Council tax payers in Braintree, Castle Point, Colchester Borough and Rochford in Essex, will reap the benefits of a pioneering enterprise which will see their local authorities slash £7 million from council spending, after appointing Capita Secure Information Systems (‘Capita’) as their chosen ICT service contract provider.

The four councils joined forces this summer with the aim of buying their IT services jointly in order to gain best value for money for residents. The contract with Capita, which has an estimated value of £8m will run for five years and will become effective as each council’s current contracts expire between April 2012 and April 2013.

Craig Rodgerson, Capita Secure Information Systems CEO said: "We will be offering a first class IT service to the four councils – each of whom will have an independent contract with us.  We worked hard to ensure we stood out from the competition in terms of efficiency, product and price and we look forward to ensuring each council, and ultimately council residents, benefit from both in-built reliability and cost efficiencies.”

Capita will provide shared ICT support services to the councils; these services include a mix of service, asset, security and network infrastructure management, desktop support, server and data storage and consultancy, all coordinated through a dedicated Capita service desk.

All four authorities now have the opportunity to achieve even greater savings from initiatives such as shared data centres, shared ICT applications and infrastructure and software on demand. 

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Note to editors:

Capita Secure Information Systems is part of the Capita Group Plc, the UK’s leading provider of BPO and integrated professional support service solutions.  With around 45,000 employees at more than 350 sites, including 64 business centres across the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands and India, the Group uses its expertise, infrastructure and scale benefits to transform its clients’ services, driving down costs and adding value. Capita is quoted on the London Stock Exchange (CPI.L), and is a constituent of the FTSE100 with revenues for 2010 of £2,744 million.  Further information on The Capita Group Plc can be found at: http://www.capita.co.uk