Government Connect Secure Extranet programme shortlisted for Guardian Public Services Awards

12 November 2010 – The Government Connect Secure Extranet programme, as successfully delivered by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and supported by a team from Finmeccanica company, VEGA Consulting Services Ltd (VEGA), has been shortlisted for the Guardian’s 2010 Public Services Awards.

The Public Services Awards are designed to “showcase innovation and best practice across Whitehall, local government, the NHS and beyond”, and are for public, private or voluntary organisations involved in commissioning or delivering public services.

As such, the GCSX programme is one of three nominations to be shortlisted in the ‘Transformation’ category, which focuses on delivering efficiency savings demanded by government, while improving quality – a key part of the Transformational Government agenda.

The DWP team behind GCSX has successfully delivered a network that allows all 375 local authorities across England and Wales to securely connect to each other and central government. VEGA provided support to the Programme Support Office, the Requirements and System Architecture Team, a Service Desk and Support Manager, and the majority of the central and regionally-based Connectivity Team, including CLAS Security Consultants who assessed GCSX CoCo submissions and were involved in more than 1,600 security assessments.

The GCSX network is now helping meet ambitions of the UK Government’s 'Transformational Government: Enabled by Technology' IT strategy, by establishing a private, secure, managed network for local authorities to share sensitive information online, quickly, easily, accurately and in real time.

The 50-strong judging panel for the 2010 awards consists of high profile players in the pubic, private, governmental, academic, and charitable sectors.

Award winners are set to be announced at a gala dinner on Tuesday 23 November in central London.

VEGA Managing Director, Paul MacGregor, said: "VEGA is delighted that the efforts of the GCSX project team have been rightly recognised by the Awards committee. The successful roll out of the programme has seen real value being delivered across government, and represents a best practice model for cyber security and information assurance. I wish everyone the best of luck on the 23rd."

Further information
For further information, please contact Mark Gunning on mark.gunning@vega.co.uk.