Transport Scotland various communications and security questions: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for information on telephony and UC collaboration, Microsoft O365 tenancy, Connectivity and Network services, Cyber Security, storage, CCTV / Physical Security, CRM, and AI / Automation.

1. Telephony and UC/ Collaboration

a. Please confirm the manufacturer of your telephony system(s) that are currently in place.

b. When was the installation date of your telephony equipment?

c. When is your contract renewal date?

d. Who maintains your telephony system(s)?

e. Please confirm the value of the initial project.

f. Please confirm the total ongoing annual spend on telephony.

g. Please confirm the annual support cost for your telephony system.

h. Do you use Unified Communications or Collaboration tools, if so which ones?

2. Microsoft

d) What Microsoft 365 licence do you have across the business e.g. E3, E5.

e) Which partner looks after your Microsoft tenant?

f) Where do you host your applications?  Do you have on-premise infrastructure or do you host your applications in public or private cloud? Which?

3. Connectivity and Network Services

a. Who provides your WAN and internet connectivity and the annual spend on each?

b. Who provides your SIP trunks and what is the annual spend?

c. Who provides your WAN services, is this MPLS, SD WAN or Internet, and what is the annual spend?

d. Who provides your LAN infrastructure and what is your annual spend?

e. Who provides your WIFI infrastructure and what is your annual spend?

f. Please confirm the manufacturer(s) of your wired network core and edge switching?

g. When was your core network installed?

h. Has it been updated subsequently?

i. Who maintains your core network?

j. When is the contract renewal date?

k. Please confirm value of the initial project.

l. Please confirm the value of annual support/maintenance services (in £)?

4. Cyber Security

a. Which manufacturer provides your perimeter security (firewalls)?

b. What other security solutions do you use e.g. NAC, Anti-virus?

c. Who maintains your network security infrastructure and what is your annual spend?

5. Storage

a. Does your organisation use on-premise or cloud storage or both?

b. Please confirm the on-premise hardware manufacturer.

c. Please confirm your cloud storage provider.

d. What is your annual spend on cloud storage?

e. How do you back up your data and with who e.g. Backup as a Service?

6. CCTV/ Physical Security

c) Who provides your CCTV?

d) Do you use access controls and who provides them?

7. CRM

a. Do you use a CRM in the contact centre? What platform is used?

b. Do you use the same CRM for the rest of the organisation? What platform is used?

c. Do you use a knowledge base / knowledge management platform? What platform is used?

8. AI & Automation

a. Does your organisation have a customer or citizen facing chatbot?  If so, who provides this chatbot technology?

b. Does your organisation utilise RPA technology? If so which RPA technology provider, do you use?

9. Organisation

a. How many employees do you have overall within your organisation? 

b. What is your policy around hybrid/ remote working? 

c. Please provide contact details for your procurement lead / category manager for technology and telecommunication services?

d. Please provide names and contact details for the following people within your organisation?

• CIO

• Director / Head of IT

• Director/ Head of Digital Transformation

• Director/ Head of Customer services

Response

Whilst our aim is to provide information wherever possible; in this instance, Transport Scotland does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

1.Telephony and UC/ Collaboration
a. Please confirm the manufacturer of your telephony system(s) that are currently in place.
1. Mitel for core Transport Scotland.
2. Cisco for Traffic Scotland.

b. When was the installation date of your telephony equipment?
1. Mitel: August 2016.
2. Cisco: June 2022.

c. When is your contract renewal date?
1. Mitel: Telephony services are provided to us by the Scottish Government in perpetuity.
2. Cisco: There is no contract for this service, it is owned by Transport Scotland's Traffic Scotland service.

d. Who maintains your telephony system(s)?
1. Mitel: Scottish Government.
2. Cisco: The system is maintained under the Traffic Scotland Systems Contract.

e. Please confirm the value of the initial project.
1. Mitel: £83000.
2. Cisco: £60000.

f. Please confirm the total ongoing annual spend on telephony.
1. Mitel: We do not hold this information. Telephony Services are provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer. For the avoidance of doubt, Transport Scotland is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government.
2. Cisco: Costs are not split out for these in regard to running costs as they are covered under the contract fixed charges.

g. Please confirm the annual support cost for your telephony system.
1. Mitel: We do not hold this information. Telephony Services are provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Cisco: It is included in the annual fixed costs to support the Traffic Scotland service under the Traffic Scotland Systems Contract.

h. Do you use Unified Communications or Collaboration tools, if so which ones?
MS Teams.

2.Microsoft
d) What Microsoft 365 licence do you have across the business e.g. E3, E5?
We hold no Office 365 licensing in our own right. However, the Scottish Government, who provide the majority of out ICT services, hold E3 licensing. This is provided to us as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.

e) Which partner looks after your Microsoft tenant?
Scottish Government.

f) Where do you host your applications? Do you have on-premise infrastructure or do you host your applications in public or private cloud? Which?
Hybrid of on-premise and private cloud.

3.Connectivity and Network Services
a. Who provides your WAN and internet connectivity and the annual spend on each?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: WAN services are also an internal part of the Traffic Scotland IT estate and supported as part of the Traffic Scotland Contracts under the fixed charges. Internet connectivity is provided by Vodafone. Monthly rough costs are: £2000 (this covers the service and support of the CPE equipment etc).

b. Who provides your SIP trunks and what is the annual spend?
1. Core Transport Scotland: We utilise Scottish Government SIP trunks. See previous comments re costs.
2. Traffic Scotland: Vodafone, rough monthly costs are £2000 (this covers the service and support of the CPE equipment etc).

c. Who provides your WAN services, is this MPLS, SD WAN or Internet, and what is the annual spend?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Scottish Government, including MPLS and internet.
2. Traffic Scotland: WAN services are also an internal part of the Traffic Scotland IT estate and supported as part of the Traffic Scotland Contracts under the fixed charges. MPLS is provided by Vodafone and Monthly rough costs are: £3000 (this covers the service and support of the CPE equipment. etc).

d. Who provides your LAN infrastructure and what is your annual spend?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: The Traffic Scotland LAN and security infrastructure is internal and part of the Traffic Scotland IT estate.
3. We also have a small local LAN (TRANSCOT), which we support mostly in house, with infrastructure support available from ParkPlace Technologies and network / hypervisor support from MLR Networks.

e. Who provides your WIFI infrastructure and what is your annual spend?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: covered in question c.

f. Please confirm the manufacturer(s) of your wired network core and edge switching?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Alcatel.
2. Traffic Scotland: Cisco.
3. TRANSCOT: Cisco.

g. When was your core network installed?
1. Core Transport Scotland: 2006.
2. Traffic Scotland: 2013.
3. TRANSCOT: 2015.

h. Has it been updated subsequently?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Yes.
2. Traffic Scotland: Yes.
3. TRANSCOT: Yes.

i. Who maintains your core network?
1. Core Transport Scotland: We do not hold this information. This service is provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: There is no specific contract is it part of the Traffic Scotland systems support contract.
3. TRANSCOT: MLR Networks / Parkplace Technologies.

j. When is the contract renewal date?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Not Applicable. There is no contract but instead an arrangement between Government bodies
2. Traffic Scotland: There is no specific contract it forms part of the Traffic Scotland Systems Contract.
3. TRANSCOT: 1/7/23 (MLR Networks); 1/5/23 (Parkplace Technologies).

k. Please confirm value of the initial project.
1. Core Transport Scotland: This information is no longer held given the network was put in place in 2005.
2. Traffic Scotland: It is part of the fixed charges for the systems support contract.
3. TRANSCOT: This information is no longer held given the network was put in place in 2015.

l. Please confirm the value of annual support/maintenance services (in £)?
1. Core Transport Scotland: We do not hold this information. This service is provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: The costs are part of the fixed lump sums for the systems support, they are not broken out for each service.
3. TRANSCOT: Parkplace Technologies charge £1204.7 per annum, whilst MLR Networks provide their services on a time-and-materials, call-off basis.

4.Cyber Security
a. Which manufacturer provides your perimeter security (firewalls)?
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance an exemption under section 30(c) of FOISA (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) applies to your request. Disclosing this information would substantially prejudice our ability to protect government digital assets and digital information. Providing details about the nature of specific products we use puts information into the public domain which could subsequently be used by attackers or hackers to identify vulnerabilities, or to determine what our defences are. This could therefore enable them to target other types of attack or specific components of our defences and would constitute substantial prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs in terms of the exemption.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open, transparent and accountable government. However, there is a greater public interest in protecting government information systems from attack or compromise and ensuring that Transport Scotland is able conduct its business effectively. There is also greater public interest in ensuring that ensuring that any identified vulnerabilities could not be used to attack Transport Scotland systems that hold information entrusted to us by the citizens for whom we provide online services, and for whom we also have responsibilities under the Data Protection Act to protect personal information. In this instance an exemption under section 30(c) of FOISA (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) applies your request.

b. What other security solutions do you use e.g. NAC, Anti-virus?
See answer at 4.a.

c. Who maintains your network security infrastructure and what is your annual spend?
1. Core Transport Scotland: We do not hold this information. This service is provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: It is part of our Systems support contract.
3. TRANSCOT: MLR Networks operate on a time-and-materials, call-off basis. There is no fixed annual spend.

5.Storage
a. Does your organisation use on-premise or cloud storage or both?
1. Core Transport Scotland: Both.
2. Traffic Scotland: On-premise.
3. TRANSCOT: Both.

b. Please confirm the on-premise hardware manufacturer
1. Core Transport Scotland: We do not hold this information. This service is provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: It is a mix of tape, NAS appliances and VMWare.
3. TRANSCOT: Cisco.

c. Please confirm your cloud storage provider
1. Core Transport Scotland: Microsoft.
2. Traffic Scotland: We do not have a cloud storage provider.
3. TRANSCOT: N/A.

d. What is your annual spend on cloud storage?
1. Core Transport Scotland: We do not hold this information. This service is provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: N/A
3. TRANSCOT: N/A

e. How do you back up your data and with who e.g. Backup as a Service?
1. We do not hold this information. This service is provided to us by the Scottish Government as part of a wider provision of technology services for which we pay an overall cost by way of internal budget transfer.
2. Traffic Scotland: backup on-premise and off site to a DR site.
3. TRANSCOT: Backed up, both on-premise, and off-site to Traffic Scotland infrastructure.

6.CCTV/ Physical Security
c) Who provides your CCTV?
1. Cushman and Wakefield (for our Glasgow office). Scottish Government (for our Edinburgh office).
2. Traffic Scotland: We own our own CCTV service for security cameras.

d) Do you use access controls and who provides them?
1. Yes. ACT (for our Glasgow office). Scottish Government (for our Edinburgh office).
2. Traffic Scotland: We use local access controls.

7.CRM
a. Do you use a CRM in the contact centre? What platform is used?
b. Do you use the same CRM for the rest of the organisation? What platform is used?
c. Do you use a knowledge base / knowledge management platform? What platform is used?
We have no such systems.

8.AI & Automation
a. Does your organisation have a customer or citizen facing chatbot? If so, who provides this chatbot technology?
b. Does your organisation utilise RPA technology? If so which RPA technology provider, do you use?
We have no such systems.

9.Organisation
a. How many employees do you have overall within your organisation?
653.

b. What is your policy around hybrid/ remote working?
Our Senior Management Team's expectation is that by November, colleagues will already be practising a hybrid working arrangement where they are spending at least 1-2 days a week away from home. Many colleagues already operate in this manner.

c. Please provide contact details for your procurement lead / category manager for technology and telecommunication services?
There is no such role in Transport Scotland.

d. Please provide names and contact details for the following people within your organisation?
• CIO
There is no such role in Transport Scotland.

• Director / Head of IT
Stephen Kelly (Stephen.kelly@transport.gov.scot) holds the title ICT Manager.

• Director/ Head of Digital Transformation
There is no such role in Transport Scotland.

• Director/ Head of Customer services
There is no such role in Transport Scotland.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.