What is esd-suppliers?

Changes to the esd-suppliers scheme

From April 2008, the esd-suppliers scheme was been simplified to take account of lessons learned in the first year of operation and clarify working arrangements with the Local eGovernment Standards Body (LeGSB).

esd-suppliers and Local Government Integration Practice (LGIP) are brought together under a single membership with subscription cost dependent on the size of organisation. All members of LGIP at March 2008 have had their memberships extended to March 2009 at no further cost. From April 2009, services for the quality assurance hosting and support of standards will be offered in conjunction with LeGSB to specific projects rather than charged to individual members.

Closer alignment with the esd-toolkit programme keeps esd-suppliers members abreast with technical developments that support the agenda of local authorities, including reporting against the National Indicators, customer insight and extensions to the framework of controlled vocabularies used across local government.

Primary benefits to members

• Knowledge of local authority work and esd-toolkit projects with authorities and CLG via quarterly briefing meetings
• Support for and input into esd standards (controlled lists and schemas)
• Knowledge of national standards work by association with LeGSB (including feedback on standards projects)
• Opportunities for suppliers of complementary products to network
• Publicity with well targeted local authority officers via online case studies, a log of local authority involvement, news and events

Additional benefits

• Improved relationship with local authorities
• Surface your products without overt advertising
• Be noted as a supplier working to build standards into products ready for market
• Training on how esd-toolkit supports local authorities and the use of standards within the public sector

Support for integration standards

The newly formed esd-suppliers offers to projects:

• A standards QA service, normally in conjunction with LeGSB
• Standards hosting, maintenance and support that can extend beyond the life of standards development projects
• Services to promote take-up of common standards by public sector organisations and suppliers

Services are made available to existing esd-suppliers and Integration Practice communities and their members at no further charge through 2008/9. Integration Practice members (and current esd-suppliers) will be asked to renew subscriptions in April 2009 to form the one esd-suppliers community.

Standards QA, hosting and take-up promotion services are available to all local government projects that develop standards in line with the objectives of the esd-toolkit community. esd-suppliers will provide a service which ensures a standards developed by a project are hosted after the life of the project. Support will be given on the project’s standards to all esd-toolkit subscribing local authorities and esd-suppliers members alongside existing esd standards.

The Local e-Government Standards Body (LEGSB)

The Local e-Government Standards Body (LeGSB) was re-launched in November 2006 to help local government identify, establish and promote standards, which contribute to transformational government outcomes.

LeGSB was originally an Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) National Project, and has since been migrated to Tameside Council. The Director of Standards is Paul Davidson, CIO at Sedgemoor District Council.

The scope of standards includes:

• The languages and formats that enable computer systems to communicate, both within a single organisation, and across organisational boundaries, irrespective of the supplier.
• The methods that enable organisations to share information and collaborate on joint change programmes and therefore includes protocols, formats, schemas, scripts, and methodologies.

LeGSB is publishing an online Standards Catalogue with information which allows public sector projects to review existing standards and their usage.

Working arrangements for LeGSB and esd-suppliers

The LeGSB Board has agreed:

esd-suppliers will support its members in making best use of the LeGSB Standards Catalogue.

esd-suppliers Membership Subscriptions

Annual membership subscriptions are sold according to company size based on turnover. Memberships include online access and the rights to attend meetings for a certain number of company staff, dependent on company size.

Subscription rates are as follows:

Online access and electronic support will be unlimited for staff of each member organisations, subject to reasonable use.