West Midlands county authority Staffordshire County Council is based in the county town of Stafford. The authority area includes the cities of Stoke on Trent, which has a unitary authority and cathedral city Lichfield. IT Leader:Sander Kristel, CIO In role since:4 years 6 months Reporting line: Reports to the CFO Board level seat: No but he is part of the organisation’s Wider Leadership Team which consists of the top 30 managers in the organisation IT budget:Approximately £23m and making approximately £2m worth of savings from this year IT estate and or number of log on accounts under the control of the IT leader: Technology and information is key to the business. Decisions that directly affect people’s lives and wellbeing such as Social Care are made on the basis of the information that is provided by our IT systems. There are over 9,000 corporate login accounts in use. There are also about 35,000 devices on our schools’ network that are used by multiple users. Level of the workforce that relies on technology to carry out their tasks:For most of the workforce decisions are made on the basis of information provided by our IT systems for example social workers going out to home visits, but 45 per cent of the workforce use technology on a regular basis. IT staff currently employed:300 Split between in-house/outsourced staff:All staff are in-house although we have outsourced some services such as core network support and SAP. IT management team and reporting structure:Head of Service Management covers helpdesk and infrastructure; Head of Staffordshire Learning Technologies  looks after all services to schools including business liaison and account management; Head of ICT Improvements is responsible for development, procurement, business liaison and account management; Director of Staffordshire Connects  takes care of business liaison between the council, its partners and ICT. Primary technology platforms at the organisation:SAP ERP, e-mail on Microsoft Exchange, ERDMS is HP TRIM and line of business applications such as Social Care system use SAP and Trim. Primary main technology suppliers:Microsoft, SAP, Cisco, through Kcom and Specialist Computer Centre Significant strategic technology deals been struck in the last 12 months:Kcom for a Public Sector Network which can be used by the full public sector in Staffordshire valued at £23m-£125m.Strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year: Facilitating a high percentage of integration particularly between the council and its Health partners. Also the implementation of a more flexible and collaboration tools to help the business be more efficient and accommodate property rationalisation. Making and facilitating savings for the authority. Technologies considered by the leader to offer their organisation potential:Cloud and  virtualisation along with mobile Apps and any other mobile and device agnostic technologies will have the most significant impact. Although video conferencing has been implemented for a while, the need to work across the county to a larger extent has raised its profile. We already have a fully virtualised server infrastructure and about 30 per cent of our estate consist of virtual clients on desks. Future transformation and technology vision for the organisation:Much more front line work will be done by other partners and companies. Integration between other public sector organisations will increase because of technology. There will be a significant channel shift, of services to the public and to the internet. All this needs to be facilitated by mobile and online delivery of services and secure data sharing between all these organisations.