Projects

The resource team provides full programme and project management support. 
Project Taking part Benefits
Safer Essex Partnership Information Sharing Trial. To identify how an Essex Partnership depository and Information Intelligence Unit can be implemented and sustained to deliver GIS based outputs.

·         All partners

·      5 PCTs

·         Rochford (Chair of the board)

Meeting Home Office statutory requirements. Ability for partners to scan for crime & disorder patterns at local level.
Establish new arrangements for PCs, thin client PCs, laptops and file servers. To ensure the e-auction arrangements for the discounted cost of PCs and Laptops is extended time wise and to now include file servers.

·     Procurement Agency for Essex (PAE)

·         OGC

·         Braintree (Procurement lead)

·        Partner support for evaluation

·        Neighbouring authorities

Achieved reduction in costs 40 – 54% per PC. Estimated reduction in costs of 22-25% per serverReduction in the number of tenders.More effective supplier management Clearer understanding of costs for budgeting purposes
Infrastructure – Upgrade Investigate and review options for decreasing costs and increasing capacity of Extranet WAN

·         All partners

·         Chelmsford (Chair of the board)

Secure communications and data access across Essex Authorities.Potential to reduce costs and create a more flexible infrastructure with increased capacity due to the enhanced technologies available.
Infrastructure - Secure e-mail & Shared DNS Implement secure email and shared DNS between EOLP partners

·         All partners

·         Chelmsford (Chair of the board)

Exchanging e-mails securely with partners over the Essextranet.
Infrastructure - NHS Secure E-mails Implement secure email between Essex CC and all of the NHS and investigate opportunities for extending to other EOLP partners

·         All partners

·         Chelmsford (Chair of the board)

Ability to exchange sensitive information between ECC and all other EOLP partners and Health electronically.
Infrastructure - Business Application Access Provide partners with access to applications and data at other people’s sites – e.g. GIS data layers, ECC Intranet, telephone directory and InfoBase

·         All partners

·         Chelmsford (Chair of the board)

Ability for Essex Contaminated Land Consortium to view historic source mapping in conjunction with the ‘Sites of Previously Potentially Contaminative Use’ data. This enables the comparison of these two layers of information as well as a pan-Essex view to understand events near authority borders.  Ability for staff at one authority to access information at another authority, e.g. Essex Strategic HR Partnership access to the Communication Portal on the ECC intranet.
Infrastructure - Shared Accommodation To provide the necessary infrastructure for EOLP partners sharing accommodation – e.g. Essex CC and Castle Point BC shared accommodation initiative.

·         All partners

·         Chelmsford (Chair of the board)

Basildon has a joint front desk with Essex Police using Essextranet infrastructure to access Police systems.Improved utilisation of office accommodation and where possible improved service delivery. Joint service delivery Initiatives are underway at Braintree DC, Brentwood BC, Colchester BC and Essex CC.
Infrastructure - Government Connect To provide a secure connection from the Extranet to GCSx

·         All partners except Epping Forest DC, Police and Fire.

·         Maldon (Chair of the board)

To enable secure e-mail between partners and central government. To provide access to central government databases at local authority premises.  E.g. JARD for trading standards
Infrastructure - Integrated Telephony and VoIP To provide connectivity for a seamless handover between partners and to Implement VoIP connectivity to Brentwood BC.

·         All partners

·         Chelmsford (Chair of the board)

Improve customer service by allowing staff to seamlessly transfer calls between EOLP partners.  Reduce the cost of telephone calls between EOLP partner sites.
Infrastructure - Review Featurenet To review the function

·         All partners

·         Chelmsford (Chair of the board)

Potential to reduce costs and create a better infrastructure due to the enhanced technologies available.
Information Security Toolkit The creation of an Essex wide Information Security Policy to enable secure information sharing between partners.

·         All partners

·         Brentwood (Chair of the board)

To enable secure information sharing, between partners through the creation of an Essex wide Information Security Policy.Creation of an EOLP Code of Connection in the form of a supporting framework of procedures and minimum standards for Information Security. Estimated saving of £15k per authority by not having to create individual security policies.
Disaster Recovery Create a vision statement which is in line with the wider Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery agenda and identify a pathway towards achieving that vision.

·         All partners

·         Southend (Chair of the board)

To establish Disaster Recovery facilities for the partnership.     
EOLP Portal Review To review the use of the EOLP portal, scraping software, Joint A-Z and the Shared Filing System.

·         All partners

·         Harlow (Chair of the board)

Improved visibility internally and externally of function and benefits of EOLP to partners. 
ICT Performance Indicators To measure ICT performance in an agreed way.

·         All partners except Epping Forest, Fire and Thurrock

·         Colchester (Chair the board)

Ability to compare performance against peer local authorities. 
Sharing telephone directories To explore if it is possible to enable staff to easily see telephone directories from other authorities ·         Each partner who opts for the service Easier to find information on contacts at partner organisations. Reducing the cost of telephone calls between EOLP partner sites by encouraging use of the EOLP Integrated Telephony Network.
  
Feasibilities/Opportunities
Subject Objective
LAA Delivery Action Plans Establish the potential for EOLP to support the Essex LAA Delivery Action Plans
Service development plans

Determine EOLP opportunities from partner service development plans. Trialling the approach are

·         Braintree

·         Rochford

Information Security Policies Support the implementation of Information Security policies, an annual policy review and the development of a technical security strategy To explore PCI (Payment Card Industry) security standards and hosted service
EOLP development To strengthen the partnership objectives and direction.  To review the vision and long term strategy.