Councils agree joint ICT provision framework

A coalition of London councils has appointed two suppliers to deliver three shared frameworks for IT services, worth up to £1.1 billion.

Westminster City Council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith & Fulham Council have appointed Agilisys and BT for four years.

Westminster, as lead council, announced that it will award the frameworks covering distributed computing and data centre services to BT, and service desk and service management to Agilisys.

The contracts will allow the three authorities to put in place five year call-down contracts with possible extensions for up to another three years.

Melvyn Caplan, cabinet member for finance, resources and customer services at Westminster, said: “Savings from the adoption of these shared services are positive and underpin the delivery of wider service savings across the tri-borough. These new frameworks will enable more efficient tri-borough working and achievement of existing and future savings targets.”

The tender document for the contracts said that the distributed computing element would have a value of £1.5 million annually, the service desk contract £600,000 per year, and the data centre services would be worth £1 million each year.

A council source said that the savings estimated from the arrangement would be clearer when the call-down contracts are in place, and would not be drawn on a potential figure. However, estimates released earlier this year said that the move could save £528,000 in staffing costs during the first year, rising to more than £1 million in savings during 2017.

Westminster will start calling-down from the contracts early in 2014 with the services in place by autumn 2014, while the other two councils will make use of the services as existing contracts come to an end.

The framework contracts would also allow Agilisys and BT to offer their services to other London councils.

The contracts are part of a wider programme of service sharing between the three boroughs, agreed in 2010 with the aim of saving £33.4 million.

Meanwhile, Ed Garcez has started work as the three boroughs’ first joint CIO, after joining from Lambeth Council.

Colin Marrs

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