£30k iPads could save council £70k on reports over two years

[Fun Bus]

And what the fk is wrong with a laptop with dongle or wireless access? Or a desk based PC which they probably already have?

What an absolute crock of stinky bks.

Nottingham Evening Post said:

A COUNCIL could spend more than £30,000 on iPads for councillors to help save paper.

The money would be spent on giving 48 councillors and 12 officers the computer tablets with mobile internet access.

A report will then go before a cabinet meeting in February, and if it is deemed a success the scheme will be recommended for full approval.

The authority hopes to save around £47,240 a year, of which £12,000 will come from savings in paper and ink, £5,000 on postage and £12,580 on staffing of the council's print unit.

Councillor Ian Campbell, vice-chairman of the IT and access sub-committee, which agreed the plans, said: "The council prints and posts over 230,000 pages of committee papers to its 48 members each year. As well as being costly it's also a waste of paper.

"By trialling iPads we are looking to save not only costs and trees but to change mindsets and promote a smarter way of working.

"Our meetings will be paperless with all agendas, minutes and presentations viewed electronically."

Mr Campbell added the council has to be "creative" in keeping costs down and improving value for the taxpayer.

He said: "By getting rid of printing, postage and other associated costs there will be a net saving of around £70,000 over two years."

The motion to introduce a pilot scheme got support from the ruling Labour party, as well as Conservative and Independent councillors.

Keith Circuit, secretary of the Bassetlaw Local Government branch of Unison, said: "None of our members' jobs are at risk and if it remains that way I expect our branch will be supporting this proposal."

Mike Quigley, leader of the Conservative group on the council, added: "I think we need to be able to justify the equipment we purchase."

[Rollin]

I heard on the radio a report about a proper money saving measure. I think it was a council too. They reduced the number of printers and had them in another room. People then thought twice about wasting ink and paper because they were too lazy to get the print out.

[mrmr96]

None of them will be able to work the things. As if they'll all be able to find the right file on their iPad with the agenda of the meeting they're in.

[hornetrider]

Whats wrong with laptops the cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu*ts!!

[glazbagun]

I'm amazed people still believe in the paperless office.

[stevensdrs]

Yeh but have they got spare capacity in their IT department or will they have to pay £100k to have someone maintain all the I-pads? They should stick to paper, it works 100% of the time.

[Jasandjules]

Sounds like they just have an excuse to buy nice new Ipads to me...

[wolves_wanderer]

Jasandjules said:

Sounds like they just have an excuse to buy nice new Ipads to me...

It does seem strange how only desirable, trendy gadgets produce these fantastic cost savings...

[Jim the Sunderer]

The same daft hewers change to recycled paper to save money, except it knackers their nice laser printers.

[pacman1]

glazbagun said:

I'm amazed people still believe in the paperless office.

Indeed. A lot of PC's were sold on the back of that one. There's more paper than ever!

[alfabadass]

Paperless doesnt work at all.

People print out hard copies of reports. People value the reports less as they're copies. They know if they lose the reports, they can print them out again. People think twice if they only have the original.

[davepoth]

True Story.

I had a boss who once said "I want this mill to be paperless"

It was a paper mill.

[Mojooo]

Jasandjules said:

Sounds like they just have an excuse to buy nice new Ipads to me...

Perhaps - but I can see the logic

Councilors go to a LOT of meetings in big Councils and they will often have lots of reports prepared for them that they may only look at once in order to make a decision. So it makes sense to be able to save vast amounts of paper.

They also travel around a lot, so computerized files > paper print outs.

Yes they could have laptops - but the assumption is that they already have laptops. If they have to buy new a tablet may be a letter option.

What the Council should perhaps do is offer to buy them for a discount and sell to the Councilor at cost price, should they want it. And it doesn't have to be an iPad - although Android sucks ass and I wouldn't buy one for work purposes.

[Mr Whippy]

Laptop/Netbook + PDF = same thing?

And lots cheaper. And they can do more.

Don't look quite as flash though.

Considering the main desire is to use them to read, then surely you are better with a device that has a search function... or does the iPad have that?

Dave

[agent006]

Mr Whippy said:

Laptop/Netbook + PDF = same thing?

And lots cheaper. And they can do more.

Not so much as you'd think though. We've just replaced a bunch of laptops with iPads. The same monthly 3G contract cost, and £300 cheaper per device to buy. Leave aside the few hundred quid for putting Office on it.

The big difference is that we just hand them out and never need to see them again. The laptops were constantly back to IT support for virus checks and maintenance. For the maintenance cost of a laptop over three years you could buy someone an iPad for each hand, and a spare one just in case.

Just because it's all shiny doesn't mean it's expensive.

[mildmannered]

Nottingham Evening Post said:

A COUNCIL could spend more than £30,000 on iPads for councillors to help save paper.

Buy cheaper paper? Reduce needless bureaucracy?

I personally don't want my money being spent on toys, just so some overpaid jobsworth civil servant can play feckin angry birds!

[fathomfive]

I'll forward that piece to my Nottingham based mates and see what they say.

For me, it's not the iPad purchase which is wrong, it's the blatant bullst they use to justify it. You just know those savings will never materialise.

[DaveR]

The same thing happened in Shrewsbury. Purchase of iPads justified predominantly against savings in printing costs stated to be of the order of £100k. As I understand it, the user community already had laptops that were no more than 2 years old and some kind of corporate deal on Microsoft (inc. Office) licensing.

Predictably, this didn't go down too well with the natives. If a culture exists where everything gets printed then it hardly matters what portable computing facilities you provide.

[Otispunkmeyer]

glazbagun said:

I'm amazed people still believe in the paperless office.

Me too

Still can't beat having your meeting agenda printed off and a pencil at the ready to make notes.

You can get stylus' for the iPad but you can't annotate a pdf file or anything useful.



And if they are simply using them to read.... what, might I ask, is wrong with a Kindle? Reads PDF's just fine, is infinitely easier to read for long periods and can be had with internet access as well. Costs 1/4 of the price, lasts a week on a charge and yet is smaller and lighter than the iPad.

Suppose they can't look up hot asian amatuers in shocking back door pasty smashing action and charge it to their expenses mind.

Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Friday 30th September 10:37

[Puggit]

How will they be opening excel pivot tables on their spread sheets?!