Staffordshire signs PSN deal

The five year deal will see communications provider Kcom implement a county-wide network, which will be open to any public sector body in Staffordshire that wants to join. The network will initially be accessed by the council and the county's schools as well as connecting all borough and district authorities in Staffordshire. Staffordshire Health Authority has also agreed to join the network, which will connect about 50,000 devices. The council hopes the PSN will help streamline operational costs through combining wide and local area networks, rationalising multiple telephony services onto a single IP platform and through the introduction of a new contact centre system. "Staffordshire has an excellent track record in developing partnerships that enhance the council's IT services. The introduction of a Public Sector Network is the logical next step and a compelling opportunity," said Sander Kristel, chief information officer at the authority. "We are one of the first counties to introduce a PSN, and we're very excited by the efficiencies and improvements the network will enable within Staffordshire - particularly those that support Staffordshire's challenging ambitions for the integration of public services." The council has also disclosed that it plans to consolidate 18 of its offices into new county headquarters in the centre of Stafford. In November the Cabinet Office revealed that work on its PSN was near completion. Ian Wilcox, who represents local government interests within the Cabinet Office's PSN team, said at the time that the department was in the process of running tests on things like VoIP and video conferencing "to show a number of the technical issues have been cracked".