29/03/2007
Government Connect (GC), an initiative which provides a common infrastructure aimed at achieving secure interactions across government and with the public and Intellect, the UK trade association for the IT, telecoms and electronics industries, today announced that in future they will jointly run the Technical Vendor Advisory Group. The new approach will allow potential suppliers to engage in a more effective way with Government Connect. The Technical Vendor Advisory Group acts as a sounding board for new developments of GC Solutions. It also aims to advise GC to ensure technical development is in line with industry capability and standards. The new jointly run Group will provide a forum for industry to independently feedback suggestions, advice and comments to the Government Connect team in a frank and proactive manner. Open customer-supplier discussions around such a key, strategic project are expected to result in more informed procurement processes and consequently help efficiently deploy a project that provides better value for money for citizens and the government alike. John Higgins, Director General of Intellect said: “We have consistently maintained that one of the key barriers to successful delivery is a lack of open and early engagement with suppliers, be it in the public or private sector. The joint running of the Technical Vendor Advisory Group represents an important step to overcome such barriers and follows a proven model.“ Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council leads the Government Connect programme on behalf of the North West eGovernment Group (NWeGG). Its Chief Executive and chair of the Government Connect programme, Janet Callender, said: “Government Connect has always recognised the importance of vendors to the success of the programme. This opportunity for a new way of working in partnership with them is a positive step towards accelerating that success and a real example of greater transparency in the programme.” The GC Register and GCSX solutions are integral components to connecting local and central government securely. GC Register provides a single sign-on citizen facing solution for local authorities by authenticating citizens online. GCSx is a secure wide area network (WAN) that is able to connect all local authorities to central government departments in a single network infrastructure. “The whole team is working hard to launch both GC Register and GCSx in the next few months,” said Roy Marshall, the Government Connect Senior Responsible Officer, “and we are particularly pleased to be working with both SOCITM and Intellect so that we can gain maximum input from the wide experience in industry available to us.” Kate Mountain, Chief Executive of Socitm, the professional association for ICT managers working in and for the public sector, commented: “Socitm acknowledges the part played by Government Connect in seeking to offer a solution to assist English local authorities in their progress towards transformed and public sector. As such we are pleased to be involved and to support the work of Intellect and GC in this particular initiative that will increase both the transparency of processes and the effectiveness of engagement with a key group of stakeholders.“
For further information contact: Press Office T 020 7331 2035 E This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
full name contact telephone number publication (publications if you are a freelance writer) areas of interest
