Warrington Borough Council selects Pulse Secure

Pulse Secure has announced the delivery of a successful project at Warrington Borough Council (WBC), designed to help deliver taxpayer value and workforce flexibility through Secure Network Access.

Warrington Borough Council is a unitary authority in the north west of England serving approximately 200,000 citizens across 22 wards. WBC provides a full range of local government services including council tax billing, libraries, social services, the processing of planning applications, waste collection and disposal and more, that are delivered through its own staff and third-party partners supporting council operations. This approach makes remote access to relevant areas of the network increasingly important for communication and productivity.

WBC’s existing Juniper VPN technology and RSA two factor authentication were up for replacement prompting the council to put out a tender inviting vendors to propose new technology to deliver secure, selective access to its network for third party associates. The tender required a secure access platform that could initially support 100 licenses, with the potential to scale to meet changing demand while offering easy ongoing management.

WBC objectively tested the proposed solution before selecting Pulse Secure as the best fit for its needs with DXC, a Pulse Secure Elite partner selected as the solution provider including a three-year contract with built-in software and service support.

The DXC team seamlessly transitioned the council’s network from Juniper SAs to Pulse PSAs in a two-day, on-site implementation project with minimal interruption to user services. Now, the council can provide reliable and secure VPN access for its entire direct and indirect workforce, making remote and mobile working easier.

“[I was] really impressed with how DXC were able to implement our remote access solution, no impact to our customers, and no complaints either,” said David Gallear, Technical Lead (Network), Resources and Strategic Commissioning Directorate at Warrington Borough Council.

The council has gained a fully secure network and can grant selective access to third party partners as needed, with simple ongoing management keeping costs low. Giving third-party associates remote and mobile access has also helped the council to promote a better work/life balance for its entire workforce.

The new solution also helps WBC provide a more responsive, streamlined and efficient service to customers. With secure remote access, productivity has remained high even during bad weather or travel disruption that would previously prevent staff from coming into the office.