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In pursuit of radical change

Editorial Type: Masterclass     Date: 09-2014    Views: 2371   









Tim Ager of Celestix has been working closely with local and regional government organisations to support their transformational government objectives. Here, he offers a taster from behind the scenes

It has been a refreshing experience to see how our councils are actively assessing the use of computer-based information and communications technologies to enable radical improvement to the delivery of public services.

The recurring driver is to do more with less, which can be perceived as a negative initiative. But as any child of the 1970s will tell you, doing more with less was just how we were raised. It's second nature and arguably we could all do well by heeding the experiences of our colleagues working in the public sector.

We all know that public sector organisations are under pressure to demonstrate cost savings. In parallel, they are under increasing pressure to comply with regulations such as the Public Service Network guidelines (PSN). Delivering more with less when data security and confidentiality are at risk is a significant challenge, but rather than buckle under the strain, organisations have managed to develop innovative new ways of working that use ICT to improve services without increasing costs.

Mobile working is one of the areas where the more for less approach is delivering genuine transformation. Many organisations are consolidating their office space and so they are enabling working from home and flexible working. Recent developments in mobile working enable organisations to actively deliver integrated collaboration and mobile working environments that use technology to support the latest computing trends.

UNIFIED COMMUNICATION
In the last year, I have experienced the widespread adoption of unified communications tools, combined with the use of cordless desk phones and hot desking within council offices. Providing fewer desks than there are staff could be perceived as a compromise, but the ability to downsize office space enables investment in state of the art technology. The office experience within many councils is now more modern and meets the expectations of newer aspirational staff.

At the same time, while I've also seen the empowerment of a much more agile and mobile workforce, this comes with a broad range of security challenges, amplified by the need to comply with regulations provided by PSN. How can public organisations empower mobile working, while reducing costs and maintaining a sufficient security state? The answer has often been to deploy access technologies such as IPsec or SSL VPN, which can often increase complexity and cost through user licensing.

Mobile working needs to be easy to ensure user adoption. It needs to be secure to ensure compliance and it needs to be low cost, in order to meet budget constraints. Where the public sector has managed to deliver on all three objectives is by maximising their investment in Microsoft technologies. As an example of how secure, easy and cost effective remote working can be, we see rapid adoption of DirectAccess, an always-on network connection for domain joined devices which can meet with PSN compliance guidelines.

The 'do more with less' ethos is indeed alive and well in our public sector organisations, and we can all learn from their experiences.

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