Helping you transform public services

Virgin Media Business has been instrumental in developing the Public Services Network (PSN) over several years, working closely with the Cabinet Office, industry, and across the Public Sector, defining how the PSN will operate.

The Public Services Network continues to underpin the Government’s ICT strategy. By delivering cost savings, improving access and delivery of public services and supporting the ‘shared services’ initiative, PSN is working towards Government central policies such as Digital Britain.

The Public Services Network will connect you, other organisations and the citizens you serve through a ‘network of networks’. It’ll be easy to share information and access any network service that’s needed. Departments and organisations will be able to share existing services and look after their communities better too.

Key messages

The Marketplace

‘Shared services’ and Next Generation Networks have a big contribution to make in meeting the age of austerity head-on. They provide an opportunity to deliver more services, for less spend. For example, if local authorities shared their data centre services, cost savings could be made and the inconvenience of putting multiple independent backups in place could be removed. In a similar way, sharing networks themselves would drive efficiencies.

The Public Services Network marketplace will balance the need for efficiencies and lower costs with the benefits of a standards-based approach. It’ll allow you to concentrate on service delivery. You’ll be able to buy the network services that you need from pre-approved suppliers, close to you, confident that different technologies will work together and that data will be secure. By creating such an open marketplace and promoting increased collaboration and sharing, procurement will become quicker, cheaper and simpler too.

The GCN

The Government Conveyance Network (GCN) lies at the heart of the Public Services Network. It’s a ‘network of networks’ that will be used to connect multiple operators. Access to the GCN will be given to PSN Service Providers, who will in turn enable public sector organisations to connect to other organisations’ networks and share services.

What we're doing

Virgin Media Business is a candidate GCN Service Provider, and Robert Parker, Head of Public Services Network development at Virgin Media Business holds the Deputy Chair position on the Public Services Network Governing Body (the industry trade association which represents the PSN supplier community), and we also sit on the GCN Governing Body.

We provide the core connectivity which sits at the heart of the Public Services Network. London Grid for Learning (LGfL), a consortium of all 33 Local Authorities across London is a Public Sector organisation which will benefit from our Next Generation Network, through our GCN. LGfL is launching the new LondonPSN, which will provide a secure and comprehensive communications infrastructure, serving the needs of up to 2,800 schools and other public bodies across the region.

Working with the Cabinet Office

Understanding Public Services Network and the impact it will have on your organisation becomes increasingly important as it becomes more widely adopted. That’s the reason we’ve put ourselves at the centre of this Cabinet Office-led programme. We have representation in all six work streams across the programme;

• Technical
• Service Management
• Governance
• Commercial
• Information Assurance
• Transition

This keeps us at the heart of emerging Public Services Network standards which we continuously feed directly into our customer deployments. This way, we can offer you reassurance that your network services are future proof and primed for PSN.

Being Public Services Network compliant

To ensure compliance, it’s critical your service provider is taking the relevant steps to bring its network and services in line with the latest standards. We’re already a leading provider for national and regional WAN services and we’ve now been awarded full Public Services Network (PSN) accreditation. The accreditation, which comes on the back of a series of PSN firsts for us, will enable Virgin Media Business to operate on a wider scale within the public sector and help its customers realise significant cost savings. This means we can ensure your data is assured.

For full details read the press release.

Virgin Media Business will operate in the marketplace as;

• a GCN Service Provider, using our next generation network to deliver high-speed, highly available core network services
• a Direct Network Service Provider (offering access to the GCN)
• a PSN Service Provider, delivering a broad range of ICT Services to the Public Sector.

We’ll ensure all solutions we implement in the Public Sector will be designed to comply with relevant standards. This makes us a credible choice as we are preparing today for tomorrow’s network requirements.

We’ll work with the Communications Electronic Security Group (CESG) and the Cabinet Office through the Public Services Network programme to develop the Codes and Operating models that will govern the PSN.

We’ll continue to be a key participant in the PSN Early Adoption Project Pathway, which will link the Hampshire, Isle of Wight Partnership's HPSN2 to the Kent Public Services Network (KPSN).

We’ll work with you to ensure you get exactly what you need from your network – from design to deployment through to support.

Got a question? Call us on 0800 953 0180 for more information or schedule a time for us to call you back.