PSN: Securing the foundation piece of the G-Cloud strategy

The Public Services Network (PSN) is the most advanced part of the G-Cloud strategy, and so its development can be seen as an indicator of the likely wider success of that aspect of the current Government ICT strategy. The idea behind the PSN is that it will create a “network of networks” for the public sector from the existing commercial networks, and that it will develop a market place providing opportunities for industry, and savings for the public sector. This is because the PSN is supposed to change the way Government Departments and Agencies, Local Authorities, and the Third Sector buy and use voice and data networks. It is expected that it will drive efficiencies in procurement, through a range of technical and service standards, which will lead to an open, collaborative environment for all UK public sector employees.

In order for PSN to achieve its goals it is important that it is not simply managed and run by Central Government Agencies: Local Authorities need to take a local approach to adoption of PSN by considering what local services might be developed that might be shared over the national infrastructure between local services such as health, blue light, universities and the voluntary sector. And it is the pace of change towards a transition to PSN beyond Central Government that provides a current health-check in terms of acceptance of this broad new approach to reduce costs and enable greater agility and interoperability within public sector ICT.

The pilot test for PSN was Project Pathway which involved Virgin Media Business and Level 3 working together to create the Government Conveyance Network (GCN) and then linking to two regional networks, the Hampshire County Council HPSN2 and Kent KPSN in order to deliver services such as IP telephony and HD video conferencing. The GCN and Direct Network Service networks provided by Level 3 and Virgin Media Business were successfully tested and achieved Full Accreditation and Compliance Certification to PSN standards in 2011.

This success is encouraging other local government bodies, so, for example, Essex county council is considering setting up a framework contract worth up to £300m to modernise communications systems for itself and other public sector organisations. As part of this next generation networks project, the council's telephone systems will be converted to IP telephony, removing the need for separate voice networks. The plan is that these services will then be open to the county's social services provider, Essex Cares, as well as the Essex Probation Service, the council's pension fund and library services. Other local authorities, fire services and police authorities may also be allowed to use the framework.

When planning for the move to PSN, each Local Authority needs to assess the business requirements first and plan infrastructure usage based on this assessment. Those beginning to do just that are quickly finding that one of the biggest challenges is getting help to join up the local services using the same network rather than just joining up connections and backbones, especially with blue light services.

However, there are signs that several initiatives may make this easier: for example, the National Policing Improvement Agency has set up a project to lay the ground for police forces to use the PSN, and it is hoped that the Police National Network will connect to it by March 2013. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office is working on a technical model to get the NHS integrated with PSN via its N3 services.

There are still questions about security since networks within the PSN need to be able to move IL3 and IL4 traffic, and, as yet, there is no common Trust Model in place to support this. From a local authority perspective the choice must be made as to whether to sign up to the management of risk for data locally or simply use the government default option of highly secure network for all data with the cost challenges that imposes. More often than not security is cited as an obstacle to change within Government ICT and although there are signs that this is changing, the role of CESG is pivotal to the success of PSN at Local Authority level. There is evidence via Project Pathway that PSN can work and save money for IL2 traffic – it is the public sector perception of risk (largely influenced by CESG) which now remains the biggest hurdle to adoption.