Leeds was the first local authority to connect all of its schools to 10Mbit/s broadband ahead of government targets, has won numerous awards for projects and is a beacon for ‘getting IT right’ in the public sector.
Roberts says there are 320 existing business initiatives from individual business units that require funding.
‘It’s a real nightmare for IT and we need to work on prioritisation,’ he says.
In response, Roberts is focused on instilling tight governance, around which projects can be given the green light.
‘Three years ago IT was all about operational support. Now we are key stakeholders in the delivery of the business, but we need projects as they allow us to be more closely aligned to business outcomes and they ensure better governance around business cases,’ he says.
‘A new governance framework will force people to do the work around issues such as total cost of ownership and how a project is aligned with corporate priorities, which will help filter the brilliant business cases.’
Therefore, priorities are a central concern for IT at Leeds. External demands from central government, such as the egovernment modernisation agenda and internal demands from diverse departments, create a pincer movement on technology that Roberts says can only be alleviated by increased control.
‘It’s the same for all local governments, there’s not just one over-riding priority,’ he says.
‘We have 1,114 different services delivered electronically. The challenge is prioritisation across multiple priorities.’
In the past, departments with their own specific demands created a silo effect on IT. It led to many separate and duplicate functions for each service and department, both on the customer-facing side and within support and logistics.
‘We are now moving towards a new business model, integrating both the customer-facing element and the support and logistics element to remove any duplications,’ says Roberts.
‘This will enable us to invest more money in professional services, such as teachers, social workers and getting the grass cut more often.’
IT is propelled by a holistic approach and a service transformation programme to secure one view of the customer.
Nine contact centres have been consolidated into one multimedia IP-based centre under the control of a new customer services department.
The Avaya-supplied system, which integrates with Siebel customer relationship management (CRM) software, was designed and implemented by contact centre services company Sabio in a £1.8m agreement.
Roberts says the council selected Sabio, which will provide support during the next five years, as a best-of-breed partner.
‘As a council we have a lot of specialist areas, so it’s difficult for external service providers to come in and deliver the whole package,’ he says.
Adopting a holistic network infrastructure scheme has increased resilience and stability, and enabled new innovations, such as the Leeds Learning Network, which connects schools, the local education authority, libraries and other learning centres.
The council chose managed services provider Synetrix to develop the system. The contract is worth some £8m.
‘The first thing we are doing is replacing the ISP-type services to make them bigger, better and faster,’ says Roberts.
Synetrix won the deal because it offered resilience and included a dual data centre solution.
‘We looked for a partner that understood the significance of business continuity within the education sector. If the network goes down, 30,000 pupils’ education stops,’ says Roberts.
New services will include a virtual learning platform that integrates communication and collaboration systems with resources for teaching and learning.
Every user will be provided with a personalised interface, which will tailor services to the individual’s requirements. Users will also be given roaming access to work files and assignments.
The environment is modelled on Microsoft Outlook and includes a task list for pupils’ assignments that then appear on teachers’ to-do lists when they are completed.
Patrick Kirk, lifelong learning infrastructure manager at the council, says the organisation is bringing the workflow of a business environment into a teaching environment.
‘The most important thing is that it will enable collaboration. For example, groups of schools will be able to work together on minority subjects in virtual rooms,’ he says.
Because access will be enabled through portable devices, Kirk says the council is encouraging schools to allow mobile phones.
‘Schools have been working hard on getting phones out of classrooms because they can be disruptive, but we thought: why not use them to deliver education and online content?’ he says.
Kirk says there are also plans for teachers to allow pupils to use their PlayStation Portable devices to access the network through built-in WiFi.
‘One of the largest target groups of under achievers is young lads and if we can find ways of creating work that they want to do, such as accessing learning materials on their PlayStations through WiFi networks in schools, we are contributing to UK plc,’ he says.
Innovative ideas are one thing, but Roberts has not overlooked IT’s core function – operational support, the need for which has intensified in response to exponential technology growth.
He says the organisation has followed the lead of commercial organisations in developing best practice for support.
‘We have introduced first, second and third lines of support, recruited an ex-EDS employee to head our operational services unit, as well as more support staff with technical expertise,’ says Roberts.
Consequently, 40 to 60 per cent of calls to the IT service desk are resolved at the first point of contact, compared with only 12 per cent of calls 18 months ago, despite the number of calls rising from 7,000 to 12,000 per month over that period.
‘Operational support is still our bread and butter. If IT goes down, all hell will break loose,’ says Roberts.
Why corporate technology unit is key
To facilitate the move towards holistic IT at Leeds City Council, Dylan Roberts, the organisation’s head of information and communication technology, is adamant that a corporate technology unit is essential.
‘The IT unit was departmentalised; now it is corporate,’ he says. ‘We don’t dictate, but we do work co-operatively with the different departments. We have improved relationship management by having an account manager from IT who works in each department and can ensure we move away from diverse technologies.’
What may be good for an individual department may not necessarily be good for the council as a whole, says Roberts.
‘IT has a corporate governance role and account managers help the council with service planning by getting departments to work with a corporate mentality,’ he says.
Each account manager has a technical blueprint mapping the cohesive infrastructure they should be aiming towards, covering elements such as shared applications, application support tools and common infrastructure services.
Analyst Gartner was brought in 15 months ago to help cultivate a corporate approach.
And the council is part of the government’s National eService Delivery Standards project, which aims to provide a range of standards to help local authorities provide efficient and consistent levels of service to customers.
National standards will provide best practice and guidance and help fulfil efficiency requirements highlighted in the 2004 Gershon Review.
‘Local government isn’t necessarily about bleeding-edge technology, so we look to follow best practice,’ says Roberts.
But he says it can be difficult to try to change the culture of departments.
‘There are built-in contradictions in the way government wants us to modernise. It wants us to have one view of the customer, but measurements are based on enquiries, such as how many benefits enquiries we’ve had,’ Roberts says.
‘A specialised solution for one department may be quick to implement and improve figures, but not work for the overall good of the council in moving towards a more unified approach. The corporate governance framework shows us where we should be going.’
Autor: Lisa Kelly
Quelle: VNUnet, 23.03.2006
