Treasury announces ICT contracts for SME and new market entrant
New ICT contracts have been awarded by HM Treasury to a small and medium sized enterprise, and a new entrant to government ICT services, the government has announced. The department has awarded a three-year contract to NTT DATA UK to provide its core ICT services, including mail services and system integration. The award represents the first major services contract for central government in the UK for NTT DATA, a subsidiary of Japanese telecoms firm Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation. A further four-year contract to provide printing services has been awarded to Centerprise International, a medium-sized firm employing around 130 people in South Wales and Basingstoke. This will include printing devices, software, and support services. The award of these two contracts follows the successful completion of an open competition run by the department to replace its current single-provider ICT service with a new model using multiple providers to deliver the ICT system. Tom Hyner, HM Treasury's ICT 2015 procurement lead, said: "Engaging SMEs with the ability to deliver, the commitment to quality and customer focused attitude such as Centerprise International and enabling them to grow is a good thing for those organizations as well as for government ICT in the years to come. The award of these two contracts to Centerprise International as well as the one to NTT DATA UK shows how an accessible procurement process can open the government ICT market and get best value for the taxpayer from both SMEs and new entrants." The ICT 2015 Programme has been set up to replace HM Treasury IT services when a current outsourcing contract with a single supplier - Fujitsu - expires at the end of January 2015. The programme has encouraged the participation of SMEs and suppliers who are new to government.
Pictured: HM Treasury by Paul Clarke http://paulclarke.com
Centerprise International: www.centerprise.co.uk
NTT DATA: www.nttdata.com/uk
London South Bank University to invest £14.8 million in IBM student experience
London South Bank University has announced it is to invest £14.8 million in IBM's "Exceptional Student Experience" programme, which uses a mix of analytics, mobile, social and security solutions built on cloud infrastructure to monitor academic progress of individual students. The five-year deal is aimed at creating a personalised engagement for students from the application process, throughout their student life, to graduation and beyond, IBM says. Features include mobile access to applications, social communities for knowledge sharing, online profiling, and dynamic learning environments. The system will allow the university to monitor students' academic progress, and identify students who may require additional support with their studies. To support its introduction, LSBU's IT environment will move to SoftLayer, an IBM company cloud computing platform. The move will allow space taken by the university's current data centres to be changed into additional teaching space.
IBM Exceptional Student Experience: www-935.ibm.com/industries/uk/en/education/exceptional_student_experience.html
Department of Health picks Kahootz cloud collaboration for arm's length bodies
The Department of Health has selected the Kahootz cloud collaboration service from online collaboration specialist INOVEM as part of a shared service programme for ICT infrastructure and team working options for its staff, its arm's length bodies (ALBs) and non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs). The agreement between Department of Health and INOVEM enables expansion of the Kahootz service to organisations such as NHS England, NHS Health Research Authority, the Care Quality Commission and 20 other agencies and public bodies. Under the G-Cloud call-off framework, DH will only pay for what it consumes, allowing the department and its partner agencies to scale usage up and down, as and when required. The Kahootz Enterprise software will replace its legacy IBM Quickr software. Bob Armstrong, DH's Head of ICT Futures and Shared Services, said: "The acquisition of the Kahootz cloud collaboration service, via the G-Cloud CloudStore, will enable us to improve the way we securely share knowledge, collaborate on policy, consult with stakeholders and engage partners in our work."
Kahootz: www.kahootz.com
