Quarterly update from Hayden Edwards, Director – SWAN Framework at BT

Welcome to the 2nd quarterly SWAN newsletter. Its been a really exciting start to 2024, with over 200 sites having been transitioned from the old SWAN network to their new home, with customers now benefitting from faster network connectivity and refreshed equipment. Led predominantly but not exclusively by the migration of pharmacies across the country, we have also migrated sites for Hillcrest Housing Association and Dumfries and Galloway Council, proving the interconnectivity between old and new networks and the migration process. I would like to the thank the teams involved in these first few migrations who went above and beyond to make this as pain free as possible. Please see the graphic insert for the current position on migration (as at 7th March 2024).

Graph showing that over 200 sites having been transitioned from the old SWAN network, including 191 from the NHS, 18 from Dumfries & Galloway Council and 6 from Hillcrest Housing Association.

As we know, SWAN is not just a network, but an opportunity of Members to procure a wide range of additional services, and I am delighted that a range of these covering secure cloud connectivity, secure file transfer, secure mail relay and LAN/WLAN support have already been called off from the Framework. And in parallel, we are continuing to develop and bring to the service catalogues even more access catalogue and additional services for consumption – watch this space!

This quarter has also seen more Members join the new SWAN Framework, such as West Dunbartonshire Council, Forest Research, West Lothian Council, Midlothian Council, Moray Council, Forestry Land Scotland and Dundee City Council, who we very much look forward to working with over the coming years. We are also very close to welcoming at least a handful more Members over the next month or so – testament to the hard work of customers and colleagues in BT and NSS in designing and developing the transition plans for your services to assure you of continuity of service as the existing Framework is run down.

We are continuing to work with the SWAN Authority to make sure all of your services are transitioned prior to the end of March 2026. My thanks to each Member for working so constructively with the BT team in this regard. If you are unsure about what is moving when, or which shared services will be available moving forward, then please drop us a note or contact us via swan.scot. I hope you enjoy the rest of the Newsletter this Quarter.

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