12th October 2005
In a deal valued at £6.7million, Wokingham Borough Council and Digica have announced the development of a new partnership model for local government outsourcing.
A ‘Business Solutions Group' has been formed by the two organisations to make joint decisions and bring the benefits of IT transformation to the council employees, service users and residents of the Wokingham district.
Many public sector IT projects have suffered from poor management, inadequately defined requirements and sub-standard service delivery. The new partnership approach at Wokingham will overcome these issues, and will strengthen IT governance, reduce waste through demand management and increase the value delivered by IT.
Andrew Moulton, Corporate Head of IS/IT at Wokingham Borough Council, said: “The strategic impact of this new approach from Digica is most important to the council. We are working towards achieving financial efficiency savings. I have been extremely impressed with the working partnership we have developed and am confident that Digica will help us to achieve these objectives.”
Like every council, Wokingham faces many challenges to deliver efficiencies and to demonstrate best value to its citizens in order to maintain a low Council Tax. By working in a flexible partnership rather than with a rigid contract based on operational SLAs, Digica can help Wokingham to deliver new services within tight cost constraints.
“Digica's approach is to work in partnership with local authorities, and our track record is evidence of its success -- this is just one of three significant contract extensions won by Digica from local authorities over the last few months,” said Mark Howling, Chief Executive Officer at Digica. “We aim to transform our customers' organisations by deploying effective technology and ensuring corporate compliance and the associated return on investment that is required in projects of this scale. Wokingham is a flagship customer for us and we are looking forward to replicating this success for other local government organisations.”
Wokingham has worked with Digica (and formerly with Fox IT before the two companies merged) since 1988. The current contract was awarded in 2000 for seven years, and this latest deal extends it by three years to 2010.
Digica provides a full ICT outsourcing service and supports Wokingham's entire IT estate, including 254 services across 45 locations to more than 1600 users. Services provided include procurement, technology refresh, network development and support, offsite server hosting support and offsite mainframe services, as well as application support and management, 24x7 service monitoring, and helpdesk.
"I have been extremely impressed with the working partnership we have developed."
Andrew Moulton, Corporate Head of IS/IT, Wokingham Borough Council