Oxford City Council seeks new IT partner

Search begins for strategic partner and supplier

Oxford City Council has announced it wants a new IT and telephony supplier and to appraise its current set-up.

According to the Kable Government Computing network, a three-year contract will be given out on 10 December by the council for a company to appraise the market and plan its future IT and telephony.

"The partner will take the lead in engaging the market to find out what is on offer and will then be responsible for structuring a contract with a new ICT provider," the report said.

Oxford City Council has managed its IT delivery itself since 2009, but will hand it over to a third-party supplier in April 2016.

"Whoever wins the contract must ensure a new ICT partner is in place before that date," the report said, "taking into account options to move to the cloud, hosting, et cetera."

The three-year deal will include an examination of G-Cloud and the public services network, reviewing various applications, and one goal is increased efficiency across the telephony infrastructure.

Outline proposals must be submitted to Oxford City Council no later than 6 September 2013.