The Scottish Wide Area Network Programme

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Version: Issued 1.0 Page 1 of 8 16/04/2015

The Scottish Wide Area Network Programme

Programme Mandate

Release: Issued Version: 1.0

Date: 16/03/2015 Author: Andy Williamson

SWAN Programme Manager Owner: Anne Moises – Programme SRO Client: SWAN Programme Board

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Version: Issued 1.0 Page 2 of 8 16/04/2015 Document Location

This document is only valid on the day it was printed. The source of the document will be found on the Information Services and Information Systems (ISIS) section of the Scottish Government’s electronic Document Management System.

Revision History Date of this revision:

Version Date Summary of Changes Draft 0.1 21 – 08 - 2014 Initial Draft

Draft 0.2 10 – 09 - 2014 Reduced size of document after initial review by the SRO

Issued 1.0 16 – 03 - 2015 Final update after SWAN Programme Board and Sectoral ICT Boards Review

Approvals

This document requires the following approvals.

Name Title Signature Date

Anne Moises SWAN SRO

SWAN Programme Board

Distribution

This document will be distributed to:

Name Title Issue Date Version

SWAN Programme Board 16 03-2014 Issued 1.0

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1. Document Purpose

This document sets out the strategic direction of the SWAN Programme and suggests what its mandate should be going forward now that the Vanguard Project has come to a successful conclusion.

2. Introduction

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is critical for the effective operation of the Scottish public sector and the delivery of services it provides to employees, citizens and businesses. ICT can deliver better public services for less cost by releasing savings through shared services and

collaborative procurement as has been realised through the Vanguard Project.

The challenge is therefore how to strategically exploit the new SWAN Infrastructure and the lessons learnt through the collaborative procurement and use it as a platform to improve the quality and lower the costs of public service delivery. This can be achieved by ensuring the SWAN Programme develops the aspirations and intended network service outcomes required by public sector organisations and the Digital Public Services strategy.

It can do this by creating a roadmap for new value added services and business transformation

capabilities underpinned by the new connectivity infrastructure and the set of common, open standards it is based upon. The Scottish Public Sector, facilitated by the Digital Directorate should work to

accelerate implementation as a part of its drive to cut down costs and improve current service capabilities.

3. SWAN to Date

The Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) is a Scottish Government led programme in

partnership with the wider public sector created as a response to the McClelland review of ICT infrastructure in the Scottish Public Sector.

The review made several recommendations regarding how Scotland can best leverage its purchasing power to fully exploit emerging technology. The most significant of these suggestions was that the current model of each public sector organisation going to tender for ICT services and solutions on an individual basis

should be revised in favour of an aggregated procurement to minimise unnecessary duplication.

The SWAN Vanguard Project brought together stakeholders from across the various sector

communities and in doing so provided one of the first examples of direct cross community collaboration.

Through high levels of cooperation and open discussion, these user communities were able to safely disclose genuine costs and future requirements. This allowed sectors to reach agreement on the alignment of existing contracts, recognising that a move to a single contract and technological platform will provide shared opportunities for the public sector in Scotland as a whole.

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Version: Issued 1.0 Page 5 of 8 16/04/2015 This level of consensus and joint working represented a significant step forward and in doing so

signalled to the private sector, the confidence and capability of the Scottish public sector to enter into a national procurement. In addition, the SWAN Vanguard procurement chose to utilise the OJEU

competitive dialogue process. From these two factors a number of benefits have been derived:

 The SWAN Vanguard team were able to test potential suppliers to ensure that the Scottish Government and its public sector communities challenged and derived value from supplier negotiations resulting in the procurement of a solution which, in most cases, cost less than current market valuations.

 SWAN can now offer valuable lessons learned for the future use of competitive dialogue processes to inform and shape future supplier negotiations so that the Scottish Government and its partners can maximise the value from these as well.

 Through a programme based approach and the use of PRINCE 2, SWAN established new, comprehensive and workable governance structures spanning public service sectors which can help build a best practice blue print for other large scale, complex and high value projects.

Overall, SWAN has already delivered a number of tangible and intangible benefits either directly through its technology or circuitously via the procurement process. These benefits will serve and position the Scottish Government and its public sector partners well in achieving the investment objectives and wider national strategic principles which underpin this crucial programme of work.

4. SWAN Programme Mandate

With the growing complexity of the technology landscape, demand for business agility and new services, continually reducing operating budgets, lower levels of skilled resource are driving public sector organisations to look for new ways of procuring, delivering and managing ICT services.

Currently, most organisations in the public sector in Scotland operate their own ICT infrastructure. This Infrastructure has evolved over many years and typically meets the requirements of the local

organisation. In many cases, systems are replicated dozens of times across the country (e.g. Email servers, SharePoint Sites, Internet Sites, etc.). As such, the infrastructure is effectively ‘closed’ i.e.

secured to allow users within the organisation to access information held within the organisation and users within the organisation to exchange information with others within the organisation. This has resulted in an expensive and fragmented ICT infrastructure which impedes the sharing of information and reuse of services across multiple organisations.

There is the desire, and strategic intent, for public sector organisations to be more collaborative and share information in order to deliver new, more innovative and ‘joined-up’ services to their end users, whether they be employees or the citizens and business of Scotland.

A new approach is therefore required to create the ICT that will deliver the modern public services which employee, citizens and business expect. While the SWAN Vanguard Project was concerned with procuring core infrastructure and network connectivity services, the SWAN Programme should

recognise that delivering large scale efficiencies across public services organisations is not just about the connectivity services. It is actually about providing bottom up standardised infrastructure and commoditised technical services to enable the development and adoption of top-down common business practices and processes and to deliver a shared services, collaborative capability.

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Version: Issued 1.0 Page 6 of 8 16/04/2015 By standardising processes and creating transparent commercial models the SWAN Programme will enable a common, flexible, service oriented ICT infrastructure. This platform will enable the delivery of open, diverse and responsive public services for all. These additional infrastructure and/or business transformation services should be the focus of the SWAN Programme going forward, especially as the Vanguard Project is now business as usual. This concept is illustrated in the diagram below.

5. SWAN Programme Objectives

The main objectives of the SWAN Programme are:

• Increasing the return on ICT investment, by using common products and approaches and reducing any unnecessary duplication of effort

• Supporting organisational changes

• Securing ICT to help prevent any loss or breach of data

• Enable better collaboration

Key principles set down in the strategy:

• To be safe

• To be affordable

• To be incremental by design and make best use when possible of existing ICT and processes

• To make use of common ICT standards where appropriate

• To enable interoperability across Scotland and with the rest of the UK and where appropriate European partners

• To allow for differing organisational priorities, opportunities, and constraints whilst migrating to national designs and solutions

Network(s) Physical

Connectivity

Facilities Platforms

Enabling Services Applications Enterprise Activities Strategic Objectives Digital Public Services

McClelland Review Line of Business Services Office Productivity Services Common Business Services

Employee Id Management Unified Communications & Collaboration Cryptographic Infrastructure Secure Remote Access Technical Standards and Interoperability Infrastructure Programmes

Collaboration & Value for Money Commoditised ICT services

Shared back office systems Shared services & workflow

Accountable individuals, shared buildings, flexible & mobile working Cloud based services

IaaS, PaaS & SaaS SWAN, PSN, N3 & Janet Step Change 2015 Data Centre Strategy

Common business practices

Commoditised ICT

Services Rural Payments

Glow Education Services

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6. Creating a Platform for Digital Public Services

The SWAN Programme should work within the scope of the Delivering Public Services strategy and other national initiatives such as the Technical and Design Board’s High Level Operating Framework (HLOF). The HLOF defines a public sector ICT Architectural Framework that the SWAN Programme has already adopted. These strategies and policies are pushing ahead with the agenda for data centre, network, software and asset (including hardware and data) consolidation and the move towards cloud computing.

As identified within the HLOF, the requirements of cyber-security and information assurance should be built into the infrastructure from its conception. Managing information effectively and appropriately is essential to the delivery of secure, seamless and efficient operational services and will allow the public sector to build more transparent, trusted and efficient information exchange processes.

By standardising processes and creating transparent commercial models, the SWAN Programme would deliver a common flexible ICT platform. It will open up public service delivery to a range of providers competing to provide better and more cost effective services. A common ICT platform provides the opportunity for a diverse range of suppliers to deliver more innovative solutions.

Commoditised design will enable flexibility and agility of supply. Through opening up the market, costs should come down for the services and the infrastructure itself.

To connect, mobilise and reduce cost across the Scottish public sector, the SWAN Programme should also exploit mobile technologies, collaboration tools, voice video and unified communications. This will provide the public sector employees with the ability to operate flexibly and could allow for the

rationalisation of the large and diverse property estate, reduce travel costs and carbon footprint and have a beneficial impact on productivity.

7. Conclusion

Adopting this programme mandate, SWAN will facilitate greater collaboration and cooperation between public sector organisations and the creation and adoption of common data assurance and security standards. With the right models, public sector organisations will develop their approaches to service provision, including shared services and service integration.

The SWAN contract is in itself a significant service management proposition and presents the opportunity to develop and inform the models of the future, including Service Integration and

Management. To maximise the benefits that SWAN offers, the strategic intent should be that a set of Value Added Services (VAS) be established reflecting both the programme mandate and project specific intended outcomes, beyond the current connectivity services. It should also be the intent, where appropriate, that appropriate VAS be made available to the entire Scottish public sector and not only those signed up to SWAN Connectivity Services.

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The Scottish Wide Area Network Programme