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ITEM EX10
EXECUTIVE
– 29 APRIL 2003
OXFORDSHIRE
COMMUNITY NETWORK
Report by
the Head of Strategic ICT
Introduction
- Since inception
of the OCN project following approval by Council in December 2001, the
Executive has from time to time received brief updates on the progress
of the project through the monthly budget monitoring reports. The present
report responds to the Executive’s request at the meeting on 21 January
for a fuller report back in 3 months on progress with the development
of the project.
Objectives
of the Project
- The County Council’s
adoption of the OCN project was on the basis that government funding
opportunities, specifically National Grid for Learning (NGfL) and New
Opportunities Fund (for the People’s Network), could be tapped in order
to provide Schools and Libraries with a high-speed, county-wide Broadband
communications network – the Oxfordshire Community Network (OCN). The
OCN was designed in such a way as to meet the minimum requirements for
speed, robustness and security, but also to provide an infrastructure
with the potential to meet additional strategic needs: for the County
Council; other tiers of Local Government; and, if possible, communities
and businesses within the County. This initiated a complex and highly
innovative Project to be implemented to a demanding timescale but with
limited staffing and organisational resources.
- The first phase
of the Project has, therefore, primarily focused on the roll-out to
schools and libraries in order to meet the timetable commitments attached
to the funding streams.
Results
of First Phase
- The Oxfordshire
plan commitment, insofar as it relates to the OCN, is defined as: "Completing
broadband connections to schools and libraries. Examine feasibility
of extending connection to council offices (where cost effective) and
develop a strategy for sharing the capacity with households and small
businesses especially in the rural areas of the county".
- By the end of
the 2002/03 financial year, 127 (around 40%) of the County’s 315 Schools,
and 33 (77%) of the 43 Libraries had been connected, but this period
also included the installation of the Central Network Control Infrastructure,
the County-wide ‘Backbone’ circuits and the 15 distributed Broadband
Access Points (BAP’s). This represents c.80% of the total workload for
phase 1. Inevitably, as with any Project of this size and complexity,
a number of technical problems have been encountered and resolved and
the OCN team is confident that by September this year, connection of
all the County’s Schools and Libraries will have been achieved (with
a small number of exceptions due to building or other external factors).
- This first phase
has also seen Broadband connections to 20+ Lifelong Learning Centres,
mostly in clusters around Blackbird Leys; Berinsfield, Wood farm and
Banbury. The feedback from these, the connected schools, and public
reaction from libraries has been very enthusiastic. Practical benefits
arising from connection include: fast (and free) access to the Internet
from both libraries and schools and publicly available access from (the
more rural) areas poorly served by commercial Broadband providers. As
the network matures, benefits will expand to include; accessibility
by schoolchildren to ‘day’ work from home and multi-school access to
lessons in ‘minority’ or specialist subjects via video-streaming.
- The costs of implementation
have been higher than expected due to an increased level of complexity.
This has arisen from a number of sources, principally: variations in
the nature of, and inconsistencies between, pre-existing schools’ local
area networks (LAN’s); conversions of existing facilities to preserve
continuity of service from existing suppliers (e.g. RM); and electricity
supply problems at both County Hall and Macclesfield House. In many
cases this has necessitated additional network configuration work and
therefore increased staffing costs. It was also found necessary to enhance
the level of support and training for the migration of schools to the
new network. Given the overall size and complexity of the project, a
variation of just over 8%, especially when compared with many other
Government Projects, is not unreasonable and would very likely have
been exceeded by the costs of undertaking the level of detailed survey
work at each site necessary to have accurately foreseen them. The resulting
revision of the project timetable inevitably resulted in a lower than
budgeted level of income from school subscriptions.
- It is important
to stress that failure to support the project financially as agreed
at the February Executive, could easily have compromised the NGfL targets,
on which future instalments of the funding depend.
Options
for next phase
- Plans are in the
advanced stages of exploiting the network. These encompass three main
areas:
- Replacement
of Oxfordshire County Council’s internal Wide Area Network (WAN)
- Joint e-government
projects with the District Councils and other (Public Sector)
partner organisations;
- Use by Communities,
rural Small and Medium Sized enterprises - SME’s, and the viability
of being able to offer Broadband connection to domestic subscribers,
making Oxfordshire a truly "wired county".
(i) County
Council Wide Area Network (WAN)
- Plans are being
developed for a phased programme for rolling out OCN to replace existing
WAN links and to reach those establishments not currently connected
to internal networks at all. This will give a more secure, faster access
to central facilities e.g. MIS and Social & Health Care record keeping.
- This will entail
a complete re-appraisal of the WAN in relation to present/future need
which will encompass all occupied Oxfordshire County Council premises
(whether presently connected or not). It will also assess the most practical
solutions in terms both of connectivity and ‘Working Practices’, particularly
in the case of outlying (mainly Social & Health Care) staff, for
whom it may prove more cost effective to provide a connection from Home.
All existing links will be re-assessed and either maintained or replaced
dependant on need and strict ‘value-for-money’ criteria.
- Consideration
is also being given to using the network for the future carriage of
‘voice’ traffic. If school traffic is included (for which they currently
pay themselves), present expenditure is in excess of £2M annually. It
is difficult to quantify the potential savings (and there would be some
‘one-off’ conversion costs), but an annual saving of between 5% &
15% ought to be possible. Voice enabling links to the District Councils
would potentially make an additional contribution.
(ii) Working
with District Councils and other Partners
- Although managed
as a discrete project, the OCN was recognised from the outset as an
essential element of Oxfordshire County Council’s e-government plans.
Its role was central in helping to secure at least £600,000 for the
Oxfordshire Partnership as a whole (not all earmarked for OCN and not
yet included in the costs analysis – see "Financial Variations" below)
of Local Government On-Line (LGOL) funding from the ODPM to develop
connectivity with other local public sector partners.
- After slow initial
progress, partnership with the Districts is now proceeding well. The
utility of the OCN is seen by most (if not all) as key for a unified
communications network and an enabling layer to the development of a
county-wide Portal (Gateway).
- It is likely that
at least 3 of the 5 District Councils (along with at least one Town
Council) will connect to OCN in the coming 3-6 months, each making a
‘net’ contribution in excess of £30K to OCN, in the first year. Additional
‘income’ could also arise from the local Strategic Health Authority
who have requested costs to connect up to 12 hospital sites across the
OCN. This, if accepted, would yield a further income of £312K (capital)
in the current financial year plus a collective annual revenue for this
and successive years of some £90K. This is speculative at this stage
and subject to discussions presently under way with the SHA and may
impact/be impacted by, the procurement of the new NHSnet (N3) national
network.
(iii) Small
businesses and rural communities
- Since the OCN
project was launched, public awareness of Broadband in general has increased
significantly but is largely only available only in urban areas. Significant
areas of the Country are not ‘connected’, and are unlikely to be for
some time, if ever, under present conditions. Contrasting this, it is
inevitable that the demand, from both community groups and small-to-medium
sized businesses (SME’s) will continue to grow. It is consistent with
Oxfordshire County Council’s aims for economic and community development
that the OCN is exploited beneficially to help meet that demand. It
is also entirely compatible with Central Government’s aims as expressed
in the ‘Building Broadband Britain’ campaign, and the Countryside Agency
commitment to the removal of rural exclusion – ‘The Digital Divide’
(endorsed by DEFRA). Recent ODPM, DTI and SEEDA initiatives, although
in very early stages, appear likely to be beneficial in this regard,
also there are encouraging signs that the regulatory issues that have
dogged our attempts to date to make the OCN more widely available may
soon be dismantled.
- Community use
of the OCN is being pioneered to some extent by a ‘trial’ connection,
for 2 public access terminals in Thame Town Council’s ‘one-stop-shop’
(also to include connection to the OCN of their LAN). In addition, we
are aware of several locally organised and funded initiatives to obtain
Broadband connection from non-BT sources in combination with ‘Wireless’
distribution technology and questions are being asked about the potential
role for local schools to become a local ‘hub’ to connect those communities
to the OCN. There are regulatory complications and commercial barriers
to a local authority offering such a service directly, but exploratory
discussions with industry representatives suggest that it may be possible
to establish a partnership jointly to facilitate access to OCN to other
users in the county, and/or to encourage BT or other suppliers to ‘Broadband
enable’ the County’s rural exchanges. This could potentially offer a
more appropriate means of connection for Communities and SME’s and still
leave the option of a ‘school’ hub for the more remote rural areas.
This view was discussed with both the Strategy Director and the Regional
Broadband Advisor of SEEDA both of whom endorsed the view.
Longer
term governance of OCN
- Until now, the
project has been steered by a "Project Board" which has largely focused
on the achievement of the phase 1 element of the Contract. The ongoing
operational control of the OCN, and its exploitation for service delivery,
will benefit from a re-appraisal of its status in the newly created
Resources function in order to continue the development of the infrastructure.
Financial
Variations
- Annex A, provided
by the Head of Finance, tabulates the sources and application of funding
for the project. The following figures summarise the variations between
the original projections and the currently estimated costs and funding:
Total
Costs
| 2001 Projection |
£16,558,000 |
| Current Estimate |
£17,913,500 |
| Difference
|
£1,355,500
(8.2%). |
This
difference arises from an additional £866,784 on expenditure (excl.
Operating Costs), a REDUCTION of £228,832 in Operating Costs and an
extra £717,500 in Education expenditure (see Para 7).
Government
Funding
| 2001 Projection |
£3,351,000 |
| Current Estimate |
£3,538,900 |
| Difference |
£187,900 |
Variance
(to be funded internally and/or by ‘Income’)
| 2001 Projection |
£13,207,000 |
| Current Estimate |
£14,374,600 |
| Difference |
£1,167,600 |
These
figures, along with those in Annex A (download
as .doc file) do not include any provision for potential income.
Present estimates indicate a possible income, in the present financial
year, of c.£390K capital, plus £190K revenue (see Para 15).
Medium
Term Financial Plan Table (download as
.xls file)
RECOMMENDATIONS
- The Executive
is RECOMMENDED to note the progress outlined in the report and endorse
the general principles set out for further development of the project.
STEPHAN CONAWAY
Head of Strategic
ICT
Background Papers: Nil
Contact Officer:
David Blue, OCN Business Manager, Tel 01865 815594
April 2003
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