Eduserv in Bristol City Council cloud win

In one of its largest wins through the G-Cloud framework, Eduserv, the non-profit IT services company, has won a contract estimated at up to £1.5m from Bristol City Council to help migrate its IT infrastructure to the cloud.

This is the largest commitment by Bristol City Council through G-Cloud to date, and is claimed to be the largest of any city council.

Bristol has spent £2.5 million through G-Cloud (up to July) and first bought G-Cloud services with Eduserv in July 2014 for an “equipment hosting service” totalling roughly £32,000.

Eduserv’s previous major G-Cloud success had been with the Department of Education for IaaS services although they have won several other contracts across the public sector.

Andrew Hawkins, sales director at the firm said: “We have worked hard to develop a cloud proposition for local government which allows organisations to choose the right mix of IT and professional services for the specific challenges they may face.

“The benefit of having our own data centre is that local government can free up their real estate immediately by colocating in our data centre and migrating to the cloud in a controlled environment…We are looking forward to supporting Bristol City Council on its move to the cloud.”

With the largest engagement with G-Cloud of any city council, Bristol City Council is demonstrating that major projects undertaken through G-Cloud are not just for central government.

This latest deal is part of a wider buildings consolidation program after the purchase of 100 Temple street in 2013.

By moving to the Cloud, the council will no longer need to build a new data centre as it consolidates staff into City Hall and 100 Temple Street.

With savings for all councils at the top of the agenda, this latest move will help Bristol City Council in its goal to save £90m from its expenditure.

Steven Pendleton, service manager, commissioning and supplier relationship management at Bristol City Council, said: “Like every council, we are faced with the challenge of delivering high quality services while reducing our costs by 30%.”

Pendleton said that the cloud was the best solution for an organisation that often needs to flex its budgets.

Pendleton said: “The ICT market is changing rapidly, becoming much more commoditised and consumer led, where significant economies of scale are now possible.

“The council will not need to own much of its ICT in future – it will buy services that match demand in a much more flexible way.

“ICT transformation plays a critical role in allowing us to achieve that. Moving our IT estate to the cloud will give us a more flexible cost-effective resource which can adapt to our changing needs.”

Eduserv, based in Bath, is a local ICT provider, albeit from a city which is seen as a regional rival to Bristol. 

This win in Bristol is an important step for the charity as it seeks to break further into local government.

As its name indicates, it has worked in the education and research sectors as well as the NHS.

Colin Marrs

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