Central Bedfordshire Council has joined Essex County Council’s ICT network under a nine-year contract.

Essex awarded the 10 year contract to run its network  to Daisy Updata Communications (DUCL) in 2012 for a value of £81m.

Now Central Bedforshire will connect to the “Next Generation Network”, meaning DUCL will be responsible for connecting more than 180 council sites and schools in its area.

Richard Wenham, deputy executive member for corporate resources at the council, said: “By joining up with the Essex NGN, we become part of a PSN ready network and have access to a range of other IT services that will support us in providing resilient and innovative solutions that increase our performance and help to reduce costs.”

DUCL is a joint venture between Updata Infrastructure, a provider of network solutions to the public sector and part of Capita IT Services, and Daisy Group, a supplier of unified business communications services. Updata has provided network management to Central Bedfordshire Council, and one of its legacy authorities, Bedfordshire County Council, since 2008.

Two weeks ago, DUCL was awarded a £24.5m contract to run the public service network in Kent.