Barnsley council is to set up a joint venture company
with European IT firm Bull Information Systems to manage the
authority’s IT infrastructure and operations and bid for external
contracts.
The two partners will jointly own the new company, Tuscan
Connects, which will run the South Yorkshire council’s IT services
under a 10-year contract worth £76m.
The move will see IT strategy set by the council, while the
company will be managed by Bull. Just over 100 existing council IT
staff will transfer to the new company on their current terms and
conditions.
The deal is aimed at improving the authority’s IT services, with
a focus on helpdesk services, datacentre management and systems to
support flexible working. The council is also aiming to make
service continuity more robust by mirroring its servers at a
back-up disaster recovery centre.
Bull has begun to move some of its hosting contracts into the
Barnsley operations centre and Tuscan Connects is expected to bid
for new contracts elsewhere.
Council chief executive Phil Coppard said, “In-sourcing our IT
services in this way not only guarantees the jobs of the existing
team, it creates a new high-tech company in Barnsley that we
believe is ideally poised to win new business and create more jobs
in the local area.”