Industry news

The Ministry of Justice has selected U.S defence giant Lockheed Martin as preferred bidder for a £125 million contract to provide the transformation of out-dated IT services.

The Service Integration & Management (SIAM) contract for the overhaul of legacy IT contracts have seen the American defence giant compete against IBM.

The SIAM contract will see Lockheed help to organise the MoJ’s many IT contracts, by moving the ministries IT services to service towers.

Areas to be delivered by the contract will include the embedding of digital services throughout the justice system and police forces in order to free up court time, and functionality allowing victims of crime to access reports and updates on the progress of cases.

The selection of Lockheed Martin, subject to the completion of negotiations and legal arrangements, comes after a strong year for the company in the UK, including the management of the last UK census.

The MoJ said: "We are transforming our IT contracts to ensure they provide the best possible value for taxpayers. -Lockheed Martin have been awarded a contract to provide IT services to around 90,000 users across the criminal justice system, replacing the three different providers who currently deliver these services”.

The MoJ added that the contract "could save around 4.5m officer hours a year. That includes charging suspects by post saving two hours of police time per suspect".

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The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) have placed a tender for a multi-million pound contract for the provision of IT services.

The contract would deliver additional assessment capabilities by 2014, in support of outsourced services currently provided by Atos.

The tender for assessment services is expected to be divided into three lots based on location with a expected total contract value of £100 million.

The tender for the IT services comes after an assessment of the current services provided by Atos, with the tender for new services designed to handle any disability assessment overflow, with the primary focus of the contact to provide assessment services to the Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit.

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The stock market floatation of the Royal Mail is expected to go ahead this week, despite opposition from unions and the public.

While the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) have commented that: “no decision has been made about the specific timing”, the move to privatise the Royal Mail is expected to occur within days.

The expected £3 billion floatation of the postal services comes after a return to profit under chief executive Moya Green.

The plans for floatation include staff being offered 10 per cent of the business, providing a expected windfall of £2,000 to 150,000 staff members.

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The Ministry of Justice has gone out to tender for end user computing services (EUCS), these will include devices such as laptops and tablets as well as software to deliver and support the EUCS. The contracts is approximately worth between £150m and £200m and will run for 5 years with an option to extend for two further years.

The MoJ has previously cancelled the procurement of these devices as they didn’t think it would attract enough SME’s to bid. This tender encourages SME’s to bid and is consistent with the government’s objective to increase the number of SME’s involved in supply chains and to increase innovation.

This procurement is part of the departments Future IT Sourcing Programme which is due to replace a number of contracts which will expire over the next few years and most which were originally implemented before the creation of the department.

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The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security has recommended improvement to the U.S L-1 visa program in order to reduce problems relating to offshore outsourcing.

A report from the Inspector General called for the clarification of rules in the L-1 visa program, which is necessary in order to reduce fraud and the abuse of loopholes.

The report detailed that the main users of the L-1 Visa program where Indian based outsourcers like Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant.

The IEEE-USA (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) have also called for visa reform. IEEE-USA President Marc Apter, said "Outsourcers have come to dominate the L-1 visa program” and that the Inspector General’s report, “documents the increasing concerns that we have been hearing from our members that this sensible program for international managers and specialists has become a tool for shipping American jobs overseas".

The recommendations made by the Department of Homeland Security have been agreed with by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service which is expected to introduce new guidance to visa adjudicators.

While the impact of visa clarification to U.S. offshore outsourcing is unlikely to significantly impact a lucrative economic industry between the U.S. and locations such as India, the report highlights the level of visa requests by the industry and fears within the U.S. regarding the level of offshore outsourcing.

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The Public Service Commission has called for finances to be recovered from procurement of legal services, after $1.5 million was found to have been ‘irregularly spent’.

The calls come after the D Department of Finance of the SA North West Provincial Government (NWPG) paid $49,530 to draft charges against three employees to legal firm Morake Inc.

The procurement process was described by public protector Thuli Madonsela as being: ““flawed, unlawful and in violation of the constitution and the National Treasury regulations”.

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A recently published report 'Smaller, Better, Faster, Stronger', argues that in the near future the government must move 'from digital-by-default to digital, full stop', eliminating paper for interactions within and between departments, and moving to solely digital channels for public services that do not require a face-to-face interaction with the public.

A digitally transformed government could be up to 8% more effective by 2020 than if it continued as it is, freeing up £24bn a year which could be spent on either expanding public services or reducing the deficit. The paper acknowledges the government’s successes, saying that much progress has already been made on reform, spearheaded by the Government Digital Service. However, it says that it is only the 'end of the beginning', and ensuring that the government goes on to achieve the goals it has set itself is 'tremendously important'.

The paper (written by Chris Yiu, Head of Policy Exchange's Digital Government Unit and a former Treasury official) calls for the government to adopt electronic purchasing to make procurement more efficient, use electronic proofs instead of paper certificates, and publish its application programming interfaces (APIs) so developers can write apps that can communicate with government systems.

Yiu said, "The public sector has historically been slower and less effective when it comes to taking advantage of technology, data and the internet. The web is already inseparable from most people's day-to-day lives, and this will only increase in the years ahead. Switching to digital for everything the government does would generate billions of pounds worth of savings that could be used to cut the deficit or improve public services.

"Government is changing, but the world around it is changing faster. With the internet all around us, it's reasonable to expect government to embrace digital. Our public leaders need to rise to the challenge, or risk a chasm between new and old tearing the whole system apart."

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said, "This report recognises considerable progress and remarkable potential. We estimate shifting government transactions to digital channels can save £1.2billion by 2015. This will deliver better value for hardworking families and better public services designed around users' needs. In future all Government services will be fast, convenient, agile and digital by default."

Mike Bracken, Executive Director at the Government Digital Service, said, "We've made huge progress since setting up GDS, working with other departments to release GOV.UK and start making services digital by default. But there is still significant potential to drive digital into everything the government does. This report is a timely reminder that our digital journey is only just beginning, and should inspire everyone in government to aim high when deciding where we go next."

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The NAO has released a report exposing poor programme management, unrealistic timescales and wasted IT investment in the governments Universal Credit scheme. DWP’s plans to execute the system nationally in October of this year was overly ambitious and is now planned to rollout in 2017. With a lack of clarity throughout the project, the Universal Credit team has had frequent problems with governance and unsatisfactory review of contract performance.

IT assets worth £34m haven been written off already, is it possible for this contract to come in within budget? Up to April 2013 £425m has been spent on the scheme, mostly on the designing and developing of IT systems

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Five out of the eight Identity Providers on the cross-government identity assurance framework have been selected to deliver identity verification services as part of the transformation of government digital services. Digidentity, Experian, Mydex, The Post Office, and Verizon have all been chosen to work with the government on The Cabinet Office's Identity Assurance (IDA) service.

The scheme's first live services will "enable people to assert their identity online safely and securely, and allow government to be confident that users of online services are who they say they are" according to the Government Digital Service (GDS) website.