Industry news

A committee of MSPs have welcomed the Procurement Reform Bill, which aims to create a legislative framework for procurement in the public sector.

The Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee (ICIC), welcomed the new bill's goals in seeking to streamline the procurement process, remove blacklist, increase procurement transparency and standardise processes.

The Scottish procurement consortium attempts to ‘maximise local impact’

ICIC member Maureen Watt said: “Our committee believes that legislation is required to improve the situation for those attempting to access public contracts. We therefore recommend that the Scottish Parliament agrees to the general principles of the bill and allows it to continue its passage through Parliament.”

The bill is set to be presented to Parliament for a full debate.

Scottish government focuses on mobile services to drive patient care

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced plans to reduce its equipment procurement budget by as much as £1.5 billion.

The cuts announced by the Financial Times would account for 20 per cent of the MoD’s £7.5 billion annual spend.

Much of the MoD’s procurement arm budget is spent on servicing equipment, with the multinational defence companies taking much of the work. The budget reduction has led to military chiefs urging caution at the extent of cuts and on their impact on the UK’s military capability.

The cuts will likely take a number of years to come into effect, with existing contracts needing to expire before the planned cuts can take place.

MoD recruitment system behind schedule

MoD in Procurement Snafu

Online food company Ocado is planning to increase IT investment by 77 per cent over the coming year.

The company described that people and hardware would be the main focus points for future investment.

The companies result statements detailed that it would seek to increase its team of IT staff by 50 per cent, moving from around 350 to more than 520 staff.

Ocado invested £14.1 million in 2013 on IT services, however the company has yet to see a return from the investment, reporting a pre-tax loss of £12.5 million.

The company has stacked future expectations for growth on predictions for a shift to online grocery shopping, driven by supermarkets and consumers.

The company said: “The primary focus will be on re-platforming of our IT systems to enable the faster replication and rollout for international expansion, the rapid improvement of customer interfaces and other projects to drive efficiency in both our operations and central teams.”

Waitrose moves to overseas markets

Ocado reports high festive sales

Lancashire County Council has revealed that it is to end its joint venture relationship with BT and bring a range of service back in-house.

The contract had operated under a strategic partnership known as One Connect Limited (OCL), with BT operating a 60 per cent stake while the Council owned the remaining 40 per cent.

Under the contract, BT had been contracted to deliver outsourced services including HR, payroll, IT and customer service over a 10-year period between 2011 and 2021. The partnership was expected to deliver savings of around £300 million to the Council over the contract period.

The end of the partnership will see services including HR and welfare rights brought back into the Council, however BT will continue to provide payroll, ICT, revenue and benefits services.

Interim chief executive of Lancashire County Council, Jo Turton, said: "Repositioning the partnership with BT will allow us to focus on securing access to BT's technologies and skills that otherwise wouldn't be available to a local council.”

Lancashire Council and BT consolidate security with McAfee

Lancashire County Council and BT Sign Up to Strategic Partnership

Dell has brought on-site self-service analytics to its workforce, allowing staff to directly implement analytic services, and in-turn reduce waiting times by bypassing approval from the head of IT operations.

The new analytics services allow each Dell business unit to create individual analytic reports.

The new service replaces the past practice of developing separate business unit capabilities which copied analytics data from a central site, this process saw millions being spent on duplicating existing data.

Executive director of IT for Dell Rob Schmidt, said:"The new model says you don't have to be on my road map. Once you have been trained, you have access to all of these enterprise class tools and every single piece of data that exists within Dell,"

The new capabilities available have reduced the time it takes to create new analytic reports by 70 per cent.

Dell brings U.S. entrepreneur initiative to UK

Shareholders approve Dell buyout

Ex director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, is set to face questions from a parliament committee today, surrounding the failure of the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative (DMI).

The public affairs committee will see MP’s question current and former members of the BBC surrounding the failure of the multi-million pound project.

The DMI was expected to create cost and time savings but the project was scrapped in 2013 after more than £125 million was invested.

BBC tenders for web analytics system

Committee chair MP Margaret Hodge, said: “I look forward to discussing this with senior, and former senior, members of the BBC, such as former director general Mark Thompson, when they come before us."

BBC head of IT warns businesses of difficulties impacting on cloud services

UK Factory activity slowed down in January after a strong increase in performance over the previous months, at the same time January saw an increase in the number of new orders.

While UK manufacturing experienced a slowdown according to the latest figures in Markit's UK Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), the PMI of 56.7 still represents strong growth, with the start of the year seeing increased orders from domestic and overseas buyers.

An export orders index figure of 57.5 for January is the highest level seen since February 2011.

Rob Dobson, senior economist at PMI compiler Markit, said: “Although the pace of output expansion has cooled slightly in recent months, growth is still tracking at one of the highest rates in the 22-year survey history".

UK construction records strong growth

UK service sector activity reaches eight month high despite Eurozone recession

The Bank of England has announced the removal of 100 positions in the biggest cull in over a decade.

The cuts come as part of a efficiency drive as part of a review designed to deliver savings of £18 million.

Jobs affected include IT and HR staff, with the Bank claiming that the reforms will improve efficiency, with the job cuts being made to the 3,600 workforce avoiding key staff members.

The statement detailed: "The changes will provide new opportunities for some staff, as they will move to new roles in the organisation. A number of other jobs will not be filled as staff retire or move on.

It is, however, envisaged that there will be between 80 and 100 redundancies, subject to staff consultation. The Bank is working closely with the Bank's union to ensure that affected staff will receive support to find alternative employment".

Bank of England steers away from interest raise

Bank of England set to implement risk assessment system

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has revealed plans for the development of the CloudStore, to offer a broader range of services beyond the G-Cloud and digital frameworks currently available.

The planned upgrade is seen as a necessity due to the current demand on the existing framework, which is now no longer capable of meeting future goals, having already reached growth limitations despite its 2012 rollout.

A government notice said: “The CloudStore has been successful and has had to cope with a growing volume of data beyond initial predictions; it is nearing capacity and design limits.”

Government G-Cloud Cloudstore suffers technical failures

Huddle grabs majority of CloudStore sales

A planned outsourcing operation, valued at £50 million has been revealed by Oxfordshire County Council, as part of a move to generate costs savings.

The planned outsourcing program would focus on providing BPO services to the council and to educational facilities, including HR and payroll services.

The council revealed in the prior information notice that it would: “would look for a contract duration of 4 years with the option to extend by up to a further 4 years however we are looking for the market's view on this among other areas.”

The tendering process for the contract is expected to begin over spring.

Hammersmith and Fulham Council deploys new virtual desktop system

Dorset County Council releases tender for ICT services