Cardiff Council takes PSTN switch-off as opportunity to rethink school communications, writes Dan York, Local Government Sector Lead, Avaya UK&I.

The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is scheduled to close in 2027. By that deadline, every phone line in the UK must be moved to a fully digital network that uses Internet Protocol (IP) across a fibre-based service.

In Wales, Cardiff Council is facilitating this transition for 128 local schools – 110 primary or special schools, and 18 secondary schools. It has taken this compulsory transition as an opportunity for digital transformation, rethinking the tools its schools use for communication, and what could be possible if all the separate siloed pieces of technology worked together in an integrated and holistic way.

Procurement in the public sector

As a public sector organisation, Cardiff Council must comply with procurement processes, including the due diligence to evaluate several digital telephony products sets on the market. FourNet, a specialist in secure cloud, CX consulting and digital transformation in the public sector, introduced the council’s education department to Avaya Cloud Office, an all-in-one cloud phone system and collaboration tool. After thorough evaluation, the council chose this as the solution that best met the requirements for the transitioning schools. And because FourNet was already on the all-Wales public sector procurement framework, purchasing was compliant and straightforward.

‘We did an evaluation, we did the testing, we were happy. We went through procurement and then started purchasing the first batch of 500 licences for the first group of schools to be transitioned. From there, it’s been pretty straight forward,’ says Huw David, Operational Manager for ICT Services at Cardiff Council.

In just over 18 months into the transition, 72 schools out of the 128 had been onboarded to the new cloud communications system, representing just under 2,500 users.

Economies and efficiencies

Huw David and his team know how much they were spending on telephony per annum: ‘It looked like around £600,000 was being spent on telephony across Cardiff schools each year but with the new phone system, we were looking at potential savings in the region of £350,000. For a public sector organisation, it is money that could be diverted to spend in other much needed areas in the schools.’

Because the new cloud communications solution runs on a subscription-based payment model, the schools only pay for what they use and the local authority benefits from economies of scale. For example: previously, all 128 schools would have had to handle payment of monthly or quarterly invoices from service providers and maybe maintenance support. Now everything is paid for centrally alleviating that administrative cost across all the school offices. Agility and admin

Cloud-based telephony means contact numbers are not tied to a phone sitting on a physical desk or geographically limited to one particular school. This is a very agile way to work and a real benefit for senior staff, who do lots of work outside the classroom. With the new phone system, a teacher’s school contact number will reach them wherever they are, so they can operate from a quiet place, or at home, and not have to use their own mobiles or landlines. They can make phone calls and the recipient will only be aware that the school is calling them, not the location of where the call is from.

From an admin point of view, Cardiff Council has gained simple but comprehensive management through a single pane of glass, meaning everything can be done from one management console where admins can view and download any analytics and reports they need for IT support.

Also important for the council was to ensure business continuity for its schools in case stay-at-home rules are applied in future. Whereas many alternative digital telephony solutions require some sort of on-premises presence, the solution chosen for Cardiff schools only needs an internet connection. If the internet connection to a school should fail, then its mobile app will work with a 4G or 5G signal. This means that parents and staff can remain in contact, and voicemails, IMs and other automated communications will also work. ‘From a business continuity perspective, our new solution ticked a lot of boxes,’ says David.