St Helens Council provides local government services to 177,000 people in northwest England. Many of the Council’s administrative functions are accessibleonline to these constituents and stakeholders, satisfying a key business objective for the council.

The council also has a range of over 400 administrative applications, including finance, performance management, human resource management etc. used by 3,000 users. These applications are written in IBM Lotus Domino, a core component of the council’s strategic IT platform for delivering business systems to increase efficiency, minimise costs and provide improved
services.

When the ICT operation within St Helens Council sought to develop a business plan to migrate its Domino 6 and 6.5 client and server platforms to versions 8 and 8.5 they recognised the value of commissioning a complete assessment of its Domino estate. Shaun Taylor, ICT Operations Manager explains that while St Helens Council had an ongoing relationship with an IBM business partner, an approach from business critical service provider, Applicable Limited, to provide a systems ‘health check’ came at an opportune time.

“We have a support contract in place with another company but wanted a fresh eye to give us an objective view of our systems.” In particular the Council wanted to address some specific performance issues that were giving concern and look at security.

“We based some of the scope of works on our existing support requirements, but we weren’t prescriptive. We wanted to use Applicable’s experience and fresh approach. They were just as flexible and the two teams worked collaboratively together.”

SHAUN TAYLOR
ICT Operations Manager
St. Helens Council

Having carried out many such health checks for companies in both the private and public sectors, Applicable recognises that ‘one size does not fit all’. Together with the council’s ICT team, Applicable tailored a specific scope of works to address St Helens Council’s requirements. For Shaun Taylor this was a valuable part of the process, “We based some of the scope of works on our existing support requirements, but we weren’t prescriptive. We wanted to use Applicable’s experience and fresh approach. They were just as flexible and the two teams worked collaboratively together.”

Once the scope of work was agreed three Applicable consultants undertook the health check, each concentrating on an area of expertise. “They came in for about a week,” Shaun explains, “a few days onsite and some remote access to our systems. In total it took five or six days and didn’t disrupt our operations at all.”

In this time Applicable undertook a detailed investigation and analysis of St Helen’s Domino estate. Performance, availability, reliability and security were comprehensively reviewed, as well as the requirements for the migration to
Domino 8. The review data formed the basis of an initial report of some thirty pages. This was subject to a comprehensive review with the Applicable and St Helens teams before a final version was prepared. “We valued the review input that was invited at the draft stage,” says Shaun. “The findings were presented professionally during a highly interactive session. This allowed us to expand certain elements of interest and made things clearer, enabling us to see where our priorities lay.” He continues, “We weren’t just hit with a long list of recommendations. The St Helens team remained an active partner in compiling the final report for the council.”

Of the thirty-plus recommendations made by the Applicable/St Helens collaboration, the ICT team highlighted some quick-wins to address in-house. Improvement opportunities became clear in key areas such as storage and operational IT performance. In addition, the health check indicated areas where additional knowledge was required, and made recommendations for the council’s mobile message management, specifically its Blackberry estate. As Shaun Taylor says, “This thorough health check has proved to be very useful indeed. Applicable undertook the study professionally and were impressively knowledgeable about the Domino platform. What was most welcome was the fact that the presentations weren’t forceful. They told us the full story about our systems, without trying to force the sale of additional products or services.”

The information and recommendations from the health check are being put to good use within St Helens Council, helping address performance issues and developing the business case to reinforce the value of the Lotus Domino 8 and 8.5 migration. Domino remains at the core of the council’s application strategy, and with the help of the Applicable health check, the council is able to capitalise on what it can deliver to the people of St Helens.

“This thorough health check has proved to be very useful indeed. Applicable undertook the study professionally and were impressively knowledgeable about the Domino platform. What was most welcome was the fact that the presentations weren’t forceful...”

SHAUN TAYLOR
ICT Operations Manager
St. Helens Council