Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council (MBC) in the United Kingdom has more than halved its telephony costs, from £4.5 million (US$8 million) to £2.3 million (US$4.1 million), since its investment in a £950,000 (US$1.7 million)IP network from Alcatel in May 2004.
These savings have enabled Trafford MBC to make further investments in the delivery of e-government, including electronic planning applications and a customer relationship management system. The installation has also drawn the attention of the Italian Government, which is currently considering Trafford MBC as a blueprint for a forthcoming project designed to migrate a million public sector users to IP Telephony. MBC's converged voice, video and data network combines both IP and traditional telephony, linking 250 buildings including schools, hospitals, libraries, independent organisations, trusts, charities, and 4700 office-based administrative workers.
Citizens, councillors and schools have also benefited from the introduction of additional applications, such as video conferencing, which provides multiple channels for interaction and increased e-learning opportunities. Further advantages of the rollout include a consolidated call-centre that can now deal with 80 per cent of citizen inquiries at the first point of contact, and wireless connectivity for council officers.
"IP telephony solutions have greatly improved both internal and external communications, maximising cost reduction, with internal network management giving us far greater operational control," said Mark Gibbison, head of e-government at Trafford MBC. "We now have a consolidated CCTV network over the data infrastructure, which has the potential to reduce crime in schools by 45 per cent, or £1 million in real terms, whilst council officers work in a mobile environment in which they can access all data, email and appliances from any council office. We're also working towards a complete implementation of unified messaging services."
Among those interested in the success of the Trafford installation is the Centro Nazionale per l'Informatica nella Pubblica Amministrazione (CNIPA), an Italian national public sector IT organisation responsible for the evaluation of technology for government projects.
With plans to migrate one million public sector users to IP telephony, CNIPA has short-listed Trafford's installation as an example of a best-practice e-government implementation, hosting representatives of Trafford MBC in March to present to delegates in Rome.
"The tight deadlines for both implementing and integrating the new features made the installation a real challenge to say the least," added Gibbison. "However, the response from users has been universally positive. We're on target for 100 per cent electronic service delivery by the end of 2005, and as things stand we'll see a full return-on-investment within two years."
Quelle: Public Sector Technology & Management, 05.07.2005
