£300m council deal goes to BT and Liberata

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council has chosen BT and Liberata as preferred bidders for a 15-year £300m contract to overhaul the authority's IT, finance, HR and payroll and customer services.

Final contracts with the BT and Liberata venture are expected to be signed over the next few weeks with the work beginning in April 2007 when BT and Liberata will invest an initial £50m to build a new regional business centre in Sandwell that will run a range of IT and core business services.

The West Midlands council claims the injection of investment from the deal will create at least 450 new jobs for local people, improve services to residents and boost Sandwell's "fair" performance rating from government watchdogs.

Around 525 council employees will either be seconded or transferred under Tupe regulations to BT and Liberata. The council said there will be no compulsory redundancies and staff will be fully consulted on their future.

Steve Eling, Sandwell Council's deputy leader and cabinet member for strategic resources said the main aim of the deal is to improve front-line services and ensure value for money.

He told silicon.com: "Working in partnership will help this transformation through significant investment and new ways of working. Savings will arise through the course of the partnership through better ways of working and better procurement."

The procurement process took Sandwell two years with the final bidders being chosen from an initial list of almost 30 applicants.

Jeremy Stafford, MD of government services at BT, added in a statement: "We are confident that the public/private partnership approach delivers enormous value, both in terms of boosting efficiency and improving public services."