Transforming Council operations through new IT services
Requirement Newry, Mourne and Down District council is one of 11 super councils created in 2015. The new council faced many business challenges including the need to converge and improve the reliability of the legacy IT infrastructures, application and device estate. The council had ambitious plans for transforming its services and needed an IT environment that was stable and fit for purpose. They required a strategic IT consulting partner to help set out an ICT strategy and secure funding for a programme of ICT transformation and procurement. Acuity worked closely with the council to provide strategic business-led IT advice, ICT procurement planning and delivery, and support for solution implementation.
Delivery The strategy proposed increased use of specialist managed service providers while enhancing the capacity of the in-house team. This required an extensive programme to procure a range of ICT and digital solutions and services from third party providers, and transfer the management and delivery to a managed service for parts of the current service.
Acuity helped the council establish the programme’s foundations and governance. This involved rationalising 40+ projects into 16 delivery projects, engaging across a broad range of stakeholders. The objectives of the programme were to:
Introduce managed ICT services
Centralise the management of ICT services
Deliver a reliable platform
Deliver new enhanced ICT Services
Enable shared services and collaboration
Acuity helped the council undertake extensive scoping and procurement activity, comprising multiple IT projects. Our support spanned the full procurement lifecycle via a range of routes suited to the requirements and complexity of each project.
The council also wished to identify opportunities for collaboration through procurement and establishing common solution platforms. Acuity worked with the key stakeholders and helped create a series of IT-based framework agreements from which other Northern Ireland councils can draw services. This saw the council playing an active regional facilitation role. Approximately £200K in procurement costs could be saved by other councils through use of just one of these Frameworks.
Acuity established a new service-level framework alongside the council, setting out how IT solution providers and contracts would be managed by the in-house team. This framework was accompanied by a set of clear and workable service-level agreements for new managed ICT services or solution contracts.
Result
The changes made through the transformation programme set in place fundamental building blocks for future support of the council’s ICT and digital services. The networking solutions Acuity helped to procure helped to ensure that the council functioned successfully throughout the Covid-19 pandemic despite significant disruption. The council continues to transform and embed new services and solutions, with Acuity’s support it has already been able to establish a range of approaches, specifications, and contracts and agreements that will be of benefit for many years ahead.