Kcom hosts industry discussion on the opportunities of Public Service Networks (PSN)

21 Oct 2011

Partnerships, Savings and Networking key to success

London, 24 October 2011 - On Wednesday 12^th October, Kcom, part of the KCOM Group, held an industry roundtable at the Houses of Parliament to discuss the experiences of public sector bodies implementing PSN (Public Service Networks). A key outcome of the wide ranging discussion was a call to the wider public sector community to share information and best practice more. Also covered were the best approaches for breaking down perceived barriers to adoption such as security and ensuring that local public sector partner organisations are bought-in to the PSN project.

Participants were drawn from a the Cabinet Office and a number of public sector bodies that have already implemented PSN, including Staffordshire County Council, Dorset County Council as well as Northamptonshire County Council and Yorkshire & Humberside Metropolitan Area Network where regional PSN strategies are still being developed. Accompanying them were industry analysts, and Kcom’s own PSN experts Afshin Attari and Mike Gooch as well as Executive Director, Paul Simpson.

The discussion began by exploring the drivers for adoption as well as barriers to success. Sander Kristel, CIO, Staffordshire County Council explained, “We originally began the PSN process through necessity, because our existing contracts were coming up for renewal, but ultimately it was a vision to work in a different way that drove us towards adopting a PSN.”

Security is often cited as a major barrier to adoption and this was addressed by a number of participants, including John Stubley who until recently was the programme lead for PSN at the Cabinet Office; “We’re trying to say to the public sector, there is a different way of doing things. After significant work to define security standards, PSN security should now be viewed as an enabler as opposed to a barrier. Traditionally people built fences around the work they were doing, this is no longer the case and we’re seeing an ever more collaborative ethos developing”.

Whilst collaboration is improving, the cultural change of working in a shared resources environment can be difficult according to Rocco Labellarte, Director of Operations, Northamptonshire County Council who also has responsibility for shared service with Cambridgeshire, including the Cambridgeshire PNS who commented, “The word share puts fear in to the hearts of people who are used to protecting their empire. In order to achieve buy-in you need to change your language dependent on whether people have an appetite for sharing.”

Unsurprisingly the cost savings enabled by implementing a PSN dominated the discussion with Sara Moseley, Business Change Manager at Dorset County Council, pointing out that the one thing that unites all public sector organisations is the need to save money. A sentiment echoed by Patrick Clark, the Cabinet Office’s newly appointed PSN lead for non-central government who said, “Not only can we save money by implementing a PSN, we can also take advantage of new technologies and ways of doing things.”

Convincing partners of the cost savings which they can achieve as well as the other benefits of PSN can be a challenge and the attendees discussed a number of different approaches. Sara Moseley explained that in Dorset she had taken great care to position her role as outcome based with no formal allegiances. An important activity undertaken early on by Dorset to help shape the project was an event for all of the potential partners to attend and be briefed on the project and its benefits. “Getting all of our stakeholders together and mapping their needs and levels of interest in partnering was crucial to getting buy-in and developing our strategy,” said Moseley.

All of the attendees were unanimous in their view that it is incumbent on those who have already implemented, or are in the process of implementing a PSN to share their knowledge and experiences with others. As Sander Kristel summarised, “We must keep sharing experiences and ideas amongst the public sector community because if a critical mass of organisations don’t come on board then the benefits of a shared infrastructure will never be realised fully.”

Speaking after the event Mike Gooch, PSN and Next Generation Carrier Specialist, Kcom, commented, “I’m really heartened that the conversation around PSN has moved past just talking about the technicalities and has progressed to discussions about the benefits and outcomes made possible by PSN. The coming year will see many more public sector bodies exploring PSN as an option for cutting costs and improving services, forums such as this discussion are a great way of sharing best practice and knowledge.”

Contact

Bianca Keeble
Kcom
bianca.keeble@kcom.com
07720 311540

About Kcom

Kcom, part of the KCOM Group PLC, provides communication services for multi-site enterprise and public sector organisations across the UK, and has a well established reseller channel. As an independent provider of these services, supported by its BT Wholesale partnership, Kcom is able to offer advanced network capability and related added value services, coupled with a flexible approach to delivering a different class of service to its customers.

Its customers include GVA Grimley, British Airways, North Wales Police, Specsavers, City of London, Phones4u, Rosslyn Analytics, Hermes, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, Windsor Telecom and Diva Telecoms.