Industry news

All of the Audit Commission's work is set to be outsourced to the private sector, ministers have annouced today.

Since the announcement last August that the commission is to be disbanded, ministers have been examining the local watchdog's options. In a letter to local authority chief executives, Communities and Local Government permanent secretary, Bob Kerslake, said the "intitial view" is that outsourcing audit practice to the private sector is the "better option".

Local Government minister, Grant Shapps, saida range of firms could be invited to bid for the work, including the possibility of an employee-owned mutual.

Apple's CEO Steve Jobs will reveal details about the company's iCloud technology at the annual Worldwide Developers conference.

The Cupertino boss will open Apple's annual Worldwide Developers conference on 6 June, when the iPad and iPhone maker is expected to pack in lots of details about its upcoming products.

And it's now clear that Apple couldn't resist adding its "i" prefix to the word "cloud", which is the tech world's idea of sexing up online storage. Microsoft is already a heavy user of the term, especially in recent television ad campaigns.

Cupertino described the iCloud tech as its "upcoming cloud services offering".

In April the company reportedly bought the iCloud.com domain name from Swedish company Xcerion for $4.5m. A separate report suggested recently that iCloud would be the next incarnation of MobileMe.

As online ordering for Pizza Hut UK increases to over one million orders a week, Yum Brands have recently moved to Virtustream’s data centre to help take the load.

Yum Brands is the world’s largest restaurant company with more than 37,000 restaurants in over 110 countries and

territories and more than one million associates.

The addition of capability to enable online ordering at Pizza Hut made it quickly apparent to Yum Brand executives

that its existing data centre was no longer adequate for the expected uptick in website traffic.

“Our previous data centre was fine for our initial needs, but as we expanded and offered more services to our customers

we outgrew it,” explained Fawad Shah, network and infrastructure manager at Yum Brands. “We were not able to receive

the high operational availability, fast change management turnaround which our business demanded and most importantly

the high level of operational and security compliance that a global brand such as ours would demand and expect from our

hosting partner.

"Other factors that were important were the relationship. We were looking to work with a partner who

understood our business and not have the legacy customer / supplier relationship and the high density power capability

to accommodate our footprint requirements”.

Taking the project to a competitive pitch, Shah had compiled an impressive list of companies including Computacenter,

Global Switch, BT, SCC and Virtustream. He required a partner that would be a good fit for Yum. With the level of

expansion planned, he needed to be reassured that Yum would be treated with priority.

“We also needed a partner that was flexible and easy to work with. If we needed to make a sudden change to our

services, our partner would need to action this within hours rather than days or weeks,” explained Shah.

Exl Service Holdings, Inc. has announced it has closed its previously announced acquisition of Outsource Partners International, a leading global provider of finance & accounting outsourcing services with approximately 3,700 employees in the United States, Asia and Europe serving roughly 80 clients.

Under the terms of the transaction, the enterprise value placed on OPI was $91 million, before working capital adjustments.

Public sector agencies are not convinced that a move to shared services would save sufficient money, according to a new Ovum survey.

The research, which was carried out by independent technology analyst Ovum, found that 49 per cent of chief information officers in public sector bodies are not convinced shared services would save enough cash to make it beneficial.

Commenting on the figures, Jessica Hawkins, Ovum analyst and author of a new report, noted that moving to shared services does result in upheaval and changes software applications – which could impact on those in developer jobs.

"These barriers that public sector agencies feel they face mean uptake of shared services has so far been modest in some regions," she went on to say.

Earlier this month, another study released by Ovum found that offshoring is seen as riskier than moving to the cloud when it comes to finance and accounting efforts.

The Capita Group Plc has acquired specialist healthcare recruitment firm Team24 Limited for a consideration, on a cash free debt free basis, of £24 million, plus up to a further £2 million depending on Team24's profit performance in the year to 31 March 2012.

Team24 provides nurses and doctors at short notice for a wide range of temporary placements across the NHS and the private sector.

Headquartered in Surrey, Team24 employs 80 staff and has around 4,000 doctors and nurses registered for placement. Clients include the NHS, prisons, doctors' surgeries and private practices. It also operates under a number of framework agreements, including the London Regional Nursing Framework. Team24 made a pro forma operating profit for its financial year to 31 March 2011 of £4.2 million on turnover of £32.7 million.

Commenting on the deal, Paul Pindar, Chief Executive of The Capita Group Plc said: "Healthcare resourcing is a growth market with demand for doctors and nurses increasing in-line with the ageing population and Government's focus on primary care, increased opening hours for GP surgeries and new services through NHS Direct. This acquisition will allow Capita to provide services to this growing market and complements a number of other services we offer to the public and private healthcare sectors. "

Cabinet minister Francis Maude has said that the government will crack down on large contractors who do not pay their smaller suppliers on time.

The government has a number of large contractors, including IT firms Atos Origin, Oracle, Logica and Fujitsu.

Maude’s comments come as Bacs, the organisation behind Direct Debit and Bacs Direct Credit, published research that found that large companies were the worst offenders when it came to late payments to SME suppliers. In contrast, the public and third sectors are meeting more of their bills on time.

“We are delighted that this report shows that government is serious about keeping its commitment to paying suppliers (including SMEs) on time. We expect and require our suppliers to pay within 30 days. We will crack down on any behaviour to the contrary,” said Maude.

South Bucks council has awarded a contract worth £11m for back office services including ICT to Steria and Northgate.

According to a notice published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 31 May, the suppliers will deliver a wide range of services including accounting services, software implementation and maintenance as well as hardware and consultancy.

The district council's new outsourcing deal will only retain functions in-house where contracting out is not permitted, such as fraud prevention and detection.

Revenue and benefits also form part of the seven year deal, covering the billing, collection and recovery of council tax and benefits.

The Capita Group Plc has acquired Call Centre Technology Limited, for a consideration of £15 million on a cash free, debt free basis.

CCT providesvoice telephony, applications and services for customer contact centres. Clients include 118 The Number, Strathclyde Police and Travelport. CCT made an operating profit for its financial year to 30 June 2010 of £1.7 million on a turnover of £18.7 million.

The acquisition adds valuable expertise and capabilities to Capita's existing telephony services. CCT already supplies services to a number of our contracts and businesses that have recently been acquired by Capita, including First Assist and Capita Secure Information Systems. Commenting on the acquisition, Paul Pindar, Chief Executive of The Capita Group Plc, said: "Our core outsourcing contracts are increasingly encompassing the customer contact interface and therefore, we are keen to enhance our capabilities and resource in this area.

This acquisition will be integrated with our current expertise in this area and will enable us to provide enhanced services to existing and new clients, as well as generating savings across the Group. Headquartered in Bristol, CCT employs 130 staff.

Mobile Operator Vodafone has decided to move two call centre operations from Ireland to Egypt and India respectively, and to outsource its debt collections to a third party in Ireland.

These moves will affect 45 staff at Vodafone and 139 employees of Rigney Dolphin, an outsourcing group that runs call centre activities on behalf of the mobile phone company.

These initiatives have been taken against a backdrop of falling revenues and declining customer numbers as the recession affects consumer spending.