Network brings shared benefits

A multi-agency, multi-sector public sector network in South Wales is not only bringing cost efficiencies and frontline benefits to Gwent Police, it is also providing a platform for innovation and a catalyst for much better collaboration across public sector bodies.

The Gwent Neighbourhood Network Design (GNND) project – the largest regional consortium to invest in the Welsh Public Sector Network (PSN) – is paving the way for improved collaboration between police forces in Wales.

The GNND project was launched in 2011 and brings together seven public bodies from the police service, health, unitary authority and education – Gwent Police Authority, Aneurin Bevan Health Board, Caerphilly County Borough Council, Coleg Gwent, Monmouthshire County Council, Newport City Council and Torfaen County Borough Council.

The £14 million project, supported by an Invest to Save Loan from the Welsh government, repayable over five to seven years, is the largest single expansion of the Public Sector Broadband Aggregation (PSBA) network in Wales.

It is capable of delivering a full suite of voice, video and data services and will provide the GNND members with high-capacity and scalable network connections across a range of connectivity options.
Since March 2010, Gwent Police, Monmouthshire County Council and Torfaen County Borough Council have pooled their IT staff in a Shared Resource Centre (SRC) with a data centre facility at Blaenavon.

In an independent analyst report from IT partner Logicalis UK detailing the achievements to date of the GNND, Paul Higgs, assistant director for infrastructure at the SRS, explained: “The Gwent Police existing WAN (wide area network) contract expired at the end of October 2011. With the PSBA already established in Wales it made sense to get on the GNND platform where we could share services and collaborate across the public sector. Collaboration is key to successful policing. There has been complete buy-in to GNND by all public organisations across Wales at that level. It has been fantastic.

“GNND will give Gwent Police a high resilience core network and reduce the cost of providing the LAN ( local area network) and WAN by somewhere in the region of £90,000 in year six. This is the equivalent of, say, two police officers.”

Logicalis UK is supplying 1,000 new WAN circuits which are being deployed across the GNDD organisations.

Tom Kelly, MD of Logicalis UK, said: “The report – Gwent Neighbourhood Network Project: reaping the benefits of a bold and strategic, compiled by independent public sector analysts Severne – provides substantial detail on the key elements of a successful PSN directly from those that have done it. It is a great resource for any public sector body or consortium considering PSN today. From project inception to ongoing service delivery and operations, the report highlights the necessary stages, considerations and decisions required to make these complex, but now critical, shared communications services succeed.”

The Gwent neighbourhood network project is the first collaborative project organised under the auspices of the G7/G8 – the chief officers and leaders of the five local authorities, the chief constable and chair of the police authority and the CEO and chair of the Health Board, have for some years been meeting as ‘the G7’. More recently the principal and chair of Coleg Gwent have joined this group which is now known as the ‘the G8’.

The G8 provides the cornerstone for collaboration in Gwent, both initiating projects and providing the leadership which encourages officers and members of all bodies to build collaboration at all levels.
Since 2007, the Welsh government’s ‘Making the connections policy’ initiative has been demonstrating what a sophisticated ICT project can do to drive shared services and cost savings in the public sector. Underpinned by the PSBA project, it is already bringing efficiencies across the whole public sector in Wales – education, health services and local governmen