With all local government agencies in the UK facing the need to do more with a lot less, Lincolnshire County Council has embarked on a programme to deliver and manage a modernised software-defined wide area network (WAN) throughout the county.
Situated in the northeast midlands of England, the mainly rural Lincolnshire county covers just over 2.6 million square miles, with a population of around 1.12 million people. As England’s fourth largest county council, Lincolnshire County Council employs more than 6,000 people and delivers a range of public services, including Adult and Children’s Social Care, Highways and Transport, Environmental Services, Education, and Fire and Rescue services, across 200 sites.
The new network will aim to provide improved resilience and secure integration with cloud-based services across all council sites. The deployment will also support including Lincolnshire Fire & Rescue, with centralised health and social care network (HSCN) access.
Explaining the reasons for the project, Lincolnshire County Council CIO Tom Baker said: “Our vision is to build a technological ecosystem that not only supports our ongoing operational needs but meets the expectations of our citizens in digital delivery as a time of local government change.”
The work to implement the WAN will be carried out by Exponential-e, a UK provider of sovereign cloud, connectivity, communications and cyber security solutions, has been awarded a five-year contract, procured under Crown Commercial Services (CCS) Network Services 3 Framework.
Noting that the company was an expert with technical ability and proven public sector expertise, CIO Baker noted that Exponential-e will be critical in improving the council’s ability to manage ongoing and accelerated change.
Exponential-e will replace the council’s existing outdated Public Services Network (PSN) infrastructure with a fully managed Cisco software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN). This is intended to deliver a unified, centrally orchestrated, secure and high-performing network environment, designed to support the council’s long-term digital strategy, enabling greater agility, improved resilience and secure integration with cloud-based services.
The solution will also integrate with the council’s operational and security platforms, incorporating secure-by-design principles, centralised monitoring, incident-response systems, automated failover capabilities, dynamic routing and flexible network segmentation. This is meant to support a zero-trust security approach and rapid onboard of new sites.
The architecture will be centrally managed via a structured service desk model to provide encrypted connectivity across all locations. It will also support critical national infrastructure (CNI) services including Lincolnshire Fire & Rescue with encrypted integration and centralised HSCN access. It is also designed to enable scalability and flexibility for future organisational and technological change.
The contract was signed in March 2026 and will run until March 2031. Implementation has begun, with service go-live dates to be confirmed as part of the phased deployment programme.
Commenting on the project, Afshin Attari, director of public sector and unified platforms at Exponential-e, said: “We are proud to partner with Lincolnshire County Council to deliver a modern, resilient and secure network infrastructure that supports the delivery of critical public services across the county.
“By implementing a centrally managed SD-WAN architecture, the council will benefit from greater agility, enhanced security and improved operational resilience, while creating a scalable, sovereign platform capable of supporting future innovation and evolving digital service requirements.”
