p1 | East Midlands Public Services Network

In partnership with:

As a region, the East Midlands is part of a brand new

phenomenon in the way that the public sector manages

its communications infrastructure. Secure, high bandwidth

networks are expensive, especially those with the

geographic reach demanded by organisations responsible

for delivering public services.

It makes sense and saves money if these expensive

resources are shared by other public sector organisations

with similar requirements particularly if they share

similar locations. In addition it enables joined up working,

improving the way that public services are delivered.

Public Services Networks are built to enable sharing both

of the core network infrastructures and services, such as

telephony and internet access, that run over these networks.

The East Midlands Public Services Network (emPSN) is

founded on a network which provides broadband services for

schools which means that it has exceptional reach across the

region. This means that it is ideally placed to save money for

local authorities, health trusts, emergency service and other

public sector organisations throughout the region through

the delivery of a shared communications infrastructure and

associated services.

The emPSN is built to be compliant with Cabinet Office

standards for Public Services Networks which means that

the emPSN removes the barriers to shared working and

collaboration as well as providing improved mobility and

allowing premises to be shared. This gives public sector staff

greater flexibility in the buildings they occupy thus facilitating

estate reduction and giving them the opportunity to work

closer to their customers. This also means that emPSN is part

of the national PSN – the network of networks that forms an

‘internet’ for UK public sector.

This publication is intended to provide introductory

information to organisations interested in understanding more

about the emPSN services available from Kcom.

East Midlands Public Services Network

p2 | East Midlands Public Services Network

BackgroundThe East Midlands Public Sector Network (emPSN) was

procured by emPSN and operates as a ‘public good’

partnership across the region (a public sector owned Company

Limited by Guarantee) with a Board of Directors from the

public sector. The Board of Directors currently comprises

nominees from Tier 1 local authorities and other public sector

nominees will become Directors as the partnership develops.

The procurement process in 2011 resulted in the appointment

of Kcom as the selected supplier of the core Network and the

emPSN Service Desk. Kcom was also selected as a supplier

of access connectivity to the core network and as a supplier

of application services to schools. emPSN now act as the

Framework Authority and the resulting Framework Agreement

allows any public sector organisation to contract directly with

Kcom for the services they need.

The result is a developing regional partnership bringing

together the public sector within the East Midlands region

to create a regional infrastructure for the provision of PSN

compliant and non PSN connectivity and services that save

more and help remove the barriers to shared working.

Services offered and how it worksKcom offers, via the emPSN framework agreement, a wide

variety of connectivity solutions to enable:

• Site to site connections

• Connections to shared resources such as data centres

• Connections to the internet

Because Kcom has built the emPSN core network to PSN

standards, it can also provide connections to other public

sector bodies, either within the region or further afield through

secure gateways to other public sector providers such as the

Department for Work and Pensions or access to services such

as the Government Secure Intranet. It can also provide access

via the national PSN to services such as hosting or government

approved cloud based applications.

Kcom also supplies, via the emPSN framework, a number of

additional services that make use of the core network:

• Local Area Network (LAN) Services to extend emPSN

connections into buildings using wired or wireless

technology

• Secure Remote Access services to allow home based and

mobile workers to get the information and applications

they need in order to do their job from any location. This

includes the security mechanisms to ensure that all users

who access the network are appropriately authorised and

authenticated

• Unified Communications (UC) services which provide

ways for public sector staff to communicate and

collaborate. These services are built around a single

directory for all users connected to the network so that it

is easy to see who is available. UC then offers choice in

the method of communication (voice, email and instant

messaging) as well as collaboration tools such as audio

and video conferencing and desktop sharing

• Internet access, including important associated services

such as protection from viruses and other threats and

specialised application services for schools

• Data Centre centre services are available enabling public

sector organisations to access managed server and

storage facilities in a secure, flexible and ecologically

responsible manner

Public Services

Networks are built to enable sharing both of the

core network infrastructures and also services, such as telephony and internet

access, that run over these networks.

p3 | East Midlands Public Services Network

How the emPSN worksThe emPSN Framework Agreement means that each partner

organisation can draw down on the framework directly with

Kcom. This allows each organisation to come to a specific

agreement with Kcom to deliver against their particular

requirements but also enjoy the benefits of the standard

terms of the Framework Agreement and the collective

buying power of emPSN. In addition any organisation

buying emPSN services from Kcom will need to become a

member of emPSN because it is owned by the people who

use it - and is a mutual much like the Co-op. Membership will

not cost anything.

Service CatalogueInitially any organisation considering procuring emPSN

services from Kcom may request a priced technical proposal

without any commitment. Once a new organisation becomes

a Kcom customer all of the emPSN services available can

be selected from a carefully constructed, online service

catalogue. This describes, for each product or service, all of

the options available including the service levels. To make it

easy to order all of the elements required – for example

to provide a connection for a single school or to equip a

local authority home-worker – a number of packages are

included in the catalogue.

emPSN ProgressThe majority of the region’s schools have contracted with

Kcom for their broadband connectivity service. This has

resulted in emPSN having a wide network reach which

means connectivity is now available for other public sector

organisations through the region. Many of the County

Councils in the region are either already connected to emPSN,

or are investigating how they might migrate to emPSN when

their current contracts expire. Other organisations such as

District Councils, Health and Emergency Services are taking

advantage of Kcom’s offer to provide commitment free

quotations for their requirements so that they can carry

out pricing comparisons against their existing prices or the

broader market. The range of service that Kcom can provide

will become broader and deeper as Kcom introduce new

innovative services and more organisations become part of

the emPSN community.

Why choose emPSN?emPSN is owned and managed by local authorities in the East

Midlands for the benefit of East Midlands’ citizens and public

sector organisation that provide services to them. Those who

buy emPSN services from Kcom will not only benefit from cost

effective aggregated services but also avoid the need to carry

out a costly procurement exercise. Put simply, the greater the

number of organisations that join the emPSN the greater

the savings that can be enjoyed by each. Choosing Kcom to

supply emPSN services to fulfil infrastructure and associated

communications requirements means:

• Lower costs as any organisation joining the network

benefit from the investments already made in the network,

aggregated purchasing and supply contract rationalisation

and by avoiding network duplication

• Greater efficiency through the use of shared capability and

applications beyond the scope of individual organisations

• Improvements in public services delivery by enabling better

communications between public service bodies

p4 | East Midlands Public Services Network

emPSN Partnership – the partnersThe following organisations form the founder membership

of the emPSN Partnership. Derbyshire County Council,

Leicester City Council and Lincolnshire County Council, and

schools in each local authority area have placed orders for

emPSN services:

For more information or to discuss your requirements with Kcom please visit:

www.kcom.com/empsn

Why choose emPSN?• Access to innovative services such as remote and mobile

working and unified communications

• Use of existing connections to many public buildings,

enabling more public services to share the same premises

• Confidence that the security standards will meet

compliance requirements

• Access to skilled resources to design solutions using the

emPSN infrastructure

• Incident management, change control and service

management which together amount to a comprehensive

support capability to meet a range of service levels, all

accessed through an online portal

• Access now and in the future to a wealth of public sector

resources such as the Government Cloud Store

Additional benefits from emPSN include the following:

• Flexibility and resilience - many existing wide area networks

are based on nodes located within existing public sector

buildings. In contrast the emPSN network is mainly based

on nodes within telephone exchanges and Data Centres

giving much greater flexibility when it comes to future

building and premises consolidation

• The responsibility for the development and evolution of the

core network lies with the emPSN Board, as opposed to the

service provider. The Board is made up of senior managers

from Public Sector organisations who are responsible

for developing the network for the benefit of the region

supported by the engagement of emPSN Members

• For schools a Kcom connection to emPSN provides secure

access to the National Education Network (NEN). This makes

local, regional and national collaboration between schools

possible and provides access to a large range of centrally

funded and validated educational resources, and the JANET

video conferencing service

Cover photographs

Left: The bronze statue of Robin Hood, which stands outside the medieval walls of Nottingham Castle

Middle: Nottingham Council House

Right: Lincoln Cathedral