Industry news

The Midlands has offered up a tender for a transport authority smart card system, with a potential value of more than £4.2 million.

The transport smart card system would be similar to the London Oster card scheme, providing alternative payment methods for transport services while providing valuable data allowing for analytics capabilities.

The tender process announced by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive known as Centro, which represents the seven Metropolitan District Councils of the West Midlands, has placed the smart card tender as a framework contract, composed of six lots.

The lots will include the provision of backend systems, database services, card production and customer support.

Government seeks industry knowledge for nationwide smartcard

TfL terminates £100m Oyster contract

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is moving to find alternative suppliers to Atos, according to leaked documents, for its work assessment contract.

The documents leaked to the Guardian reveal that the government is looking to create increased competition by bringing other private firms into the £500 million contract currently operated by Atos Healthcare.

The private organisations will be used to provide “further capacity” to the system, and then moving to “take over the whole contract” after the current contract expires in 2015.

The move comes after the disability minster Mike Penning acknowledged that one company having a monopoly over the assessment services was “flawed”.

A Atos spokesperson said: “We recognise that many people have strong feelings about work capability assessments. The constant flow of criticism inevitably has an impact on our staff”.

Atos secures £400 million BPO services contract

Committee calls for a ‘substantial shake-up’ of governance at DWP

Danish outsourcing firm ISS has said that it hopes to raise 8 billion Danish Crowns ($1.47 billion) from its IPO on the Nasdaq

The move to float the company comes after ISS was acquired by private equity company EQT and Goldman Sachs for €2.9 billion, before delisting the company on 2005.

The market floatation would represent the largest Nordic public offering since the financial crisis.

ISS intends to present a public offering before the end of march based on feedback from investors.

Chief Executive Jeff Gravenhorst said in the statement: “The intended IPO is expected to support our operational strategy”.

Royal Mail to be Privatised

Facebook floats 400 million shares at $38 each

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