Southwark Council is upgrading all IT that supports the delivery of council services, with the biggest IT changes in over a decade planned.
The London local authority has outsourced the upgrade and management of the IT to Capita for 10 years. It expects to make over 1m of savings through the project, which will see desktops modernised and mobile devices become important business tools..
Capita will provide disaster recovery, business continuity, support networks and provide datacentre hosting, including support of business applications.
In the first 12 months, Capita will focus on nine projects to enable the council to transform services. These include the modernisation of the desktops, rationalisation of data storage and the use of mobile devices.
“This contract gives us cost savings and an improved IT service at a time when resources are extremely limited, when frontline services need as much protection as possible, and when staff need all the support that we can give them,” said councillor Richard Livingstone, cabinet member for resources at Southwark Council.
He said IT is critical to the council. “Investing in technology is something I am wholly committed to, as I feel this is the key to ensuring that the authority can function effectively and respond quickly to the public to create a modern service with robust data protection.”
Southwark Council last year escaped a fine after discarding personal data relating to more than 7,000 people in a skip for 18 months.
