The Cabinet Office has signed up Fujitsu Services as its new ICT supplier, in a deal which could provide shared services to multiple public-sector organisations.
It said that Public Sector Flex, as the seven-year framework is called, has the potential to deliver services including desktop hardware and software, network management, disaster recovery, printing and telephony to the Cabinet Office and across the wider public sector.
"The organisation need not be in central government, it could be an agency or local organisation. The challenge for Fujitsu is to come up with services those organisations would want," a spokesperson for the Cabinet Office told GC News on Thursday.
Discussions with a number of interested public-sector bodies, including the Office for National Statistics, are already under way.
Fujitsu's managing director for government services, Eithne Wallis, said: "Currently, each public-sector organisation has its own contracts, processes, facilities and management for delivery of ICT services."
"By organising these more effectively, resources can be freed for reinvestment in other areas, including front-line services."
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"This development is particularly significant for smaller public-sector organisations that now have the opportunity to share in the economies of scale and higher levels of service previously only available to the largest government organisations."
Annual savings for the Cabinet Office have been projected at £2.5m a year and more than 300 tonnes of carbon emissions. The department said that the "green ICT principles" in the contract will allow more flexible and home working, reducing the need for staff to travel and enabling more efficient use of office space.
Civil servants using Flex will be equipped with thin-client devices, which consume far less energy than a traditional PC. According to the Cabinet Office, this factor alone will reduce its carbon emissions by more than 300 tonnes each year.
For Fujitsu, its new business with the Cabinet Office is expected to be worth £8m a year. The company already delivers ICT services to the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Home Office, as well as a human-resources shared-services contract to the Northern Ireland civil service.
Flex will help take forward the transformational government strategy, aimed at standardising the way public-sector organisations spend their £14bn a year on IT projects.
John Suffolk, the government's chief information officer, said: "The new Cabinet Office ICT deal is win-win-win, for staff, for taxpayers and the environment."
