“On analysing the budget announcements, it has become clear that for the public sector in particular where spending cuts will tighten IT budgets, there will be a strong focus on shared services and a move in the direction of cloud based technology.
Public sector organisations are looking to build and offer private cloud options based on a geographical or more functional shared service model to better serve the needs of its citizens and offer cost effective services to other Local Authorities. The shared service model has been of particular interest to Siemens Enterprise Communications’ clients within the public sector including Devon County Council.
“The Public Sector Network (PSN) is a good example of this as once in place it can enable cloud based applications such as Unified Communications (UC) to be easily accessed and shared across a local authority – dramatically improving services and reducing costs. As budgets are tightened, IT professionals within the public sector need to strengthen the technical skill set and the ability to select IT suppliers carefully, ensuring the correct skills are matched to the task to enable public sector reform.
“Yesterday’s announcement reconfirms those themes discussed in the Comprehensive Spending Review in October last year, that from an IT perspective the public sector will move towards a PSN based infrastructure, embrace the cloud, enable localism and drive efficiency to meet the tough targets outlined.”