Highland Council selects preferred bidder for ICT Contract
24th August 2016
The Council's Resources Committee has agreed to select WIPRO Holdings UK Ltd as its Preferred Bidder for the future delivery of its ICT Core Services.
However, the Council is still in a commercially confidential procurement process and an announcement of a formal award of contract will not be made until around 12 September following the required legal "standstill period".
The Council’s requirement is that a new Contract will deliver improvements within the Council and all Highland Schools with a significant investment in ICT to provide improved learning and to enable improvements in service delivery across all Services. This would include the roll-out of some 20,000 new tablet devices to pupils, commencing next summer.
The successful bidder will be required to make a significant reduction in the cost of ICT Services, over the lifetime of the Contract, as well as delivering a programme of community benefits.
Bidders are proposing to have a significant workforce based in the Highlands.
Chair of Resources, Cllr Bill Fernie said: “The Council has a duty to provide the best possible value for public money in the provision and delivery of all its services. Through this new Contract we aim to achieve significant cost savings and deliver services in innovative ways, making the best use of new technologies and enabling business change and transformation as well as modernising classroom technology.”
Chair of Education, Child and Adult Service, Cllr Drew Millar added: “We will modernise learning in the classroom with the deployment of tablet devices allowing anytime, anywhere learning for pupils including while at school and at home. This will include the introduction of around 20,000 tablets and a further investment in networks and bandwidth to schools to improve access”.
The Council’s requirements include the following:
Replacement and rationalisation of managed desktop devices (approx. 17,000 devices) covering Corporate and Curriculum using a mixture of thin clients/laptops/desktops
Introduction of approx. 20,000 1:1 devices (e.g. Chromebooks) books within Curriculum estate.
Related projects will also see investment in new and upgraded networks to improve access.
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