Codestone

Category: Support & Managed Services

Birmingham's local authority is to save a gross total of £135 million over the next decade thanks to a new outsourced IT deal.

A five-year extension to Birmingham City Council's contract with Capita has been announced this week to provide ICT support and contact centre managed services until 2021.

The operations will be handled by Service Birmingham, a joint venture between the council and Capita.

In addition to the overall cost savings, the body also expects the outsourcing deal will improve the efficiency of its council tax collection from a 96.3 per cent rate to 98 per cent by 2017, generating an additional £4.8 million a year.

Randal Brew, cabinet member for finance at Birmingham City Council, said: "We have begun to modernise services despite this being a huge challenge for an organisation that had previously done things in traditional ways for a very long time."

Last month, Pyramid Research published a report suggesting that businesses will be spending more money on managed services in 2011 in order to support their future growth.

Posted by Lara Ward