Wiltshire outsources IT transformation pre-merger

Wiltshire County Council today announced it has signed a seven-year, £12-million contract to outsource key IT functions.

The move will provide operational and transactional support for the new unitary authority as five councils merge in to one local authority for Wiltshire from 1 April 2009.

The council said the transformation deal with IT services company Logica will streamline frontline support services will save the local councils up to £11 million a year by moving to a new hosted shared services platform.

Logica is to lead the transformation programme and will implement and host a new SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform for finance, procurement, human resource (HR), payroll services and performance management. These support services will be delivered through a new shared services centre, making all financial and HR information available in a centralised system to the new authority for the first time.

The shared services, centralised role of the deal will ensure important performance management information is more readily accessible to local government management teams, helping to increase efficiency and the effectiveness of its information, according to the council.

Carlton Brand, Wiltshire County Council director of resources, said: "The creation of a single authority is a major undertaking for us and we needed a long-term partner with experience in creating and operating a shared services model to assure our drive for efficiency and value for money can be achieved."

He added that the deal would enable the council to "deliver on our promise to give people in Wiltshire greater value for money at no cost to the quality of the frontline services we deliver."

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