Chris Cox Programme Manager at Cheltenham Borough Council provides us with a look at how and why Huddle is deployed in Cheltenham Borough Council.

1. Shared Services and the Cloud
at Cheltenham Borough Council
Chris Cox
Programme Manager

2. Agenda
 Background
 Cheltenham Borough Council
 Shared Services
 GO Shared Services
 Questions

3. Cheltenham Borough Council
 Challenging medium term financial strategy,
requiring a radical rethink about service delivery
to plug the financial gap
 A stated political strategy of back-office savings
to protect front-line service delivery
 Cheltenham Borough Council is a commissioning
authority
Explore different ways of delivering services that
meet the needs of our customers and deliver
value for money

4. GO Shared Services
 Building upon a successful track record of
commissioning smaller shared services
(e.g. Legal, Building Control & Audit),
which had delivered service resilience and
retained savings within the partner
councils

5. GO Partners
Forest Cheltenham
West
Of Oxfordshire
Dean Cotswold

6. Background
Services included within GO Shared Services:
 Finance
 Procurement
 Human Resources (HR)
 Payroll

7. Benefits and Objectives
Anticipated Benefits
 Cost savings
 Efficient and resilient service
 Improved, user friendly systems
To be delivered via:
 New ERP software system
 New common efficient processes and ways of working
taking account of industry good practice and software
system capabilities – Not just within the process areas, but
across the business
 Creation of Shared Service to run transactional and
advisory services to aid efficiency, reduce cost, increase
resilience and to provide high levels of customer service

8. A Challenging Programme
 £1.4 million Programme with only 3.5% contingency
 Anticipated savings - £673,000 per annum
 Programme payback period – 4.35 years
 17 month implementation timescale
 Partnership working
 Small Programme team

9. GO in the Cloud
WAN Disaster Recovery Site
Disaster
Recovery
Network
Firewall
Web Application
Server Client
Forest of Dean
District Council
Database
Server Monitor
Server
Data Replication
IPVPN
MPLS
Monitor
Server
Cotswold
District Council
Database
Server
Web Application
Server
Firewall Firewall
West Oxfordshire
District Council
Client Citrix
XenApp
Support & Hosting
Centre of Excellence
Cheltenham Borough Council

10. Why Private Cloud
The Benefits of IPVPN (MPLS)
 Secure – compliant with Government Data classification of
IL2
 Up to 1Gbit/s speeds (able to grow with the business)
 Unlike leased lines, IPVPN doesn’t become more expensive
as the distances increase (non geographical)
 Allows connectivity between sites to be arranged in any
topology
 Bandwidth is flexible and can be upgraded without
disrupting service
 Easily expanded to accommodate further sites (grows with
the GO partnership)
 Inherent resilience - possibility to install access circuits to
diverse points of presence and from a variety of different
suppliers
 Benefits of your own WAN without the cost of building one

11. Collaboration
Huddle
 80 miles between partners
 Central document repository accessible to all
partners
 Document and access control
 Secure
 Discussion forums and user directory
 No infrastructure changes – accessible from an
internet connection
 Intuitive use and no training required

12. Lessons Learned
The key to successful completion:
 Shared vision and all partners aligned
 Commitment of the partners involved
 Operating in a true spirit of partnership working
 Embracing and acceptance of change
 Open, clear and consistent communications
 Active involvement of specialists
 Clear approval / decision making process
 Realistic, achievable timescales

13. Questions
Chris Cox
Programme Manager
Cheltenham Borough Council
@chriscox_ppm