Whereas in 2000 General Ledger systems in 43% of authorities were run on mainframes, in 50% on Unix, and in only 7% on Windows, today the equivalent figures are 9%, 52% and 29% respectively. For applications more recently automated, the trend to Windows is even more noticeable – 84% of licensing systems run under Windows with the remainder under Unix operating systems. This information is culled from Socitm’s seventh annual survey of Application Software used by local authorities, published on 19 August 2005. Details of software used by 356 local authorities - 80% of the total in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are provided, alongside information for 34 Fire authorities and 19 Police Forces.
The survey covers the software used in 70 function areas including financial, people and property systems as well as specialist systems for front-line services such as environmental health, libraries, social services and housing management. Also included are systems to support internal management processes such as document management, CRM, content management, and virus detection, as well as specialist applications used by Fire and Police.
The Index provides a comprehensive picture of the software used by each council including supplier, operating system, installation and planned replacement dates. It also includes tables showing the relative market share (in terms of number of installations) of each supplier and the levels of user satisfaction with suppliers and their products.
The Index includes contact and product details for over one hundred of the main software suppliers to local government. There have been many changes in suppliers’ names over the past twelve months through mergers, takeovers and new entrants to the market.
Apart from the move towards Windows operating systems, analysis of the data between the first Software Index in 1999 and the current 2005 edition reveals some other interesting trends, according to Index editor Brian Westcott:
- Software for many applications is now more readily available and there has been steady decrease in the number of authorities using in house developed software. For example only 7% now have in house developed software for their general ledger (16% in 2000) and 9% have in house developed HR systems (19% in 1999).
- the proportion of local authorities developing their own is much higher for less well-established applications (e.g. Committee Administration 42% and Waste Management 34%.
- companies such as Anite and Northgate have increased their market shares considerably through acquisitions as well as marketing – for example Northgate has increased its share of payroll systems from 11% in 2000 to 29% today through its acquisition of Peterborough Software.
- the main suppliers dominate, particularly for applications specific to local government. For example, two companies supply 85% of local authorities with Client Systems for Social Services, four account for 91% of Council Tax systems and three account for 79% of Electoral Registration systems. With regard to non-specific applications there is more choice – for example seven companies supply 75% of General Ledger software and a total of 22 suppliers have at least two local authority sites
Quelle: PublicTechnology, 19.08.2005
