Government

A pioneering partnership

Buckinghamshire (Bucks) is a county in the south of England with a population of around 553,000. It combines strong transport links to London with picturesque local towns, villages and countryside – and a local economy worth GBP £17.4 billion. 

Overseeing the delivery of public services across the county, Buckinghamshire Council was established as a unitary body in April 2020. The consolidation brought together one county council and four district councils into a single entity and also prompted a pioneering joint collaboration with the regional healthcare provider, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue has since joined the partnership.

"We believe that strengthening the link between all of our public services, including health and social care, is fundamental to improving the lives of people who live in Buckinghamshire," says Tony Ellis, Service Director for IT Services at Buckinghamshire Council. 

Connecting all these entities, more than 250 locations across the county, including council offices, schools, hospitals and fire stations, is a fundamental part of the IT strategy. The Buckinghamshire 'One IT' programme brings together infrastructure, devices and other IT contracts, with its foundation being a single regional network.

Sharing skills, knowledge, and experience

A key objective of the One IT programme was to enable Buckinghamshire Council to migrate away from its disparate legacy IT environments. The One Network project was a key building block for this work, replacing several legacy networks, a number of outsourcing contracts and 12 ageing data centers with a single network connected to two consolidated data centres, all supported in-house.

The goal was to build a single future-ready platform with a rationalised portfolio of applications and a joint procurement process. Ellis says this would deliver operational efficiencies with staff using the same devices through a shared domain and network:

"In putting in a joint network and working with our partners at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service, we are not only sharing skills, knowledge and experience, but also ensuring that we have a network that has the capacity and resilience to run our day-to-day services."

The programme also aims to empower co-location for NHS and council staff, enabling secure shared access to essential data. In fact, all staff at the three organisations that form the partnership can use their devices securely in any location on the network, be it in a council office, school, hospital or fire station.  

Successful programme delivery required a trusted technology vendor with extensive experience in local government and healthcare environments. Cisco had already established a long-standing and highly successful relationship with both Buckinghamshire Council and Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, making it a natural choice to partner in delivering the One Programme's objectives.

User-focused service

Working with Cisco and BT, both long-term strategic partners, Buckinghamshire Council developed a flexible, scalable and secure high-speed infrastructure designed to deliver a service focused firmly on the user. The new environment is now ready for new and emerging technologies, such as Cisco Wi-Fi 6 and IoT applications, whilst also supporting hybrid working for staff. The distributed, Cisco-connected data centres upgrade and consolidate the ageing data centre estate.

Using Cisco Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) technology accelerates the onboarding of new services. It also simplifies traffic management and prioritisation across the network, delivers absolute control of security parameters and improves the performance of essential applications, such as Microsoft Office.

The Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture features Cisco Umbrella security, including Cisco Umbrella Security Internet Gateways (SIGs) bolstered by Duo access security. Umbrella allows secure access from any location, including mobile, to local data centres or directly to SaaS or IaaS platforms. All identity management and profiling tasks are carried out by Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).

Cisco Software-Defined Access (SDA) delivers proactive network monitoring with centralised management and analytics, allowing IT staff to respond quickly, effectively and intelligently to incidents. 

"We're now a service-led team," says Ellis. "The three organisations now have a focal point for IT service delivery, and Buckinghamshire Council is one of Cisco's leading European partners."

A foundation for digital transformation

The partnership successfully met and overcame challenges caused by the pandemic, global transistor chip shortage, Chinese factory lockdown and more recent issues such as the war in Ukraine which further affected supply chains for key equipment. 

"This was a huge project in terms of resourcing and technology, and the programme plan was reprofiled almost on a weekly basis," says Ellis. "The project succeeded because of the strength of the partnership between ourselves, BT and Cisco. Every step was built on trust and mutual respect. It's a credit to all the partners and the people involved that, despite everything thrown at this project, we still got there."

The outcome is a platform that serves as the cornerstone for digital transformation, offering a multitude of services for public sector staff in Buckinghamshire. The integrated network delivers broadband connectivity to schools, fire and rescue facilities, as well as to vital health and social care sites, including hospitals, council premises and care homes. 

Collaboration is integral to the project's success, both in terms of the implementation with Cisco and the ongoing results. Buckinghamshire Council, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service can now work together to meet local needs whilst also enabling staff mobility and secure flexible working. Having supported each other through the Covid crisis, the bodies' respective IT teams can now join forces to share resources, skills and knowledge.

Furthermore, a Cisco Enterprise Agreement (EA) forms the foundation of a shared procurement framework accessible to all participating entities, providing them with access to an extensive suite of Cisco software and services. 

"We always knew that Andrew, our Cisco account manager, was fighting our case," says Ellis. "That was fundamental to the project's success, and our working relationship has since gone from strength to strength."

Ready to respond

Ultimately—and most importantly—the new network improves the delivery of vital services to local residents and businesses. It gives employees, clinicians and social workers the information and applications they need to promote wellness, prevent and treat ill-health and ensure that people receive the right services, at the right time, in the right place.

"We now have a network platform in place," says Ellis. "Our next challenge is to help the organisations exploit the capabilities of this platform."

Crucially, although Buckinghamshire Council and Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust share a single network, both retain autonomy. The network is managed through a single 'pane of glass', enabling both council and NHS trust to apply appropriate rules on governance and compliance.

The joint IT infrastructure is now ready to respond to future needs across the region. The plan is to explore smart city initiatives, broaden the provision of distributed health and care in the home or community and improve digital access for citizens to council, health and care services.