Capita wraps up £40m deal with Scottish university

Five-year deal means outsourcing giant has won £823m in new business in 2013

Capita has won a £40m, five-year deal with the University of Strathclyde (UoS).

The outsourcing giant beat off competition from 13 other bidders for the business at the Glasgow-based university which will see it design and deliver a strategy of significant technology improvements.

UoS claims the partnership will help to engage staff and students through improving and enabling remote working and developing out-of-hours support services.

On top of this, Capita is charged with implementing a unified communications strategy, developing its datacentre strategy and enhancing disaster recovery plans.

Capita was selected based mainly on its price offering and presentation, criteria which was weighted 30 and 35 per cent respectively. Technical and functional specifications as well as a site visit and quality of response were also considered by the university.

In the firm's annual report, it claimed that the latest UoS deal formed part of a lucrative string of contracts it has won just this year. It says that since the start of 2013, it has won major new business worth £823m, including contracts from the Cabinet Office and Carphone Warehouse.

Capita added that it was pleased to have won a deal in the higher education sector and in its report it said: "We are delighted to have secured a major contract in the university sector. This is a sector which we believe has exciting potential.

"Capita will work with the UoS to design and deliver a long-term ICT strategy to integrate and rationalise ICT processes and resources to better support the university."