Industry news

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.

Through a recent poll of its membership, the NOA has identified that people are clearly important when it comes to outsourcing, and harnessing this talent it vital when it comes to delivering value from contracts.

Its no surprise then that according to Malcolm Preston, associate director of procurement at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, people are paramount. "If we pooled all of the expertise within the NHS, we would have one of the best-equipped and most capable procurement teams in the world. It would hold all the cards to find cost savings while improving services for patients. The problem is that we don't pool expertise" says Malcolm. This lack of pooling expertise in the government's NHS procurement strategy is "blocking NHS value for money".

Malcolm also goes on to say that "NHS procurement needs more than a makeover. It requires fundamental changes in attitude to cope with the conflicting priorities of competition and collaboration...We should be pooling information and working together to drive best value and standardised quality through supplier contracts. This would give the entire NHS a quality baseline in terms of the services they deliver".

With increased pressure to deliver value from outsourced contracts, it appears that the golden rules in the NOA's outsourcing lifecycle model are as true today as they were 26 years ago when the association started.

For more information from Malcolm Preston, please visit the Guardian website.

One of the biggest deals in business history was confirmed today as Vodafone sold its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications. The deal was announced after the close of trading on the London Stock Exchange on Monday which saw Vodafone's shares rise by 3.4%. Worth £84bn, the deal is seen as the conclusion to a long-running rivalry between Vodafone and the US telecoms group.

Vodafone will return £54bn to its shareholders of which £22bn will go to shareholder’s in the UK and is seen as boost to the UK Economy. The funds raised are thought to allow the company to invest in Europe and to consolidate its business in a number of markets by acquiring broadband and cable TV assets to complement its mobile businesses.

Vodafone group chairman Gerard Kleisterlee said that the transaction will position Vodafone strongly to pursue its leadership strategy in mobile and unified communication services for its customers and enterprises in developed and emerging business markets. The company hopes to invest in developing as a business, aiming to fund its convergence strategy with buyouts of smaller firms, as well as investments that will allow it to offer almost complete total 4G network coverage by 2017 in 5 of its main European markets.

Vodafone moves to acquire stake in German telecoms market

It is predicted that existing government initiatives will boost economic output by up to £7billion per year by 2017 but O2 believes its recommendations in a report released at O2’s Campus Party tech conference in London by Development Economics will add a further £4billion to the UK economy necessary to sustain recovery and drive future growth.

The study suggests that the UK needs an extra 750,000 digitally skilled workers by 2017 to secure the extra billions per year that the UK will need to sustain recovery and support future economic growth. According to Development Economics, One-fifth of the jobs required to do so are “ideally suited” to the generation of “digitally savvy youngsters”.

To realise these aims O2’s report calls for greater cooperation between the public and private sectors to enable expansion of the number of jobs available in the digital sector which is estimated to create an additional 100,000 jobs in addition to the three-quarters of a million requirement, greater support from business and industry in the provision of digital skills education, and, support from government and businesses to increase engagement in digital skills exchange programmes.

Outlook rosy for UK economy

A new procurement consortium in Scotland is helping social housing landlords in Scotland to generate extra savings while supporting local SMEs.

September will see the launch of Procurement for Housing (PfH) Scotland which will recruit 31 social landlords who manage 40 per cent of the housing stock in Scotland and spend £580 million on goods and services each year. Scottish social landlords have called “for a greater strategic focus on procurement as they grapple with the impact of welfare reforms and tightening budgets”.

A spokesman said: “In talking to sector stakeholders in Scotland PfH found there’s a growing appetite among procurement professionals to explore new approaches to driving efficiency and value and supporting Scottish businesses, labour and skills. Social landlords stated that collaboration was not used enough and that current procurement resources were stretched. “By engaging small and medium-sized businesses, PfH Scotland is working to maximise the impact social landlords can have on their local economies.”

Since it was launched in 2004 Procurement for Housing has acquired 864 members across the UK and claims to have saved more than £38 million for the social housing. Andrew Carlin, commercial director at PfH, said: “Landlords in Scotland are under enormous financial pressure at present. We can bring an in-depth knowledge of the sector and its supply chains gleaned from managing the direct and indirect spend of hundreds of landlords for almost a decade.”

George Osborne on spending review: there is no Plan B

Serco has promised to right any wrong doings with its prisoner escort services after a government investigation showed that a number of staff were recording prisoners as being delivered to court when they had not in order to meet ‘performance measures’ that are stipulated in the contract.

The Justice Ministry will be overseeing the contract and has advised Serco to take certain steps to heighten their training and audit procedures.

This latest scandal could eliminate them from future government contracts which would be a substantial knock with Serco getting roughly 45 percent of its revenue from UK public sector contracts and approximately 25% of that from the government.

G4S pulls out of electronic tagging renewal bid after overcharging controversy

HP Enterprise Services UK and Yorkshire Building Society have entered a Shared Services Alliance to offer a range of applications including complete mortgages & saving solutions and business process outsourcing via a new private cloud platform hosted in HP’s data centre.

These services are aimed at other financial services companies to help them reduce their IT investment costs and enabling them to be more competitive in the ever changing market.

HP provides multiyear agreement for Procter & Gamble

The Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland have selected Accenture to develop and maintain the new operational policing system for Police Scotland. The system, called i6, will support new standardised national policing processes and daily policing operations and investigations.

Work will begin this autumn on the development of i6, which will replace over 120 existing IT-and paper-based systems. The new system will allow users to manage, analyse and share operational and case information across Scotland, giving Police Scotland the high levels of data integration and information sharing required for their officers to work swiftly and effectively.

The roll out of i6, expected in late 2015, will double the amount of time officers have to spend on important frontline activities while also serving as a crime-fighting tool rather than a records management system. The implementation of i6 is hoped to contribute significant savings for Police Scotland.

The ten-year deal – with a possible extension to a maximum of 12 years - is estimated to be worth £39m, with another £8m for costs such as new hardware.

Accenture secures five year outsourcing contract extension

G4S has raised £348 million through share placing. This, accompanied by the planned sale of business worth a total of £250 million, is hoped to both alleviate the company’s debt, which stands at 3.2 times its earnings before tax, depreciation and amortization, and help restore its public image after criticism for its handling of a government contract and the security contract fiasco for last year’s Olympics in London.

According to trusted sources, the company’s biggest shareholders are in agreement with the action which is considered to be the best option available to the company. The strategic move, alongside an annual cost-cutting programme of £35m is expected to raise more than £600m.

The funds that will be raised are anticipated to help the company reach an acceptable level of debt while also creating capacity in the balance sheet for future investment, Ashley Almana, New Chief Executive for the company said.

This announcement follows the appointment of Mr Himanshu Raja from Misys as CFO.

G4S hit by pay dispute at GCHQ

Governance is a vital part of the outsourcing lifecycle and as such six Merseyside councils are under-going a governance review in a bid to strengthen the local delivery of strategic economic development, regeneration and transport.

With the recommendation from Liverpool City Region Cabinet, one preferred option would be to create a "Combined Authority" to lead this work in the Liverpool region. Unlike the "Super-Council" concept, this option is all about formalising the existing positive informal arrangements and being able to deploy powers and resourced from Central Government for local use.

The six councils - Halton, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral - plus Merseytravel and the Local Enterprise Partnership - think that the current structure can be improved to accelerate economic growth and will help make services more cost effective. It aims to also bring clearer leadership and greater transparency while creating a legal entity which would be in a position to attract funding and devolved powers from government.

It is also worth noting that Wirral, Cheshire West and Chester Council are working together to drive savings by merging £69m of back office savings.

Lancashire Council and BT Consolidate Security with Mcafee