The project, which was won competitively, aims to boost efficiency and productivity for the local authority and create significant cost savings.
The council’s development of electronic services for local citizens has placed significant pressure on existing data storage systems. Regulatory requirements such as the Freedom of Information Act also make more efficient storage management vitally important. By consolidating and rationalising multiple storage functions, LDL will be able to manage data storage centrally and more effectively. As part of their wider drive to deliver the efficiencies demanded by the Gershon review, LDL and Liverpool City Council expect to see cost savings of more than £2.5m over five years from the new storage solution. In line with Central Government requirements, these savings will be reinvested in frontline council activities, ultimately improving the services delivered to citizens in Liverpool.
David McElhinney, Chief Executive of Liverpool Direct Limited, commented: “As well as reducing the level of resource required to manage and back up disparate servers, this new solution will make our systems far more reliable and resilient. With minimum downtime and speedier access to vital information, council employees across both back and front office functions will be able to do their jobs more effectively.”
Gary Bullard, Managing Director, BT Global Services UK, said: “We have a strong track record of delivering networked IT solutions to Liverpool City Council through the LDL strategic partnership. This has proven that helping the council to operate effectively in the digital networked economy doesn’t just impact the IT department, it also brings major benefits to wider staff and the local community.
“This latest initiative has the potential to make a lasting and long term financial contribution to the way the council operates. For example, in line with its strategy to externalise services for delivery to other local authorities, LDL will have the capability to offer resilient, managed storage services to other councils. Sharing services in this way is a core element of many local authorities’ plans to drive efficiency and could become an important new revenue stream.”
Working with LDL over the next two months, BT will consolidate the infrastructure for five separate IT projects, including a new financial system, an MS Exchange server migration, an MS Active Directory migration (to precede the Exchange migration), a separate server consolidation requirement and a data centre move. The project will be carefully managed to minimise duplication, complexity and risk.
LDL is a £300m strategic partnership, established in 2001 between BT and Liverpool City Council. It has already radically improved customer services for Liverpool residents, and has helped the city move from being one of the poorest performing local authorities in the UK to an official ranking as a ‘good council’ by the Audit Commission in its CPA Assessment. By streamlining services and using the latest technology, it is estimated that the partnership is already saving council taxpayers £5m a year.
Quelle: Publictechnology, 30.06.2005
