Worcestershire Council awards HP huge IT managed services contract

HP was cheapest option, says council, and will manage council's migration from legacy telecoms platforms onto new UC platform

Worcestershire Council has awarded HP Enterprise Services an IT managed services and upgrade contract which is reported to be worth between £10m and £40m.

As part of the deal, HP will have to manage all the council's IT infratructure, as well as the migration from legacy telecommunications platforms to a new unified communications platform. The company will also have to establish a revised end user computing strategy and analyse the current print services in place at the council, coming up with a business case for the most appropriate solution to meet the council's business requirements while reducing the total cost of ownership.

The council claimed that 17 other vendors submitted detailed pre-qualification questionnaires, and five organisations were invited to submit a tender. It said that the evaluation criteria were based on 70 per cent quality and experience and 30 per cent financials.

At the final stage, the council received three bids, which were independently scored. HP achieved a score of 83 per cent against the 79.48 per cent that the unnamed second placed organisation received.

"HP Enterprise Services is a highly recognisable and mature ICT services provider which will be a household name to many," council documents read.

"They have an increasing presence within the local government marketplace and extensive experience of delivering large-scale ICT managed services across multiple sectors. The turnover of the UK operation currently stands at circa £2.6m," it stated.

The council believes that the contract carries "significant strategic importance and visibility within HP" because the vendor wants to build its reputation in the local government marketplace. It cited Norfolk County Council's recent selection of HP as evidence of this.

According to the council, HP's key strengths in the application process included a strong financial model with a shared approach to risk. In addition, HP's bid was the lowest cost of the three received based on all three scenarios requested by the council. The council was also impressed by HP's approach to infrastructure - with HP promising a refresh of all backend infrastructure in the first 12 months.

Worcestershire Council estimates that the managed service will contribute towards cumulative cost savings of £7.06m over the maximum seven-year term. Of this, £3.4m is directly attributable to the managed service provision, with the remainder coming from related services and initiatives supported or delivered by the preferred provider.

In the documents, the council states that it expects savings greater than those which could be achieved using the current delivery model.