service is the first step in this direction. Cloud storage

32

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

is essentially a way of architecting storage infrastructure by using standard building blocks, in which management is automated to a large degree and efficiency is paramount.

File-based technologies like file virtualisation will see increased demand as well, as most of the data growth comes from the unstructured side. The before mentioned survey has shown for several years in a row, that e-mail and file-related applications are driving data and storage growth.

SSD is a technology much talked about, but still with very limited adoption, as it is currently more than ten times more expensive than traditional disk storage. As storage administrators are evaluating this technology, they need to keep in mind that it is just a

point solution, which actually emphasises the need for intelligent storage tiering. With another storage tier available (tier zero) at a high cost, storage administrators will not be able to resort to the good old “keep everything on primary storage� approach.

By having a robust software layer in place to manage storage tiering, ILM can finally be implemented and its benefits (lower cost and better data management) can be achieved. SSD will most likely drive in mixed environments, where a limited number of SSDs is in the same enclosure as a large number of SATA drives bundled with automated storage tiering software.

BE PREPARED FOR THE FUTURE In order to architect a future-proof storage environment, good old management principles still apply. Consolidate and standardise your storage infrastructure, deploy storage virtualisation software for cost effective DR and invest in a solid storage management layer to simplify and automate management.

Thus, you can take advantage of new innovative technologies, which most likely will be point solutions to start with, and maintain a solid management layer.

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Austin Hughes – new data centre solutions

Redundant and resilient data centre services

USTIN HUGHES Electronics Ltd is a leading edge design and manufacturing group that offers a broad range of data centre solutions based around 19 inch rack mount technologies.

Austin Hughes solutions provides data centre managers and administrators instant secure, local and remote access control to mission critical equipment.

Our leading edge CyberView™ LCD drawer and KVM Solutions provide the widest range, available on the shortest lead-times in the European market today whilst ensuring capital equipment and software management costs are kept to an absolute minimum.

Building on our CyberView™ success we will be exhibiting our new InfraSolution® and SmartPDU® products these will further enhance our data centre solution offering to cover remote rack IP door access with swipe card control, temperature

S PART OF THEIR business continuity planning, many public sector organisations will need to host primary data offsite, or mirror their servers at another location. Restrictions on capital expenditure mean that most cannot build their own facility but instead need to seek help from a provider such as BlueSquare Data.

BlueSquare Data is ISO 9001 certified with a reputation for delivering a market leading service, offering space in four carrier-neutral data centres outside London.

With sites based at Maidenhead and Milton Keynes, BlueSquare Data’s facilities are highly secure with onsite uniformed security, anti-tailgating, enclosed secure parking, perimeter fencing, 24/7/365 access and access tagging, and roundthe-clock onsite support from ‘intelligent hands’.

BlueSquare Data Milton Keynes

A

A

and humidity monitoring including integrated monitored and switched rack PDU’s.

We will also demonstrate our InfraPower® solution of metered, monitored and switched rack PDU’s for use within the network, either locally via serial or over IP.

FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information or to arrange to meet us at the exhibition for a demonstration pls contact Richard Gray at: Austin Hughes Europe Ltd Unit 12 Fernacre Business Park Budds Lane Romsey Hampshire S051 OHA Tel +44 (0) 1794 521810 E-mail sales@austin-hughes.eu Web: www.austin-hughes.eu

is a tier 4 purpose-built data centre meeting the needs of public sector clients requiring maximum redundancy (N+N) and low latency, along with heightened security. The Maidenhead site provides customers with a high standard tier 3 alternative.

Close to transport links, both sites can be accessed from anywhere in the country. Outside London, BlueSquare Data’s facilities benefit from greater power availability and lower risk of terrorist threat, providing value without compromise.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Please contact Robin Ellis, Group Commercial Director, via r.ellis@bluesquaredata. com or Matthew Munson, Group Technical Director, via m.munson@bluesquaredata. com or call either of them on + 44 (0)1628 673131

Protect your data centre against water leaks Data Centre Cooling – the next generation

J

.A.M. LTD recognise the need for producing reliable and cost effective systems to help in the environmental monitoring of data centres with particular expertise in the field of water leak detection.

Modern buildings such as data centres are constructed with raised floors and all services including pipework and electrical cables hidden beneath. Few companies realise the potential disaster they could have. The leak at first may go un-noticed then one or two pieces of hardware start playing up, someone on the floor below may notice a stain appearing on the ceiling, by now there is probably enough water to cause a major problem or even a shutdown.

J.A.M. Ltd has had experience with projects worldwide, from government buildings to top blue chip companies. J.A.M’s innovative leak detection systems have a control panel linked to a specially designed cable which displays the location of a leak as a meterage reading, allowing the

E

appropriate remedial action to take place. Once the detecting cable is dried it is fully re-usable. J.A.M. Ltd can advise from drawings or site surveys the most suitable System, co-ordinate the installation with trained engineers and offer after sales telephone support or preventative maintenance visits to client requirements.

FOR MORE INFORMATION We would welcome any informal talks or a demonstration of our product on our stand No.38 at the Data Centre World exhibition 23-24 February 2010.

Tel: 01268 777222 Fax: 01268 777221 E-mail: jam.ltd@virgin.net Web: jam.uk.com

ATON-WILLIAMS was approached by IBM in 2006 to develop a CDU system to provide closely controlled water to their “Cool Blue®” Rear Door Heat Exchangers (RDHx).

Since then the EW CDU has evolved into a fully redundant, compact, high performance product with a small footprint and impressive efficiency compared to conventional cooling systems.

The CDU & RDHx captures the heat at source and rejects it to the chilled water system using around a quarter of the energy consumed by conventional systems.

• Highly efficient with 40 per cent energy savings over conventional systems • Reduced carbon footprint • Flexible upgrade path with our modular upgrade option • Retrofits most rack cabinets • 150kW of cooling in <1m² consuming only 2.5kW

Eaton-Williams designs manufactures, installs, commissions and services the system maintaining optimum performance.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit us on Stand 102 at the DataCentreWorld Conference & Expo 23 - 24 February 2010.

Eaton-Williams Group Station Road, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 6EG, England Tel +44 (0)1782 597105 E-mail: servercool@ eaton-williams.com www.eaton-williams.com

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

33

DataCentreWorld - the only UK conference and exhibition to focus on the issues surrounding selecting, outsourcing, building and running a data centre.

THE FREE TO ATTEND CONFERENCE covers the latest trends and technologies and

includes case studies from the UK’s top companies and the leading outsourced operators.

TOPICS INCLUDE:

•

What will be the impact of decisions on infrastructure in meeting Carbon Reduction Commitment? – Nexsans

• • • • • • •

Managing Data Centre Heat Issues – Chatsworth Carbon Reduction Commitment and the impact on data centres – Alquist London Borough of Hillingdon – The Economies of a Virtual Data Centre – Datanet Using Cloud Computing to lower your carbon footprint – ACS Green as an end to end approach-yes we CAN build a 15 year data center!! – Siemon Measure, Analyse and Act – the Three Steps to Energy Efficient Data Centres (EURO) – Sentilla A unique application of absorption cooling reducing energy consumption by 40% and making the scheme Carbon Tax Free – BNB developments Please note conference sessions may be subject to change

To book your free place visit www.datacentreworld.com/register

PLUS over 100 leading technology suppliers showcasing their latest products and services - to see the full list visit www.datacentreworld.com/exhibitors P L AT I N U M S P O N S O R

CONFERENCE HOST

M E D I A PA RT N E R S

S U P P O R T I N G A S S O C I AT I O N S

GOLD SPONSOR O F F I C I A L M E D I A PA RT N E R

BE PART OF THE LARGEST UK EVENT FOR DATA CENTRE PROFESSIONALS

www.datacentreworld.com

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

CALL CENTRES

CHANGE FOR THE BETTER Ann-Marie Stagg, Chair of the Call Centre Management Association (UK), gives advice on how to improve call centre operations without incurring major capital expenses SINCE THE VARNEY REPORT WAS FIRST published the UK has been suffering an economic downturn and consumer spending and behavioural patterns have changed over the last 12 months. 2010 will perhaps see a change in government but, whatever the outcome of the next election, the public sector will undoubtedly be asked to do more with less.

Now is the time to look at steps you can take to improve your operations without incurring major capital expenses.

Here are some useful pointers: Optimise the processes: Ensuring the uniformity of tasks, documents and processes will allow the organisation to examine work methods and identify how more could be done with less. The clearer and more defined these elements are, the simpler the optimisation process will be.

Workforce management (WFM): If you have a workforce management tool, it is crucial that you use it to its full potential. Your management and planning team have certainly evolved since the tool was implemented, but did new training options and updates follow?

It may be time for your contact centre to establish a training budget to increase the benefits that the tool could potentially yield.

If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t yet have a WFM tool, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to invest in one, especially since 70 per cent of call centre costs are directly linked to resources. A planning tool makes it possible to better target the periods during which you need resources, and the return on investment can be significant.

CALL QUALITY Quality management (QM) tools: Centres that have not begun to monitor calls will

have to do so very soon. In addition to ensuring service uniformity, call quality has also become a key factor. Call quality and resolution on first contact reduce call volumes and enhance customer retention since clients are immediately satisfied.

Examine the planning process: Long-term planning is the foundation, while shortterm planning (scheduling) makes it possible to get a head start on attaining objectives and minimising costs. The key is real-time, and the actions taken to manage contact volume fluctuations, absences and all of the other inputs that impact the results. It is important to understand that real-time does not mean next-day results assessment, but rather immediate interactions, decision making and schedule rearranging to meet the needs of the day.

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

35

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

Win, keep and grow new business with Return on Investment OI IS A SPECIALIST business development agency that works with its clients to help them win, keep and grow a long-term profitable customer base. Trading for six years, we’ve worked with over 200 clients across all major sectors including the public sector, automotive, IT and FMCG. Our agents are mature, well trained and experienced. They don’t use scripts, but hold in-depth, intelligent conversations with prospects, engaging with them until they’re ready to take the next step. ROI has an extremely low staff attrition rate, is an accredited Investor in People and is certified to ISO 9001:2008 standard.

Our solutions are designed and developed to cater for our clients exacting requirements.

“Having worked with a number of telemarketing agencies in the past who delivered mixed

R

results, it’s refreshing to work with an agency that consistently delivers on appointment quality and quantity.” Simon Staton, sales director, Venson Automotive Solutions Limited.

We operate a continuous improvement policy surveying clients monthly, to gain a satisfaction rating. 98.6 per cent of our clients rate the service as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 0870 4605474 Fax: 0870 4605475 E-mail: enquiries@roiltd.co.uk Web: www.roiltd.co.uk

Nexans – energy efficient LAN systems EXANS, THE WORLDWIDE leader in the cable industry, offers an extensive range of cables and cabling systems. The Group is a global player in the infrastructure, industry, building and Local Area Network (LAN) markets. With an industrial presence in 39 countries and commercial activities worldwide, Nexans employs over 22,000 people and had sales in 2008 of e6.8 billion.

In the field of LAN Cabling Systems, Nexans Cabling Solutions offer a complete range of products and services providing improved reliability and reduced cost of ownership for network managers.

Nexans LANmark™ copper and fibre infrastructure solutions provide data centre managers a migration path to next generation 40 Gigabit applications whilst enabling users to obtain the maximum potential for energy savings from new technologies such as Energy Efficient Ethernet

N

36

Help us help you with contact centre solutions SO AWARD WINNING GRUPO KONECTA is a leading Contact Centre Company in Spain, now in the UK to introduce an innovating & refreshing business model named H.E.L.P. Key factors: Human resources, customer service excellency is key for the future for all CCs, therefore since day one Konecta HR is working with the leading UK agencies to search, select & train the right professional for the right position at the right time.

Elasticity, Konecta allows forecast high variations within 15 working days, allowing our clients rectify on last minute forecasting to increase productivity to the max.

Large Range Price Models, our latest market research shows that many important companies are suffering financial irregularities owning or renting empty business areas, Konecta has

I

designed a specific price models to occupy these areas delivering services at a minimum cost.

Productivity, with the solid processes-procedures and excellent customer service of the British and the flexibility and adaptability of the Spanish we have achieved a winning combination to achieve KPI’s in outstanding timescales.

Grupo Konecta UK introduced this model in July 2008 with one of the most important Spanish-European banks in the UK, increasing our contact centre activity in the first year in over a 120 per cent.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Please contact Pedro Rodríguez Swanson on 07538 077540 or e-mail: prodriguez@ grupokonecta.com Grupo Konecta UK’s website is currently under construction, please visit: www.grupokonecta.com

Councils can save £1 billion in hidden costs OUNCILS ACROSS the country are missing out on annual savings of £1 billion by continuing to run inefficient document production processes, according to new research from Limehouse Software, an Objective Corporation company and specialist government software solutions vendor.

Research, conducted across over 2,000 documents from a sample of 134 councils, was undertaken to map activities, costs and resources supporting the conception of documents through to their publication. The findings have identified a huge untapped area for cost savings and performance improvements in the process from initial conception through the collaborative authoring and consultation processes to final publishing of these key documents.

Given the sheer number of

C

and Converged Enhanced Ethernet.

Nexans also specialises in LANsense™ Intelligent Infrastructure Management (IIM) products including environmental monitoring and access control (EMAC) devices. These solutions maximise the efficiency and management of systems on an ongoing basis helping to meet regulatory compliance and achieve long term green goals.

Nexans Endorses the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres.

Logistics and technical support is provided via a network of regional offices and dedicated key account management team.

FOR MORE INFORMATION www.nexans.co.uk/LANsystems

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

documents – many of which are statutory – that are produced each year by local government, the study aims to highlight where, when and how real savings can be delivered against a backdrop of declining government support grants and increased pressures for substantial operational cost and headcount reduction. In addition, the research suggests business transformation and efficiency programmes, and offer local authorities a ‘new’ area to target to make savings.

FOR MORE INFORMATION For your free copy of the White paper go to www.limehousesoftware.com

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

CALL CENTRES

regardless of the channel chosen by the customer. Websites that are difficult to navigate or donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have enough information generate more calls into the contact centre. Good websites allow customers to serve themselves and move more traffic to self-service.

Introduce chat and co-browsing: These tools will reduce the number of customers who only do research on the web and will generate increased use of the web as a main source of information. Of course, it is important that when you offer on-line chat you always have an agent available to respond immediately.

Upgrade your IVR (Interactive Voice Response): Using IVR simply to direct calls around the organisation means that you are missing the opportunity to allow callers to complete their transaction without assistance. Standards based IVR platforms provide a valuable tool for automating more complex transactions using speech recognition.

Improve communication across the organisation. There must be continuous communications between all departments that generate calls such as unexpected delays, billing changes or service interruptions. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important that managers take accountability for resolving issues quickly and excellent communication across all departments will allow the contact centre manager to anticipate events that will affect their operation and to manage the situation more effectively.

Improve call resolution rates with knowledge bases: Many contact centre managers lack enough data on repeat calls or the number of times a caller is transferred. If the agent lacks the knowledge to answer the enquiry, the caller will often hang up and call back later which increases call volumes and the cost of servicing. A knowledge base with a good search engine helps agents to find the right answer quickly and reduces call transfers.

INITIATIATE CONTACT Reduce unnecessary calls by introducing proactive outbound communications: Most contact centres experience traffic spikes when certain events trigger a large number of incoming calls (changes in billing for example). To reduce or eliminate these, consider sending e-mail or phone alerts to your customers with appropriate information before they make a phone call to the centre. You can allow them to respond to

you using the same channel you have used to contact them thereby reducing incoming call volume and increasing customer satisfaction.

Reduce agent attrition: High levels of staff turnover are a major cost in contact centres so consider steps to improve retention such as desk training to improve skills, career paths within the contact centre, flexible scheduling and performance reports that set individual goals.

Consider introducing home-working: Using agents working from home introduces more flexibility during peak traffic times and evening shifts and they can also serve as emergency support staff if the main centre becomes inoperable because of an emergency event. Home working can also reduce attrition and absenteeism.

THE IMPORTANCE OF WEBSITES Develop your web offering: Develop a single consistent strategy for customer service

SOCIAL MEDIA It is clear that social media has emerged as a prominent platform in the Web 2.0 revolution with a direct impact on how organisations engage with their customers. Their comments about your products and services are easily shared and visible to more and more people so often carry a lot of influence.

Contact centres must therefore develop a skill set to tap into and respond to this powerful new channel. Contact centres can embrace social media to get closer to customers, spot trends, identify influencers, and create customer advocates, but they must align with social media norms that reflect an understanding that their organisation does not own these sites.

The boundaries between fixed and mobile communications, between communications and computing and between information and entertainment will continue to blur as services converge and more powerful devices emerge.

Some companies, Apple amongst them, are beginning to do more than just listen to their customers. They are working with customers on the co-creation of their future products and services; all facilitated by the internet and social software tools.

A UK wide survey commissioned by the Institute of Customer Service in July this year reports that customer satisfaction has continued its upward trend reaching 74 per cent overall but with local public services at 71 per cent and national public services at just 70 per cent there is still a long way to go.

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

37

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

SECURITY

SAFE AND SECURE Cartel partners Newham to enhance housing estate security THREE MILES FROM THE CITY OF London lies the London Borough of Newham, whose key location as the cultural gateway to London has been the dominant factor in its development and expansion.

Much of the London borough’s community housing stock is in the form of large estates comprising high-rise blocks completed in the 1960s and 70s. Recently, these estates have been the focus of a multi-level regeneration scheme, led by the borough. Part of the programme has been the introduction of emergency call/help points, to enhance overall security and provide a level of reassurance to residents and visitors. This enhancement was further complemented by the inclusion within lifts, ensuring BS EN 81 compliance. Working in partnership with Newham, Cartel Security Systems (part of the OpenView Group) entered into a lengthy evaluation of available options, and after due consideration specified the latest technology from Commend UK. Since commencement, Newham, Cartel & Commend have worked closely to further develop a flexible strategy, with installation and maintenance being undertaken by Cartel.

Kevin Hall, operations director of Cartel explains the system design process: “Due to the significant regeneration throughout the borough’s many buildings, including the lift systems, each had to be BS EN81 European Standard compliant, the standard that dictates the provision for safety in goods and passenger lifts. Also, Newham was keen to deploy a compliant flexible intercom system that would be the basis for a broader, more security and safety focused intercom system.

“Through a managed process of technical development and by working closely with the council, we assisted in the design of a flexible solution via the deployment of Commend Intercom and Help Point technology. As well as their inherent future-proof expansion flexibility, specifying a complete end-to-end Commend solution supplemented with independent CCTV, meant we could be confident in the quality and sturdiness of the installed products within the harsh operational public environment.”

AREA REGENERATION Garry Hobbs, principal electrical services Engineer at Newham Council takes up the story: “The refurbishment and modernisation of our council housing network is a very large project, and one that includes a number of managed stages. To encourage ‘community spirit’ and bring a more reassuring feeling to residents in the area, Newham felt a significant enhancement to complement the access control and security of each tower block was

38

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

Newham was keen to deploy a compliant flexible intercom system that would be the basis for a broader, more security and safety focused intercom system appropriate, as part of the ongoing regeneration scheme. Having worked closely with Cartel, a leading supplier of convergent technology solutions on previous installations and over a number of years as a maintenance and systems integrator, we were pleased to continue a very successful partnership to make the project a reality. Newham’s housing varies from large estates with single or multiple concierge blocks, to small estates, and single stand alone blocks. There was a desire to provide an emergency communication facility that would

satisfy various criteria, including flexibility of transmission (due to the diversity of sites and limited available infrastructure), flexibility of operation, high audio quality, and a choice of robust call point hardware. In short, we required a system that would enhance and complement existing door entry concierge systems.

“The ongoing programme provides emergency communications to connect to the on duty concierge, transfer to a different block, or default upon a ‘non-answer’ to the borough’s emergency control centre. If the housing block

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

SECURITY

is stand-alone, with no concierge, initiated calls route directly to the control centre via Intercom and Help Point technology from Commend.

“Such has been the success of the system that we are keen to provide this facility to all selected council-owned blocks, in addition to being able to connect direct or transfer calls to our main control room. As tall blocks are refurbished, the generic specification includes, CCTV cameras alongside the required Commend system; allowing us to enhance security across the council’s housing network.”

EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGY “The most recently finished project is the Hermit Estate, consisting of 8 lifts and 48 emergency call / Help Points. It’s a typical example of how the intercom and access control system helps to meet both the operational requirements of the council’s housing network, and the relevant European and British Standards now in place regarding multiple occupancy buildings.

“For example, detailed requirements have to be met regarding the newly installed resident lifts. The BS EN 81 European Standard dictates the positioning and precise specification of any communication system deployed within the lifts.”

Addressing these requirements, Newham and Cartel jointly recognised and agreed to specify Commend’s lift specific intercom stations in each lift; and similar units installed on top of the lift, in the lift pit, and lift motor rooms (for use by engineering staff should a lift car stop).

In addition to these units, emergency call / Help Point intercom stations have been deployed in the lobby area of each building, to be used for lift safety and public emergency use. Application specific design features, such as yellow stainless steel housings and single-button operation, provide both maximum visibility and help with compliance to today’s exacting fire regulations.

Vandal resistant construction and exceptionally high-speech quality provide high-performance service each time the unit is used, in addition to a long product life span. Providing extra on-street reassurance for residents and visitors, similar units are also employed around the exterior of the flats, strategically positioned in view of the council’s CCTV cameras.

Garry Hobbs continues the story: “It was crucial for us to roll out the most effective technology available, and especially in view that a particular passion of mine is that no call should ever go unanswered, no matter what time of day it is made, or where ever it is made from. Using the latest Commend technology has resulted in the seamless routing of each call, to the point that the individual initiating it has no idea if it is being answered in the concierge office downstairs, or in the Emergency Control Centre some miles away!”

Calls are transmitted and routed via a combination of media: the council’s own highspeed LAN/WAN network, BT RS 1000D, and ADSL. This provides a reliable, high-quality

and cost-effective IoIP® (Intercom over IP) transmission network. In the unlikely event of network failure however, and adhering to Garry’s remit that each and every each intercom call should be answered, the use of Commend technology also allows fully automatic switching to the public telephone network.

The final link in the chain is the Commend Comwin Reporter System GUI, again located at the borough’s Emergency Control Centre. Ultimately customisable to record and produce reports on a multitude of system parameters, Newham Council’s management primarily use the powerful audit trail to produce detailed reports on the duration of calls and how quickly they were answered, in addition to the monitoring of any ongoing system faults or maintenance schedules. Importantly, the system will alert as soon as a network connection is lost, enabling the fault to be investigated and rectified as quickly as possible whilst maintaining the connectivity via the PSTN resilient back up.

COMPLETE SERVICE Garry continues: “As the system takes shape, it goes from strength-to-strength and allows us to provide a better service for our residents. When we began the rollout of this technology, we worked very hard to keep residents informed of its purpose, and the advantages it would bring to everyday life in their community. It is important for the overall success of the scheme that the residents aren’t suspicious of the system and understand how to use it. Since commencing the project, we have had some fantastic successes, with residents able to directly contact the concierge/control room in the event of distress, or to report criminal or anti-social behavior via the ‘secure’ network. This provides added reassurance that the borough control room and the on

duty police officer are instantly contactable, and able to liaise with colleagues to assist or attend incidents when appropriate. Using the new system, residents now have a tool they can use to take a more active stance in their community, and are willing to use it to make a difference in the area. This has given the council the ability to react to minor incidents swiftly, reducing both their impact on the area and on the council’s resources.

“Via the intuitive and seamless routing of calls, we will be able to provide a true 24-hour service to our network of multiple tower blocks, located across many estates borough wide, as well as various low-rise blocks. In some areas we are enhancing the facility further by including call point provision to estate based CCTV columns, thus providing even greater protection.”

The system is still expanding to encompass other social housing estates the council owns in the area, enabling neighbouring London boroughs to look at progressing similar systems, to protect and secure their own estates.

Greg Gregoriou, Commend UK’s sales & marketing director, concludes: “The power of Commend equipment is in the flexibility of how it can be applied and integrated with other equipment. This, combined with Newham’s vision and Cartel’s installation and integration expertise has produced a leading-edge solution that has proved to be of great value to the local community.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION For further information please contact: Suzanne Kenneally Marketing Manager Commend UK Ltd Tel: 01279 457 510 E-mail: sales@commend.co.uk

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

39

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

AUDIO VISUAL TECHNOLOGY

GREEN INTERACTION Ian Valvona, 14-19 External Relations at the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), reflects on how a recent multimedia conference brought together headteachers and college principals the green way

EVEN IN THE MIDST OF AN ECONOMIC downturn, green initiatives are still relevant and have become, in some cases, legally binding. Increasingly, both in the public sector and further afield, organisations are exploring green options, making them an integral part of the agenda. With the pressure to ‘go green’ coming to the fore, what changes can we make to reduce our environmental impact and what solutions are already in place to help us achieve this?

The Climate Change Bill became law late last year and is the world’s first long term legally binding framework to tackle the issue of climate change. Under this law, green house gas emission reductions of at least 80 per cent must be made by 2050. Reductions of at least 26 per cent have to be made by 2020.

Closer to home, businesses are now also affected by the Carbon Reduction Commitment.

Starting in April 2010, organisations will begin to calculate their emissions responsibility, purchase allowances based on expected emissions and monitor energy use. Although these commitments are aimed at UK businesses as a whole, the public sector is also affected by the Greening Government ICT strategy.

While its aims focus on achieving carbon neutrality across central government ICT systems, it also seeks to reduce occupancy and

40

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

minimise travel via tele and videoconferencing as a means to reduce carbon footprint.

The public sector is facing pressure in all these areas to make sustainable choices and reduce its carbon footprint. Therefore when it came to organising a series of conferences for headteachers, college principals and senior education managers, we needed to address our green commitments.

The objective of the conference was to create a platform for strategic communication with government about the reforms to 14-19 education and the new requirement on all young people to participate in education or training until their 18th birthday. The events gave an overview of the reforms and also helped schools and colleges prepare for the second year of Diploma teaching. We needed to offer delegates the opportunity to communicate directly with ministers and with each other about the reforms as well as selecting a sustainable option with a low carbon footprint.

COMMUNICATING EDUCATION REFORM Education and training in the UK are currently undergoing changes to encourage young people to obtain a broader range of work place competencies and soft skills that complement theoretical and applied learning skills. This will ensure that every young person

THE BENEFITS OF SUSTAINABLE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS • GreenGageLive enables remote delegate attendance at events plus encourages interaction • Responds to the green agenda by reducing carbon emissions • Eliminates the need for lengthy travel and overnight stays by remote event attendance • Improves delegate work/life balance • Gives delegates more choice in how they wish to participate in live events • Extends the lifespan of an event by shaping agendas beforehand and driving interaction after the event has a high-quality skill set that will help them achieve their potential and progress to further and higher education and employment.

The reforms themselves are broad and include raising the age at which young people will leave education or training to 18 as well as introducing a new set of qualifications. With some of these changes already underway, the conference was an opportunity to highlight change and demonstrate successes already achieved.

We worked with sustainable event specialists

Government Technology | Volume 8.12

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

AUDIO VISUAL TECHNOLOGY

Communicating education reforms to headteachers and senior education managers is essential to get everyone up to speed at an implementation level.

By using a unique event communication solution we not only made attending the event easier, we also encouraged two-way dialogue between delegates, ministers and senior government officials The Live Group plc to meet our environmental needs plus deliver proven audience engagement and interaction between delegates and guest speakers. Using its sustainable communication solution GreenGageLive, we could hold five conferences over five days in Birmingham, Bristol, London, Manchester and Newcastle; each city ‘hub’ was then linked via videoconferencing to a further two regional locations. This setup meant we were able to offer 15 location choices to delegates.

Using GreenGageLive, delegates could attend the event at their closest location, cutting down on travel and reducing the carbon emissions generated by large groups of people convening in one central location.

The Live Group’s video service was also in action filming at Valley School and North Nottinghamshire FE College in Worksop to provide an interactive, online video for viewers to read or watch more about the Diploma agenda. This enabled delegates to see first hand best practice examples of the reforms and how they are impacting on students and education professionals.

PROMOTING INTERACTION Providing a sustainable conference was an important factor in the creation of the event. However, we didn’t want remote

to mean removed, so we also employed technology to encourage interaction.

Using audience engagement tools allowed delegates to maximise the benefits of virtually meeting with education ministers by opening up communication.

As part of the GreenGageLive solution, LiveInteractive digital audience engagement tablets at each delegate table powered question asking on the new education reforms. Opinions or questions were typed directly onto the tablets and put to education ministers at the central venue. Audience engagement has the added benefit of helping to address complex issues, gather richer data and share ideas in conference settings. With an accessible communication medium available to each delegate, two-way dialogue is encouraged and gathering feedback is simpler. Direct feedback gathered in real time from delegates is also very useful for shaping content on the day and tailoring the event accordingly. Credit card sized voting palmlets were also used by delegates in conjunction to test perceptions to provide us with valuable, opinion forming data post event.

Delegates were also able to communicate directly with ministers via videoconferencing and share peer-to-peer best practice with those who have already participated in the first wave of diplomas

which started in September 2008. On the final day in London, Iain Wright MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for 14-19 Reform and Apprenticeships, answered questions from delegates in London, Ashford and Oxford on the Diploma and wider reforms to 14-19 education. Audience engagement tools were used by delegates to ask questions irrespective of their location and capture opinions to feed back into government.

After the event, all delegate feedback was stored and split into data sets as an electronic report, eliminating the need to transcribe notes or decipher whiteboards. We now have a post event document from which to extract information for further use. Not only is this service valuable as a point of reference, but it is also ‘paperless’, reducing the amount of overall waste generated by the event.

PIONEERING CHANGE Communicating education reforms to headteachers and senior education managers is essential to get everyone up to speed at an implementation level.

By using a unique event communication solution we not only made attending the event easier, we also encouraged twoway dialogue between delegates, ministers and senior government officials.

In the case of this multimedia conference, we were able to select the sustainable option without limiting the possibilities for interaction and communication. This meant that not only were we responding to the green agenda, we were also able to offer delegates direct communication with government ministers giving them instant, valuable feedback on the 14-19 education reforms.

FOR MORE INFORMATION www.dcsf.gov.uk www.greengagelive.com

Digital Design & Media live event solutions IGITAL DESIGN & MEDIA is an events supplier that provides support for conferences and exhibitions. Its scope covers equipment rental, project management and CAD services.

Anyone organising this type of event can contact Digital Design & Media to discuss design and layout, requirements for projection, sound, lighting and staging and for technical management.

We have 25 years experience in live events, working on small meetings to conferences with audience sizes of several thousand. Some of these events include lighting design for the Labour party annual conferences, sound design and

providing a high quality service at a fair price. Our charges are regularly checked against similar suppliers and prices are published on our website. We have a health and safety policy in place and are focussed on maintaining our low carbon footprint. We are actively introducing complete LED lighting systems for exhibition and conference, which can have massive energy savings of nearly nine times the amount of electricity used by conventional lamps.

D

installation for large AGM’s and for The Home Office and exhibition stand design for major companies like Plumbase, Corgi and Philips.

Digital Design & Media is committed to

FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel. 0845 241 8160 E-mail: mail@digitaldesignandmedia.com Web: www.digitaldesignandmedia.com

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

41

www.governmenttechnology.co.uk

Visit the website to view the categorised product finder

ADVERTISERS INDEX The publishers accept no responsibility for errors or omissions in this free service AIT Partnership

EMC

4

Objective Corporation

10

Austin Hughes Europe

33

Fujitsu

13

Oceanus

26

B2M Solutions

10

Fuzzelogic Solutions

29

Opace Technology Solutions

26

Blue Square Data Group Services

33

Grupo Konecta

36

Pearson Vue

18

Bluenowhere

26

IP UserGroup

Real Point Business Technology

26

Cable & Wireless

25

J.A.M.

Return on Investment

36

Clearone

10

Konica Minolta

Telehouse Europe

30

Commend UK

38

LM Matters

17

Tools4Ever

16

34

MLL Telecom

20

UK Broadband

22

Digital Design & Media

41

Molex

Vistorm

24

Eaton Williams

33

Nexans

Wired for Ideas

29

Data Centre World Conference & Expo

42

6

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

IBC 33 2

OBC 36

Putting the IT into securITy and saving money in the process The Security and Risk management issues within the Public sector have always been an important part of managing public buildings and equally providing IT and ICT services to the many buildings across what may be a widely spread facility has also been an issue that needed to be addressed.

Having addressed the latter by installing LAN (local area networks) and WAN (wide area networks) be they hard wired or wireless, it is now a much easier proposition to deal with the Security and Risk management issues.

If we consider the major components from a functional point of view, we are looking at surveillance (CCTV), access management, monitoring, communications, data storage and management and PEOPLE These requirements can now be integrated into an overall security and safety solution which will also offer other services such as intercom, video messaging, evacuation and asset management.

How? By utilising the latest IP network based technologies to consolidate all of these functions onto one “Existing” infrastructure saving both time (= money) and Money providing a best of breed solution that is reliable, flexible and appropriate.

What is more, the authority may not even have to invest in new hardware to achieve this. Utilising existing CCTV cameras for example and connection via a device called a Codec enables the existing investment to be part of the new system. The value of Video data is far greater than for purely security issues, we can all do with another pair of eyes, be it to monitor visitors and staff, assess workflow or improve levels of competence and training.

I

SEC 20 TEN

In truth as existing requirements migrate onto an IP network all sorts of additional benefits and savings become apparent, moving the security infrastructure from being a grudge purchase to being a valuable part of the business infrastructure and the data becoming an extremely valuable business tool.

GREEN IT – here we have an issue which is all to thorny across the public sector, with legislation forcing ALL institutions to look very carefully at where cost and carbon savings can be made. Again this is an area where introducing modern techniques to an existing IT/IP infrastructure can help.

Now is the perfect time for the IT/ICT, security, HR and other services to look carefully at how these solutions can be of benefit, research what is out there, be creative and work together to provide a best of breed and integrated solution to these apparently disparate business functions.

Power over Ethernet – Provides a great platform upon which to build a highly energy efficient solution again utilising the Network. Simply, by providing power via the network cable structure to devices such as CCTV cameras, Access card and RFID readers and other peripheral devices. Combine this with a good energy management strategy and the on-gong costs fall dramatically.

Prefer to attend a short FREE seminar programme and exhibition in your area – visit one of the IP UserGroup Road shows “IP-in-Action LIVE” – there will be one in your area soon: www.ipusergroup.com/live

Another area which can help is the technique of virtualisation, this is where external server devices are used on a managed/hosted basis reducing the need for costly server rooms with all of the costs involved in maintaining, cooling and powering them. This area will be an important one moving forward.

BUT WHERE DO YOU GO TO STAY AHEAD? Like to use the web for intelligence gathering – try the IP UserGroup International Security Technology forum: www.ipusergroup.com

IP-in-Action LIVE Bucks - 3rd December 2009 Alternatively receive the only publication dedicated to network centric security technology – IPfocus Magazine and eZine: www.ipfocusonline.com And finally why not attend the three day exhibition and conference, IIPSEC 20ten in February – register now: www.iipseconline.com

An Event Focused on Network Centric Security & Life Safety Technology

www.iipseconline.com This unique event demonstrates the latest in IT and network centric technologies and their application within the physical security and life safety environment.

International IP in Security Exhibition & Conference Cranmore Park, Solihull, Nr Birmingham, UK 3rd to 5th February 2010 Enquiries: +44 (0)1293 786822 - Email info@iipsec.com