New scheme to help councils assess software

29 March 2006

Group wants to support use of open source

The Open Source Academy, a group of local authority open source experts, has launched a programme to help councils test software integration.

The programme, backed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, will allow software to be judged against a set of pre-defined open standards.

Les Timms, IT manager at Birmingham City Council, the body leading the Open Source Academy, says the Certified Open programme will allow local authorities to change the way they select software.

‘We want to provide evidence and practical support to local authorities wishing to exploit open source,’ he said.

Bob Griffith, the Society of IT Management’s special projects leader, says it is important that councils can integrate different pieces of software.

‘Government policy is that the public sector should be joined up. To be able to do that we have to avoid having silos where one computer system is unable to transfer information easily to another,’ he said.

For example, a housing benefits system should ideally be able to talk to the rents system.