By Tony Collins
Birmingham City Council has said in a job advert that it plans to “close down” its joint venture contract with Capita when it expires in 2021.
The advert was discovered by Government Computing which has reported the job requirements in detail.
Capita and Birmingham City Council have one of the largest and longest IT-based outsourcing contracts in the public sector.
It began in 2006 when the council and Capita set up a joint venture “Service Birmingham”. The council has spent about £85m to £120m a year on the contract which puts the total cost of the deal so far at more than £1bn.
Government Computing reports that the council is seeking an assistant director ICT and digital services and CIO role. The job will include a task to “oversee the effective closedown of the current Service Birmingham ICT contract”.
This suggests the council is unlikely to renew the existing contract. It could decide to sign a new outsourcing deal but the signs so far are that the council will bring services in-house in 2021.
The council says in the job advert it wants to move to an “increasingly agile state of continuous business transformation”.
Nigel Kletz, director of commissioning and procurement for Birmingham City Council, told Government Computing, “The current Service Birmingham contract has four years still to run (until 2021), so this role will lead the implementation of the ICT and digital strategy, which includes developing a transition programme to identify and then implement ICT delivery options going forward.
“Decisions on how ICT support is provided from 2021 onwards are yet to be taken.”
Capita did not add to the council’s statement.
Alan Mo, research director at public sector analysis group Kable, is quoted in Government Computing as saying,
“When it comes to ICT, Birmingham is the largest spending council in the UK. Given what’s at stake, we cannot over emphasise the importance of early planning…
“As we know, Service Birmingham has been under a huge amount of scrutiny over the past few years. Given the trends in local government, it would not surprise us if Birmingham prefers to go down the in-sourcing path; the council has already opted to take back contact centre services.”
Projected savings of “£1bn”
Service Birmingham lists on its website some of the benefits from the joint venture.
- Projected cost savings of £1bn back to the Council over the initial 10-year term, for reinvestment in services
- £2m investment in a new server estate
- Rationalising 550 applications to 150
- Consolidated 7 service desks into 2
- 500% improvement in e-mail speed
- Help desk calls answered within 20 seconds increased from 40% to nearly 90%
Service Birmingham provides Birmingham City Council’s IT, along with a council tax and business rates administration service. The council has discussed taking back in-house the council tax element of the contract.
Capita has run into trouble on some of its major contracts, including one with the NHS to supply services to GPs.
Comment
It appears that Capita has served its purpose and put the council into a position where it can take back ICT services now that are in a better state than they were at the start of the contract 2006.
Austerity is the enemy of such large public sector IT-based outsourcing contracts. When councils can afford to spend huge sums – via monthly, quarterly and annual service charges – on so-called “transformation”, all may be well for such deals.
Their high costs can be publicly justified on the basis of routine annual efficiency “savings” which do not by law have to be verified.
The downfall for such deals comes when councils have to make large savings that may go well beyond the numbers that go into press releases. It’s known that Birmingham City Council has been in almost continuous negotiation to reduce the annual sums paid to Capita.
Capita is not a charity. How can it continue to transform ICT and other services, pay the increasing salaries of 200 more people than were seconded from the council in 2006, accept large reductions in its service changes and still make a reasonable profit?
It makes economic sense, if Birmingham needs to pay much less for IT, to take back the service.
It’s a pity that austerity has such force in local government but not in central government where IT profligacy is commonplace.
Job spec for senior Birmingham IT post looks towards end of Service Birmingham ICT deal – Government Computing
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