Department for Education and Skills
Connexions is the government's initiative aimed at 13-19 year olds in England. It provides advice, support, guidance, and access to personal development opportunities.
- Industry
- Government and Public Sector
- Region
- UK
- Alliance partner
- Microsoft
- Solution
- Application Development & Integration
- IT Transformation - Strategy and Architecture
- Portals
Its success relies on communication between young people and 47 local Connexions partnerships. The DfES Connexions Service National Unit (CSNU) collects management information (MI) on a monthly basis from the partnerships and uses it to support policy making.
Business Situation
Data was collected using spreadsheets, which created a time consuming process that was prone to human error. The CSNU wanted more control of information in order to help meet targets and enable the partnerships to get on with their jobs of helping and advising young people.
Solution
Working with Capgemini, the CSNU created a central, Web-based data capture facility accessed through http://nexus.dfes.gov.uk . It was created using the Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual Basic® .NET, Microsoft Visual C#® .NET and Microsoft ASP .NET forms.
Benefits
- 25% reduction in resource dedicated to data submission and processing, meaning more time spent helping young people
- Speed of development
- Flexibility
- Ease of use
- Better control of information
- Reliable, scalable platform protects investments in the future
” We were very impressed with Capgemini’s ability to understand the business side of our organisation . I never had any doubts about its technical capabilities, but it picked up on some of the nuances and politics with a small and large ‘p’ that we need to deal with as a government department very quickly.”
Brenda Alexander
Management Information and Systems Director, CSNU
