Industry news

Leeds City Council has attempted to reduce the pressure on the helpdesk by creating a portal and apps store for council staff smartphones.

The construction of the portal will allow council staff members to use phones with Apple and Android operating systems for work in conjunction with MobileIron device management. The move comes as the council switches from an existing Windows Phone strategy.

Marcus Hunter, strategic services manager at Leeds City Council, said: "The central management functions of the platform mean that operational overheads will reduce.”

The Met Police have released details of a new contract for a radio services network estimated at £160m.

The contract is with thirteen suppliers including Arqiva, Motorola, Thales, Capita, Peter Jones and Sonic Communications who will provide radio equipment and services for authorities using the national Airwave network.

The contract is to last 4 years and is divided up into three separate lots, which includes Airwave radio terminals, radio managed services and Airwave radio accessories.

Information Services Group (ISG), a leading technology insights, market intelligence and advisory services company, have launced a new Consumption Management service offering to help enterprises address the challenge of IT asset management and reconciliation.

The new service incorporates technology from ISG strategic partner Blazent, whose SaaS-based IT intelligence solutions provide a consolidated source of information on IT assets and uncover hidden opportunities to optimise IT operations, lower costs and reduce risks.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that many CIOs of both large, global companies and smaller enterprises have a knowledge gap between the IT assets they have and what services are being delivered on those assets. As this knowledge gap grows, so too do the costs and risks to their companies” said Colin Craig, UK Service Line leader, Governance Services, ISG.

HM Revenue & Customs has cut the cost of an IT upgrade by up to £50m by awarding a contract to a start-up IT company, rather than a major systems integrator.

Redmond-based company Browsium was chosen to upgrade HMRC from Internet Explorer 6 to IE9, after large IT suppliers were unable to offer a cost-effective solution.

Browsium quoted a figure of around £1.28m to complete the job, compared to quotes from £35m to £50m or above from large system integrators, revealed CIO Phil Pavitt, last week.

HMRC, which has generally favoured framework contracts with large systems integrators, had some initial concerns about using an SME to complete a major project on the UK's tax infrastructure. HMRC has mitigated the risk by requesting that Browsium team up with a second company, CDG, to provide an extra layer of backing and financial security.

The deal between the Department of Health and CSC concerning the National Programme for IT which was due to be signed by the end of March, is still yet to be finalised.

This delay is yet another setback for the National Programme for IT plan which has been blighted with delays and missed deadlines since its inception.

According to stock market documents filed in the US: "Progress continues; however, discussions on the interim agreement have not yet concluded and are still on-going at this time."

The filing notes that this means Lorenzo implementations remains at a standstill through until 1 June at the earliest. CSC also reminds investors yet again that there is no guarantee that an interim deal with the NHS will be struck.

Nick Clegg has said that plans to monitor the British public's web and email communications will first be published in draft so that they can be debated in Parliament.

According to Clegg "any measures will be proportionate. They will not sacrifice people's civil liberties, we will not create a new government database and we will not give police new powers to look into people's emails."

A fact sheet about the communications data legislation has been released by the home office, which states that police and security agencies can get access to communications data if they can demonstrate that it is necessary in a criminal investigation.

Yesterday, a spokesperson for the data protection and privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said that the criticism over the plans was a concern, but said that no official comment could be made unless the plans were formally announced.

Outsourcing firm Capita is set to buy Bluefin Corporate Consulting for £50 million.

With the acquisition, which is on a cash and debt free basis, Capita will also access Bluefin's benefits management technology, which supports key services for Bluefin and 150 large clients.

Bluefin, which iscurrently owned by AXA, provides employee benefits consultancy services. The acquisition will see Bluefin chief executive Nick Burns become head of the combined business.

Paul Pindar, chief executive at Capita, said the acquisition "provides an excellent strategic fit with our existing corporate pensions business, Capita Hartshead". Hartshead also provides data analysis and screening services.He went on to describe Bluefin as having a "market-leading presence in online benefits technology".

Jobs Agency A4e are in the running for Equality and Human Rights Commission helpline service contract, despite being in the middle of a fraud enquiry.

Ministers have made the firm, owned by Emma Harrison, the preferred bidder over Sitel, Citizens Advice and Vertex, to take over the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) helpline to advise people of their rights in discrimination cases. The company currently holds a contract with the Department for Work and Pensions.

Ministers ordered an audit of all Whitehall contracts with A4e to run alongside two police inquiries over allegations of attempted fraud involving the company. The Department for Work and Pensions, which provides most of A4e's UK income, is also investigating.

The privatisation of the helpline was sought by the Home Office and the Government Equalities Office. It costs £2.1m a year to run, employs 85 staff in Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow, and handles 50,000 calls and 15,000 emails every year. Staff are trained to provide detailed advice on discrimination issues covering disability, gender, race and sexuality, and advise on mediation services.

The Call Centre Industry is resisting pressure from the labour sector to increase the wages of employees, arguing that call centre workers already receive higher wages than all other industry workers in the country.

“Employment generation is more important than overfeeding those already have a job,” said ECCP executive vice-president Henry Schumacher said.

Call center workers and the entire business process outsourcing sector, which employs over 400,000 workers, are already receiving high salary wage rates and reportedly have the best fringe benefits than other workers in the country.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has ruled out the possibility of a P125 across-the-board increase in the daily take- home pay of workers nationwide saying it could trigger displacement of over 300,000 workers.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has signed a three-year deal with IBM to develop high performance computing (HPC) in the UK. The deal has the potential to add £25bn to the UK’s economy over the next 10 years.

£30m has been invested by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills in the International Centre of Excellence for Computational Science and Engineering (ICE-CSE) which will be used to upgrade STFC’s existing computing infrastructure to host next-generation HPC systems.

The £30m came out of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills' £145m pot to upgrade the UK’s computer and network facilities.

HPC is intended to enable research and innovation and provide solutions to complex problems, such as finding cures for diseases and improving the prediction of natural disasters.

The systems will help develop the necessary software to run on the next generation of supercomputers.