Hillingdon Council showered with unexpected cloud benefits

Hillingdon Council has had to adopt a stern approach to implementing a cloud computing-based infrastructure, the local authority said during a talk at the Cloud Expo Europe conference in London this week.

"Sometimes when your trying to deliver innovation, you're going to be disruptive," Roger Bearpark, the assistant head of ICT for Hillingdon Council, told delegates.

The introduction of new working practices sometimes means over-ruling the wishes of others, according to Bearpark.

"People want to use technology to do the same old thing in the same sort of way but just somehow do it on a computer," he said.

He explained that it is not always best to listen to the users when technology can improve tried and trusted manual processes. This is truer in a cloud infrastructure where it is easier to set up a new method of working, see if it works and, if not, tear it down, he said.

Hillingdon is at the forefront of applying new technologies to the bureaucratic world of local politics. Its pioneering approach has made the authority a role-model which other local government ICT departments look up to.

Bearpark's department has introduced the H-Cloud, a private cloud infrastructure that foreshadows the Government's more ambitious G-Cloud project.

The move to a virtualised environment has had a major impact, which has over spilled from technological innovation and changed the ICT team's attitudes and working practices.

"Instead of asking what do you do on your PC?' that became irrelevant it was What do you do? How do you serve the public?'. Understanding that and understanding what suppliers can deliver allowed my IT team to become far more effective. What they were actually doing was acting as a kind of interpreter between business need and suppliers," he said.

This is has become a two-way conversation because the IT team can now explain to suppliers what is required and have changes made, rather than accepting software packages and trying to adapt them for purpose.

Although Bearpark said that sometimes innovation has to be forced on the users, he admitted that the users are being listened to more. The virtualised servers allow the authority to be much more agile when it comes to provisioning.

"If [the users] have a good idea, there is little permanent commitment if they want us to try something," Bearpark said.

In the past, other local government departments had to fund the provisioning of new hardware and software before an idea could be turned into an application. It was expensive and time-consuming, he explained. Now, these implementations can be set up within hours and little is lost if they do not work out.

Bearpark holds great hopes for the future when H-Cloud and G-Cloud meet. Heathrow Airport is on the borders of Hillingdon and there are imports that are governed by customs regulations. The council is working on an application that will make it easier to process these imported goods and check if there is a ban, health and safety issues or a tax levy.

When the application matures and G-Cloud comes on line, he said that this application can be uploaded to the Government cloud for all entry ports to the UK to use as a cloud service. This would standardise working practices and keep everyone updated on changes in regulations in a way that would have been impossible in the past.

The cloud will not only be a vehicle for innovative new services, Bearpark concluded, but will also bring efficiency by standardising processes that are currently locally implemented on an ad-hoc basis.