Industry news

FirstGroup has signed a new contract which will see the transport company continue to operate London’s First Capital Connect rail franchise.

The new contract will see the transport company operate services for a further six months up until September 14th.

The extension will extend services ahead of bidding for the future maintenance of the rail franchise, which will be incorporated with other rail links under the governments Thameslink project.

Rail minister says Thameslink may not deliver industry recovery

Carillion wins £120 Thameslink contract

The Scottish Renfrewshire Council has achieved savings of £20.9 million through the implementation of a procurement overhaul.

The modernisation of procurement services included a move to centralise services and processes and turn away from individual department purchasing.

The transformation of the procurement service at the council was headed by Julie Welsh, with the new centralised strategy focusing on improving efficiencies and increasing purchasing power by having one central purchasing team.

The overhaul has resulted in a dramatic rise in the council’s Procurement Capability Assessment (PCA) score in 2013, in contrast to low figures received in 2009.

Whitehall departments move to share information across government

Members of the Scottish Parliament welcome procurement reforms

Retain International which specialises in providing resource planning, management and scheduling services has been acquired by Capita.

The deal will see Capita acquire Retain’s current customer base, including four major accounting companies. The acquisition will see 23 Retain employees based in London move to join Capita.

The purchase of Retain will expand Capita's service offering with the addition of management and resource capabilities.

Managing director for justice and secure services at Capita, Sean Massey, said: “Retain International provides an intuitive, reliable and secure platform that allows organisations to extract information, including work productivity rates, revenues, budgets and forecasts all from a single point.”

Birmingham council carry out Capita contract review

Capita wins £4 million council IT contract

Failures to effectively collaborate and connect with businesses has cost the UK economy as much as £30 billion.

A study by O2 and the Centre for Economic and Business Research (Cebr) has reported that the UK economy is suffering due to ineffective collaboration and communication within UK businesses.

The study found that while employment rates where improving, productivity was declining since the onset of the recession.

The report identified that large savings could be achieved by employing technologies to reduce time wastage including unnecessary traveling in favour of remote working, however a risk-averse culture has held companies back from effectively employing new technology.

Graham Brough, chief executive at the Centre for Economic and Business Research, said: “ICT technologies such as smartphones, mobile apps and cloud computing are starting to drive business productivity and restore the competitiveness of UK workers.”

Hammersmith and Fulham Council deploys new virtual desktop system

Remote health technology to see uptake by NHS

UK businesses are scaling back the hiring of new staff as companies seek to increase productivity levels instead of staff numbers.

The number of companies looking to employ new staff has fallen to the lowest levels since 2010, according to a new survey by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Instead businesses are moving to enhance productivity levels, with current productivity levels having failed to rise with the improving economic climate, as limited pay rises hamper productivity.

Just over half of respondents surveyed in December said they planned to recruit, compared to 65 per cent in the previous quarter. In turn nearly three quarters of respondents said they would be providing pay increases.

CIPD labour market adviser Gerwyn Davies, said: “Weak productivity partly explains why a majority of employers expect to continue awarding below inflation pay rises for their workforce".

Connectivity and collaboration issues result in £30 billion UK loss

After being selected as the preferred bidder, Capita has now been confirmed as having won the bid for the NHS Scotland network.

The Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) contract, which is valued at £110 million, has been awarded to a partnership consisting of Capita and Updata.

The winning bid for the seven year contract was delayed by legal action from BT, who had taken action against perceived failures in the procurement process to correctly select the most competitive bid.

Paul Pindar, Capita CEO, said: “This is an important contract win for Capita, placing us at the heart of public service delivery in Scotland and providing us with a platform to offer additional services and build our business here.”

Ian Crichton, NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) chief executive, said: “I am pleased to announce the award of the SWAN contract to Capita. This was the strongest bid and offers excellent value for money for the public purse.”

NHS Scotland moves forward with preferred bidder nomination

Scotland to create national public services network

The BBC has announced the creation of its Aurora Programme in preparation for the end of its current outsourcing contract with Atos in March 2015.

The £2 billion contract with Atos consisted of a single-supplier monolithic deal provided a wide range of outsourced services and differs from the Aurora Programme which will operate as a multi-source model.

The outsourcing programme will adopt a tower model, with similar functions grouped together into separate service deals, while a separate team including BBC staff will provide SIAM.

BBC tenders for mobile services provider

The new outsourcing programme is expected to provide increased flexibility with potentially faster access to new technologies, specialist capabilities and increased control.

BBC tenders for web analytics system

The UK’s largest council Birmingham City Council (BCC), has undertaken a review of its contract with Capita, in a move to achieve savings of £20 million.

The contract for contact centre and IT services is worth £1 billion over its lifetime until its 2021 expiry date.

The review comes as part of the council’s latest business plan and budget strategy for 2014 and comes as the council reveals that it is facing further cuts of £85 million over 2014-2015, in addition to the 375 million over 2010-2014.

The council’s budget plan detailed: “BCC and Service Birmingham will work together to identify efficiencies in operations and new ways of working that will drive out further savings through reductions in the amount of ICT work, changes to the way in which it is delivered, changes in the level of service quality delivered, new ways of smarter working as a result of emerging and developing ICT solutions”.

Capita wins £4 million council IT contract

Capita awarded five-year congestion charge contract

NHS hospital trusts have turned to basic text services in order to reduce the impact of cancelled operations and appointments.

The three NHS hospital trusts have moved to employ text services in order to communicate with patients surrounding appointments and operation times.

Despite the release of new government figures which show that the number of cancelled NHS operations has continued to rise, South London and Maudsley Hospital Trust, University College London Hospitals and Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals have deployed interactive SMS services provided by communications specialists DrDoctor, allowing patients to instantly re-book appointments.

The new avoids duplication and extra staff work when it comes to re-booking appointments.

Healthcare CIOs do not trust government to deliver innovative IT

“Using SMS is both quick and easy, frees up time for clinical staff and makes re-scheduling dates for appointments far easier. It’s great the NHS is pioneering the use of smart, efficient two-way communication”, said Tom Whicher, the founder of DrDoctor.

SAP has moved to create an innovation centre in Berlin, the centre which officially opened this week is designed to take advantage of the large student population in the capital and nearby Potsdam.

The centre will develop concept ideas before transforming these ideas into a software solution, while working with the 1,200 start-up companies currently using SAP’s HANA offering.

At the official opening, Prof Hasso Plattner, SAP chairman, said: "SAP has to be close to the 150,000 students in Potsdam and Berlin. It cannot be that we can't find the right people here."

SAP announces plans to increase revenue growth to $30 billion

Shell rolls out giant SAP upgrade