£2m could be saved by councils' new IT deal

Two councils have signed a major IT contract which is set to save them £2million over seven years.

Brighton and Hove City Council and East Sussex County Council have signed a £20million deal for a public services network.

The deal, with managed network provider MDNX, could grow to £30million if more public sector bodies get on board, and is expected to take around 20 per cent out of the councils’ network costs.

The 10Gbps network will be rolled out by the end of August across 270 public sector bodies, including schools, police, and fire and rescue.

The two authorities also expect the move to create savings through shared office space and shared services.

Surrey County Council will host the system on behalf of East Sussex County Council as part of the SAP shared services.

Tony Summers, the chief information officer at East Sussex County Council, said the network would allow more local authorities to provide services to each other.

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Comments(7)

george smith says...
9:57am Sat 2 Feb 13

It is time that Brighton was once again a part of east sussex council. Brighton would still have minority party councillors, but they would be smaller fish in a bigger pond and so their beliefs would be more dilute.

Maxwell's Ghost says...
10:09am Sat 2 Feb 13

I agree George.
Financial savings but also the quality of councillors in B&H have always been parish/ town council level innthe past decade so rolling out seats across East Sussex may produce a better quality from all parties.
The current lot have no industry experience, no experience of people not even any life experiece which is why the city people are so disengaged from the council. That lack of connection makes it impossible for a city to unite and thrive.

668 The neighbour of the beast says...
10:27am Sat 2 Feb 13

£2 million over 7 years sounds laughable if they're tied into an SAP integration pretty much forever. I guess it might some senior managers can outsource everything and sit back and wait for early retirement?

How easy is it for any organisation to cut links after SAP integration at a later date? Are high fees still payable forever even after trying to terminate the contracts? Just hope the long-term has been considered.

The extra connectivity is needed so that staff from all of the emergency services and council can look up their neighbours on the computer at lunchtime? It will probably still be utterly useless for most other things.

mimseycal says...
10:50am Sat 2 Feb 13

Yet another good excuse for why paperwork is lost ...

Hove Actually says...
11:04am Sat 2 Feb 13

Just like the Parking enforcement where you have to write to West Sussex.

BHCC seem very happy to export even more jobs and wages to other areas without realising any money saved will end up being paid in housing benefit etc to those who end up losing their livelihoods.

Can't we apply this to the senior idiots we now have?

qm says...
12:49pm Sat 2 Feb 13

Somehow the concept of an "IT deal" involving Government, local or otherwise saving costs doesn't seem to ring true and I cannot for the life of me imagine why . . . .
Possibly something to do with cost inflation to the tune of 100s sometimes 1000 times the eventual cost I expect!

fredflintstone1 says...
6:02pm Mon 4 Feb 13

Maxwell's Ghost wrote:
I agree George.
Financial savings but also the quality of councillors in B&H have always been parish/ town council level innthe past decade so rolling out seats across East Sussex may produce a better quality from all parties.
The current lot have no industry experience, no experience of people not even any life experiece which is why the city people are so disengaged from the council. That lack of connection makes it impossible for a city to unite and thrive.
Agree 100%, and would also add the oficers are not being properly managed. When this Green administration goes, officers will need to be replaced too, as they're advocating all these ludicrous vanity projects for the Greens. They don't appreciate what ordinary people want / need to facilitate their daily lives, eg minimal road hold-ups and congestion.

click2find

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