Speeding Medway Council towards £1 million savings

Medway’s ‘Better for Less’ programme looks for ways to drive efficiency – to do things better, but cheaper. With aging hardware and inefficient utilisation of desk space, Medway faced several challenges across both ICT and real estate.

Moira Bragg, Head of ICT, and her team, developed a business case for investment in a virtualisation programme. Initially, a Citrix solution, although the best technical fit for the Council’s needs, appeared too costly. But using Thintech’s design, a Citrix XenDesktop® solution met criteria for speed, security, remote access and useability – within budget.

Security for Medway’s many departments dealing with sensitive data, eg Children’s Services, was paramount. Now, with a data-centre replacing scattered data holdings across PCs, sensitive and business-critical information is backed-up and securely held.
Benefits:

• 24% lower energy consumption
• Greater data security
• Reduced real estate requirements

Savings greater than projected

Energy reduction following the move to thin client hardware, combined with centralising procurement was projected to save £1 million over five years, but the project is currently on track to exceed this.

“Thintech are very much ‘we can do that.’ Some of the team initially were sceptical, but there’s nothing yet that they haven’t delivered – and they’ll work at something until it’s fixed. Knowing we have ongoing support is good, for those things we can’t yet do in-house. But they will handhold you, then train you up to do it yourself.”
Moira Bragg, Head of ICT, Medway Council.