ITNet lands £60m local government deal

IT outsourcing company, ITNet, has won a ten-year, £60m contract with the London Borough of Enfield.

ITNet will manage Enfield Council's 2,200 PCs and 90 servers as it migrates from mainframes to client/server technology. A council spokesman said: "We tried to find a supplier with which we could build a close partnership that would cut across all our IT needs and save us money."

ITNet has been set the task of saving the council £1m per year until the contract comes up for renewal in 10 years. The company said it aims to get all councillors online and upgrade 1,000 terminals by December.

By next February, ITNet claimed the whole network will have undergone a radical upgrade including a SAP implementation to link up all council services. The Enfield Council spokesman said: "The plan is to bring local government into the 21st century. We want to deliver all our services in a faster format but costing less money, time and effort than they currently do."

Claire Forrest, corporate manager and planning director, said: "The borough wanted a technology transfer programme that offered cheaper technology than is currently being used but offered them economies of scale. Effectively, they are buying in the services rather than creating them all themselves."

In accordance with EU law, 44 IT staff workers at the council will become ITNet employees.