The HillingdonFirst card, the largest citizen e card system in the country, won the prestigious Local Government Chronicle (LGC) IT Initiative of the Year 2011 award, at the ceremony in March 2011 in Park Lane.

Sector designed and developed the software and integration framework that spans and connects a number of core systems within Hillingdon. In one work stream, Sector developed integration facilities between the library management system and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This allowed for the seamless replacement of the current library membership enrolment facilities with the Smartcard based functions. In parallel, Sector developed integration functions between the CRM system and the card supplier systems, which managed both the mass enrolment (some 150,000 + cards initially issued), and the on-going steady state card management functions.

The final phase of the project involved Sector in creating a fully transactional self-service website, which allows residents to enrol in the scheme and manage their cards into the future. The HillingdonFirst Smartcard currently provides preferential parking rates for borough residents, access the libraries, preferential rates at the Councils leisure centres, free access to certain waste facilities and discounts at a wide range of local businesses. For more details of the awards evening please click here.

Sector was established in 1991 to provide high quality, value for money IT services and management consultancy to the public sector. This remains our core objective.

Over the years, as the business environment has evolved, our company has adapted to reflect new directions in technology and services. Sector now operates two distinct business streams:

1) The provision of software solutions to the public sector Housing market
2) IT focused management consultancy to the Local Authority and RSL markets.

We believe that maintaining these distinct business threads allows us to bring synergistic benefits to our customers. Our systems development staff can draw upon the in depth knowledge of our management consultants to ensure our solutions meet the current and future market needs, and our management consultants can draw on detailed technical skills to provide realistic advice on current and future possibilities.