The London Borough of Newham is in the vanguard of a pioneering move to develop portals for sharing information and software across local authorities.

Essentially the Open Application Sharing Portal (OAS) allows software connectors to be linked more simply to back office council systems. The council is co-operating closely with Microsoft as the supplier.

Richard Steel, head of Newham's ICT, commented "We have also developed adaptors with Microsoft's help to link via Biztalk to the Local Land and Property Gazetteer, and we are working on a few other systems such as housing and social services, which will be available through the OAS," he said.

The move comes as local authorities recognise the scale of risk involved in implementing complex software applications.

Part of the business case for implementing OAS is that Newham will work with other local authorities for further adopters.

Six months ago, Newham signed a landmark deal with Microsoft as a strategic partnership.

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