London Borough of Enfield councillors have voted in favour of extending the council’s current ICT support services contract with provider Serco after officers renegotiated the scope of the deal.
The borough is currently in the final year of its original five-year contract with Serco Solutions, which was signed in 2010 for £24 million.
Council officers rejected the option of retendering the service, deciding instead to activate the option in the original contract of extending the existing deal by four years. However, they have renegotiated the contract to include a wider range of services. The deal is now subject to a short standstill period, at the end of which the contract can be signed by both parties.
A report to officers said: “The review has yielded an increase in scope and delivers further value for money by reducing multiple areas of cost.
“A framework has been designed to assure improved performance for core operations and future project delivery, by adopting more agile working practices and developing a platform for Serco to become our ICT partner in delivering the council’s ICT transformation.”
The council was unable to reveal the cost of the contract extension, citing commercial confidentiality, but the parties are expected to reveal the cost after the point a contract is formally signed.
A review late last year rejected two other options – retendering the full services contract or extending the contract with Serco for just one year.
The renegotiated contract allows for continual review of volumes and scope of services, with the aim of delivering savings through reducing demand and switching services off.
It will also introduce agile project development and management and enable the council to move its ICT operations fully to the Cloud.
Enfield has also negotiated a clause which will see Serco create three new ICT apprenticeships each year, give Enfield graduates opportunities in the wider Serco Group, and run a community engagement programme with schools and citizens.
Transition activity to the new operating model will begin in April 2014, with full operation of the new delivery model pencilled in for January 2015. The council is planning to put in place a new team to manage the transition as early as next month, it said.
