BUSINESS CHALLENGE
MEET GOVERNMENT TARGETS FOR EFFICIENCY AND ACHIEVE REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
THE SOLUTION
DEPLOY NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND BEST PRACTICE PROCESSES TO TRANSFORM IT INFRASTRUCTURE
BENEFITS
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY; ENHANCED REGULATORY COMPLIANCE; FREED UP IT RESOURCES; REDUCED OPERATIONAL COSTS
North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) is the largest authority in the UK in geographical terms, covering an area of more than 8,000 square kilometres. It provides a broad range of local government services from libraries and adult education to parking permits and street lighting for a population of over 570,000.
Ensuring these services — and the underpinning IT systems — remain cost-effective and efficient has always been a key concern for the council. As Danny Rubie, head of ICT for NYCC, explains: “Technology plays a key role in the delivery and continuity of our local services. It is therefore essential that we optimise the potential of IT to deliver maximum efficiency.”
The need for operational excellence has increased since the Gershon Review, which set rigorous efficiency targets. To ensure it could meet these — and its regulatory compliance — obligations, NYCC decided to embark on a complex transformation of its existing IT infrastructure.
The overhaul will encompass a range of systems and processes — from backup and email archiving to desktop operating environments and server virtualisation. “We needed to create a robust IT environment that would enable us to maximise our investment in technology and help transform the business,” comments Rubie.
Due to the complexity of the infrastructure upgrade, the council needed access to a breadth of IT skills and resources. Thanks to its six-year managed service with Computacenter, the council was able to combine its extensive experience with internal expertise to help make the transformation a reality. John Moore, director of finance at NYCC, comments: “We knew that by working with Computacenter we would be able to insource the technology best practice and expertise we needed to help roll-out new systems and improve the efficiency of the services we provide.”
The first phase of the transformation involved the standardisation and refresh of the council’s 4,500-plus desktops. As a result of this new infrastructure, which went live in March 2005, the number of incidents reported by users has reduced by 25 per cent, with nearly 70 per cent of problems being fixed remotely by Computacenter and seconded NYCC staff. “Our desktop infrastructure is both more secure and stable, which helps safeguard business continuity and efficiency,” adds Rubie.
In addition to its desire to improve efficiency, the council also needed to ensure its systems were compliant with the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Acts. With industry experts estimating that 75 per cent of a typical organisation’s intellectual property is contained in email messages, NYCC required a robust and scalable retention system.
Gavin Stone, a lead consultant at Computacenter, explains: “Users’ historic emails were being stored on individual desktops, which not only made retrieval very complex but also impacted the council’s backup processes and storage utilisation.”
To solve these problems, NYCC’s IT team worked with Computacenter to deploy a centralised email archiving and storage solution, based on technology from IntelliReach, HP and EMC.
Having optimised the council’s storage systems, Computacenter and NYCC are now turning their attention to the server estate, which they hope to reduce by around 70 per cent using virtualisation technology. “The consolidation programme will enable us to adopt a utility computing model as well as deploy new services more quickly,” adds Rubie.
These IT initiatives are all helping to improve the overall operational efficiency of the council. As Rubie confirms: “By improving IT processes and availability, we can help enhance staff productivity and reduce overheads.”
The email archiving solution has also provided the council with a dedicated records management system. “We can now retrieve historic messages simply and effectively for compliance and business purposes,” comments Rubie. “By reducing the volume of messages stored locally, we have also made our email system more agile and reduced the time and money spent on backup processes.”
Efficiency, however, is not the only benefit, as Rubie explains: “By transforming our infrastructure, we will be able to protect capital IT investment and support the future needs of the council and residents.”
For more information on Computacenter’s transformation
services, go to:
WWW.COMPUTACENTER.COM/TECHNOLOGYSOLUTIONS
