Civica ties up £1.5m cost-saving councils IT deal

Reseller charged with helping South Hams and West Devon councils run more efficiently through digital tech

Reseller Civica has won a £1.5m deal to overhaul two south-west councils' IT systems as the duo looks to align more closely with the government's digital strategy and become more cost efficient.

South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council (SHWD) have worked together on a shared-services agreement since 2007 and have recently signed up Civica to overhaul its IT.

The Leeds-based firm will supply SHWD with a range of document-management and telephony tech as well as mobile products and new payment systems.

The deal – which is worth £1.5m excluding VAT – forms part of the council duo's Transformational Project Software Procurement which aims to modernise its technology.

"SHWD recognised that with ever-increasing financial challenges, a more transformational approach was needed," said SHWD in a recently published contract-award notice.

It added that it hopes Civica will enable it to significantly reduce its IT costs, improve services, support flexible-working policies and enable it to better align with the government's Digital By Default (DBD) scheme, which aims to encourage a wider range of firms to supply digital tech to the public sector.

Five other suppliers bid for the business, but Civica was awarded the deal for both its competitive pricing – which accounted for 30 per cent of the award criteria – and the quality of its offering, which accounted for the remaining 70 per cent.

SHWD said the supplier it chose had to meet a number of strict criteria before it was picked.

"[The chosen supplier] must be able to offer a skilled, knowledgeable and conscientious workforce that has the experience to deliver the entire scope of the authority's requirement," it said.

"It is expected that applicants will have the in-house skills and resources to deliver a majority of the development of the solution itself with minimal use of sub-contractors to allow for effective collaboration between the authority and the applicant."