NDL

Sheila Davidge, Winchester City Council

In the next in our series of interviews with leaders in public sector technology, we talk to Sheila Davidge, Head of Information Management and Technology at Winchester City Council. She explains recent initiatives, including virtualisation, and their hopes for a move towards shared services.

What’s the driving force behind Winchester’s strategy for technology?
Our primary aim is to provide an efficient and effective service to the public, and to give our staff the tools to enable them to deliver these services effectively. Everything we do is driven by this, within the budgetary constraints that we have to work within. So we’re continually looking at ways to achieve value for money yet at the same time improve services. We also want to give staff more flexibility, and we’re very conscious of our environmental responsibilities.

What have been your most notable recent successes?
Our supplier was spending too much valuable time manually managing and updating our rather outdated infrastructure. This wasn’t delivering value for money and we needed to find an alternative solution.
We also had plans to introduce an Electronic Document Records Management system, which simply couldn’t be accommodated with the existing technology. At the same time, we are faced with limited funding and need to maximise budgetary spend. All these things together meant we needed a complete overhaul of our technology infrastructure.
We’d seen other authorities successfully introduce a scalable virtual environment and decided to go down the same route. As a result, we’ve been able to rationalise our server structure and have cut our estate by half. Now it’s so much easier to manage: day-to-day maintenance is far less onerous. This investment has driven a very quick return, and additional benefits have included bringing another server that was off site back on site without increasing the computer room size as well as reducing our power consumption, with electricity costs cut by approximately up to £15,000 per year.
Following on from virtualisation, we are now starting to move to thin client working. The first phase will entail introducing thin client terminals for around 25 staff. This offers so many benefits. For example, as part of our green agenda, using four-watt terminals rather than 110-watt PCs brings significant energy and cost savings. Also, if a device breaks down they are much easier to replace. And it gives staff more room on their desks, and also opens up possibilities of hot-desking: anyone can sit at any terminal, switch on and start working, without having to go through mapping drives on a PC

Where does mobile working fit in with this strategy?
In exactly the same way as thin client: enabling staff to work efficiently from wherever they are. Using NDL’s awiMX mobile server technology, we implemented mobile working initially for our building control team. They’re taking their working documents out and about with them on a Tablet PC, and they can access and update reports when on site. They’re also automatically producing letters associated with their visits remotely and so they have less need to come back to the office. So this saves time, improves the service they offer – and more than that, they really like working this way.
Now we’ve extended mobile working into our property inspections. Inspectors make visits and upload results directly while in the field into our central Orchard system. Previously, this was done using a very complicated spreadsheet back in the office, which took up considerable time and resource. So once again we’ve introduced a more efficient service. Now we’re starting to roll out mobile working further within the department.

What do you see as the next big thing for Winchester?
There are a number of initiatives we’re currently working on. We’re looking seriously at shared services with our neighbouring authorities. Shared data centres are being discussed, with all the savings that would bring. Our move to a virtual environment supports all of this, as does thin client working: many other authorities have gone down this route, and it’s important that we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.
We’re also implementing Business Objects, with more people fully trained in writing reports. And we’re embarking on a major finance system upgrade.
In addition, we have developed our own planning portal website and our own Local Development Framework website. We believe this will enable the public to access important information more easily and efficiently. And we have been working with our Hampshire and Isle of Wight partners in a tendering process for a new Hampshire-wide public services network, with an announcement on the preferred supplier imminent.

How are suppliers responding to the demands of the public sector?
If you look at shared services in particular, there have been some moves which are welcome: for example, Microsoft’s decision to enable the transfer of licences between authorities. But what we will also need is to be able to have one set of licences for one application across two or more authorities: this will be critical to support shared services. Central government was key in achieving the licence transfer initiative – what’s needed is for suppliers to go even further. We’ve got to have this, and they’ve got to start listening.

What are the key challenges faced by the public sector?
Without doubt it’s providing what we need to maintain an effective service while budgets are under pressure. And I firmly believe that shared services will be crucial in achieving this: for example, by having three authorities using one combined data centre, there will be fewer support people needed to manage that estate, leading to lower costs, etc. This is what will be driving us forward to achieve this.