You wouldn't expect someone selecting equipment for thousands of schools to recommend hardware they weren't happy with themselves. And you'd be right. Gerry Paget, of Hampshire County Supplies, is 'extremely pleased' with the multi-functional devices. 

Head of Technology Buying Team at Hampshire, Gerry Paget explained: 'We started five years ago, when we took one of the first digital machines. We like to see ourselves as guinea pigs, testing equipment before we start placing it in large quantities with our customers. Now we're using the latest 4502, which has enabled us to do away with our desktop printers. Workgroups are networked into the machine, which can perform all our office printing.'  

So demanding is Gerry's office that they're always pushing equipment to the limits of its capability. In so doing, they sometimes discover things even we didn't know. 'The scanning function is helping us save office space by reducing the need to store hard copies. We hope to further develop this advantage. We've also got it to do things that are not in the handbook!' adds Gerry.

As well as covering routine tasks such as mail merge and archiving, the equipment is being used to print up to 1000 picking notes for the Hampshire County Supplies warehouse every day. 'We like the speed - and we're making enormous savings. It's not difficult to work out why - at these volumes, there's a big difference between half a penny per page compared with 2p for more traditional printing methods.'

Hampshire is the lead authority for copier equipment within the Central Buying Consortium (CBC). There are 18 local authorities in CBC, covering the Midlands and Southern England. Consequently, Hampshire County Supplies has considerable buying power - not simply for its own area, but because they also select on behalf of other councils within CBC.