APPENDIX 1
Memorandum by the Parliamentary Communications
Directorate
FUTURE SUPPORT
OPTIONS FOR
MEMBERS CONNECTING
TO THE
PDVN
As members increase their use of office technology
their system environments are becoming more diverse. This is proving
difficult for PCD to support with their current resource. PCD's
remit is to support members as far as the network interface card
in their machines or to the Customer side of their modem. It does
not include any applications support beyond the basic email and
calendaring functions of Outlook and the ability to connect to
the intranet and internet.
This is becoming an increasingly untenable situation.
In general, Members and their staff do not have the skills to
manage their IT environment as "corporate" users of
a network. The transitory nature of their staff, in many cases,
and the ease with which applications may be obtained from the
internet to try, creates an environment where PCD cannot reliably
have sufficient knowledge to support even their simple remit.
This lack of support and the difficulty of diagnosing
the problems when they occur are probably limiting the take up
on PDVN facilities by Members. This in turn prevents Parliament
from moving forward on a broad front to maximise the use of, and
benefits that could accrue from all Members being accessible via
the system.
There are realistically two choices that would
relieve the situation:
— More closely and potentially more
restrictively define the service available.
— Move to a more corporate style of
support similar to that provided to Members of the House of Lords
and staff of the Departments of the House.
The choice is not an easy one. The former would
limit further the take up of PDVN and may even lose some of its
current customers. The latter would involve as yet unquantified
expense and could probably only be accomplished if the House resolved
to supply equipment to Members and staff. The cost of supply and
the support of the hardware have been a subject of a previous
paper and is subject to SSRB recommendations. That paper did not
cover the cost of developing a support service for the software.
Members are asked to consider which of these
situations will best serve their use of the PDVN. The options
are:
— Retain the status quo with regard
to Members service and accept that there is likely to be some
basic software configuration that all users must use.
— If the system in use by the Member
has had additions made to it after the PDVN connection has been
installed, the user would be asked to reverse those additions
prior to calling PCD for help. This could possibly be by the use
of a restore disk similar to that used by commercial suppliers
such as IBM, Toshiba and Tiny. If this is not done PCD will reserve
the right to require it to be done to enable them to work on the
problem. This would be a user responsibility to complete before
PCD could begin work.
— The outcome of this is that if
this configuration is not used only a very basic service via a
"thin client" will be provided. The facilities provided
by that service would not be enhanced if they required other than
the "thin client's" facilities.
— The platform would be enhanced
and developed to take advantage of future software developments,
such as remote synchronisation.
— The platform would incur the
members in additional cost, as all systems on the network would
have to reflect the then current cable systems in specification.
A remote PC would in effect be equivalent in facility to one connected
within the Parliamentary estate.
— Investigate the possibility of corporate
support service that would relieve those Members who are not computer
literate from the task of maintaining their machines. This could
be in the form of an in-house or externally supplied service.
Neither of these options is ideal. The first
limits the service from and use of the PDVN by Members. The second
has significant cost implications for Parliament. A halfway house
has been tried with the availability of the GCAT service. This
has provide less than satisfactory in practice. If schemes like
the £1 per day lease from IBM implemented by the Labour party
gain acceptance, and are replicated in other Parties this will
go someway to resolving the diversity of systems that are the
root of the problem. It will not remove it. Users will still add
software and that software will still impact their ability to
use the corporate system in Parliament, PDVN.
PCD would appreciate some guidance from the
Committee on behalf of Members as to the level of restriction
on add-ons to PCs that would be considered tolerable. Other suggestions
that would deliver the service required giving greater penetration
of PDVN usage would also be appreciated.
The attached annex is somewhat technical and
deals with a possible scenario that could be put in place to deliver
a two-track approach to the provision of service. It should be
noted that the use of Windows Terminal Server (WTS) has cost implications
and could not provide the remote synchronisation service that
is considered an essential advance on current arrangements.
7 February 2000
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