Prestigious award for University IT department

St Andrews has become the first university in Britain to receive a prestigious award for its IT provision.

Two-Star Service Desk accreditation from the Service Desk Institute (SDI) is awarded to only those organisations which can demonstrate the best possible Information Technology Service.

The University’s IT service desk team, which logs between 2500 and 5000 incidents a month, depending on the time of the year, can now evaluate its performance against an international framework of standards.

The accolade is a clear mark of success for the team which offers IT support to the University’s 2,000 staff and around 8,000 students through a single point of contact.

St Andrews now shares the international quality mark with organisations including O2, Sodexo, Kent and Leicestershire County Councils and is only the second university in the world, after King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, to boast the award.

Lorraine Brown, University Service Desk Manager, said: “Information Technology is a fundamental part of the day-to-day life of every member of staff and student at the University.

“We want everyone who uses our service to have a positive experience from the moment they arrive in St Andrews.

“We believe that our 2-Star-Certification proves our commitment to offering a great service and we aim to use the programme to further aid the continuous development of our IT services.”

The 2-Star-rating was awarded to the University of St Andrews following a six month rigorous auditing programme last year.

The  IT service was assessed in its leadership, policy and strategy, people management, partnerships and resources, processes, people satisfaction, customer satisfaction, performance results and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Howard Kendall, SDI’s Master Auditor, said: “It was brilliant to see a well-led team, strategically on a firm direction, and people that are clearly enthusiastic to improve.

“The project team approach to certification has borne fruit and communications, business alignment and peak demand resourcing have all improved as a result. The use of apprentices is particularly to be applauded.”

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The Service Desk Institute’s SDC audit evaluates service desk operations against an internationally accepted global standard for best practice, providing companies with a benchmark to form a baseline for service improvements.

Based around ITIL and ITSM frameworks, the certification evaluates companies in the following areas: incident and problem resolution, change and release management, service level management, availability and capacity management, configuration management, business continuity and financial management, knowledge management and customer relationship management.