At the end of last year, Derby city council's iconic Council House in Corporation street in the heart of the city was officially reopened. The move represented a major milestone in the council's ambitious service transformation plans that are underpinned by a comprehensive ICT improvement programme, delivered by the council's strategic partner, Serco.
Around 600 people worked in the 50 year old Council House prior to the full refurbishment and transformation of the building and the adoption of new working practices and advanced ICT capabilities.
Today, the building provides accommodation for nearly 2,000 members of staff as well as a prestigious council chamber and a greatly expanded, more welcoming and inclusive customer services area. The significantly more effective use of the council's principal office facility now provides all citizens with a clear focal point for all council services and has also enabled the authority to make significant savings by vacating nine other former council buildings in the city centre.
From the outset, the objective was to take full advantage of new technologies in order to maximise service efficiencies and resources for the benefit of citizens and staff alike. An initial infrastructure improvement programme began in 2009 and led to the introduction of intelligent virtual storage, a virtualised server estate and new or upgraded core council applications.
The success of this programme and the extensive use of so-called 'thin client technology' has completely transformed the user environment. This has greatly improved working practices and flexibility, with staff now being able to work in the office, at home or out 'on site' around the city.
The wide-ranging and innovative ICT programme has included all layers of technology - from new hardware platforms, and re-provisioned communications links to the introduction of a completely new network infrastructure as well as a much-needed 50% reduction in the number of software applications used by the council.
This progressive and more focussed approach now allows staff, visitors, customers and partner organisations to connect to services from anywhere within the Council House.
Significantly, all users have benefitted from new hardware and a dedicated 'early life support team' has been on hand to provide support, encouragement and advice as staff make the move to the new working methods and practices.
Around the impressive central customer service areas, the new well-equipped and stylish working environment of the Council House is already proving to be very popular with staff. Other significant features of the refurbished building include a stunning central atrium which envelops the council chamber and features state of the art environmental controls that even include a generator in the nearby river Derwent.
Rob Dooley is contractor director at Serco
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