Mr. Nigel Watson

The council wanted not just to meet government requirements to put services online, but to change the way staff worked, says Nigel Watson, Runnymede's head of IT.

,We were a very traditional authority in terms of working in silos, and we were looking to break out of that, to bring the information together and to match it up, and to provide a joined-up service to the public,' he says.

The introduction of VAP has allowed the council to consolidate several internet and intranet sites into one.It can now provide users, through the web site, the same information to which staff have access.

The availability of services online has seen a large increase in the numbers using those services, rather than a transfer from the old channels to the new one.

,We do not get the full benefit a commercial organisation might,' says Watson.On the other hand, he says: ,Clearly the democratic process is working.'

"Offering greater choice to the public by delivering online services that truly facilitate interaction between constituents and the local authority is one of Runnymede's priorities," said Nigel Watson, head of Information and Communication Technology at Runnymede Borough Council.

Head of ICT - Nigel Watson

Nigel Watson Head of ICT

Nigel Watson, Head of ICT at Runnymede Borough Council says, "In planning the network for the new building, we needed to be sure that we got it right.
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IP telephony was decided upon to further support this objective and Nigel Watson says, "There was an emerging trend for conferencing - both internally and externally - and this potential need may also have to be accommodated in the future, including its demanding bandwidth requirements."

The sixty-one week build project ended with occupation in May 2008. This was of course preceded by much agonised thinking and planning and Watson recalls, "That our first major decision was to decide what cabling standard we needed. Our initial thoughts that category 7A would be too expensive seemed to be ill-founded. Watson explains, "We looked at a number of case studies and also made some reference visits. Although some visits were to sites operating on a different scale, for example trading rooms, it was easy to see how they were really getting the advantage of the investment. As analogous deployments, they helped us understand how the standard could be scaled and helped us to understand the risks."

The category 5 network in the old building was installed in 1996 by Siemon Certified Installers, and this meant that the Council saw Siemon as a trusted supplier with good history. Watson says, "The manufacturer's role is critical, though in our case we didn't need to build or test it; Siemon were a known and appreciated force."
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Reflecting back to the old category 5 system, Nigel Watson, sounding like a veteran, opines, "I don't think that it was the standard per se that was a limitation.
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Supporting such a network was becoming a major challenge for the Runnymede IT team and Watson was determined to learn from this experience. He says, "That this made clear to me how important the planning and design phase was. We hadn't got it wrong first time around, we just knew more and this to us was a critical resource. The new system is utilising a small amount of its overall capacity, so there is plenty of headroom for the anticipated and hopefully, the unforeseen."

Illustrating the reality of thinking ahead, the Runnymede team have thought about the possibility of diminishing bandwidth with rising demand. In response to this veracious appetite, Watson sees additional headroom being delivered in the future through new technologies, such as optimisation.
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"It was," says Nigel Watson, "a very positive experience overall.
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The starting point for Nigel Watson and his team was to understand what options were available, by talking to a number of installation companies It was during this process that the Council recognised and enthusiastically adopted the merits of a category 7A pair based design, structured cabling system.

Nigel Watson, Head of ICT at Runnymede, said: "The selection of the Microsoft DIS solution made a compelling case for Runnymede, based on price and performance.

The winner of the competition is Mr Nigel Watson, Information Systems Manager of Runnymede Borough Council, who has won Lychee Professional Edition CMS.Congratulations.

Mr Nigel Watson ICT, Geography, Games