Press release

Telewest Business supplies flexible working solutions to Lancashire County Council

July 12 2004. Telewest Business has been awarded a six-figure contract to supply Lancashire County Council with remote working solutions to enable a significant proportion of its 40,000 employees to work from home or remote offices. The three-year contract went live in June 2004 following a six month trial at 10 key home and office sites in the region, and aims to have more than 100 users by the end of this year.

Telewest Business initially supplied five Digital Subscriber lines into virtual private network connections to the council, with this number set to increase as the remote working project is rolled out on a phased basis. One site that benefited during the trial was the Rossendale Youth & Community Office, a remote site in which 12 PCs were securely connected to the Lancashire County Council IT network.

Lancashire County Council has its headquarters in Preston and is the second largest county authority in England. The council had previously been using ISDN connections to facilitate remote access to the corporate network, but wanted to offer secure high-speed broadband access whilst also controlling costs. By using remote working solutions from Telewest Business, the council can connect home workers and branch offices at speeds of up to 512Kbps at a fixed cost.

Following the successful trial, Telewest Business’ remote working solution is now being offered via the ICT department at Lancashire County Council to all employees with a requirement for home working connectivity. Telewest Business’ solution will be particularly suited to those council employees who work within the community, such as social workers and education advisors.

Rick Woods, ICT Manager at Lancashire County Council, said: “Increased cost savings and faster connections were key factors in our decision, and we’ve seen how we can achieve these benefits whilst also maintaining high levels of security. This project will form an important part of the Council’s home-working initiative, which has been designed to improve the work/life balance of employees and encourage greater levels of efficiency.”

Remote working solutions from Telewest Business will allow Lancashire County Council to better meet the Government’s ‘Implementing Electronic Government’ (IEG) directives. Amongst the targets set, public sector organisations are tasked to reduce office space and travel time, as well as improving employees’ work-life balance. Lancashire County Council can address all of these factors through the use of remote working solutions.

Meyrick Vevers, commercial director of Telewest Business, said: “Government regulations have led to a great deal of interest, particularly within the public sector, in technology that can better enable more flexible ways of working. Lancashire County Council is proof that remote working solutions from Telewest Business can facilitate flexible, affordable and secure remote networking solutions that are applicable to companies of all sizes.“