Archived decisions
Contact: Jos Creese, Head of IT, 01962 847436 ([email protected])
1.1 The following decision is sought:
To approve the purchase and installation of replacement core network infrastructure to support the County Council's central Castle buildings data network. Approval is sought to spend up to £700,000.
4. Reasons
2.1 The key reasons are:
· Over 3000 Hampshire County Council staff and Members rely on this network in order to access essential electronic information and systems. The maintenance of this underlying technology infrastructure on a piecemeal basis is no longer effective or efficient. A complete upgrade is now needed in order to be able to manage the service effectively and to meet those needs.
· The timing is right to make this investment to avert serious risks to service continuity, in conjunction with the central telephone switch replacement. Implementation can be undertaken in advance of the Ashburton Court refurbishment and Contact Centre programme needs.
· By replacing the old technology with a design and infrastructure capable of delivering an improved resilient performance with additional security and capacity, the support will be in place to enable future growth and development of the service.
5. Other options considered and rejected
5.1 Do Nothing.
Whilst the current network can continue to operate without immediate changes, the service is becoming harder and more expensive to maintain as it grows in complexity. It is also unable to meet new service requirements that rely on more up-to-date technology. In order to provide an efficient and effective service, the changes need to be made now.
In addition the Ashburton Court Refurbishment and `Hantsdirect' (Contact Centre) programmes will place new demands on this infrastructure and upgrading will be needed in particular to enable data and voice traffic to be run over the same network.
The option of doing nothing is therefore rejected.
5.2 Partial Upgrade.
It would be possible to stagger the replacement project in a number of stages, upgrading on a piecemeal basis. However, this is liable to increase the costs and also increase the risks associated with the project in the medium term. It will also be more difficult to address the end-to-end support issues, fault tracing, and security requirements due to the complexity of the overall network infrastructure which needs to be considered as a whole.
This option is also therefore rejected.
6. Conflicts of Interest declared by the decision-maker or other Executive Member consulted
N/A
7. Dispensation granted by the Standards Committee
N/A
8. Reasons for the matter being dealt with if urgent
N/A
Approved by .................................. Date: 31 October 2006
Councillor T K Thornber, CBE
Executive Member for Policy and Resources