Increasingly councils are recognising that the options for sourcing ICT resources and services are much wider than the traditional in-source/outsource solutions. Even a few years ago, outsourcing had developed from straightforward “break/fix” contracts for supporting the status quo, into strategic partnerships which were designed to achieve  a strategic/innovative approach to business improvement exploiting ICT. Some of these strategic partnerships worked well, but in many cases, councils struggled to break away from the traditional way of thinking of the client/contractor model, and hence found it difficult to engage meaningfully in a truly strategic partnership.

What if? Well now there is, and it's called Socitm.

Four Essex councils have signed a shared service agreement with Capita which they claim will save £7m over the next five years, and cut their ICT costs by more than 45%.

Braintree, Castle Point, Colchester and Rochford councils will pay the company £8m to provide shared ICT support services. These will include a mix of service, asset, security and network infrastructure management, desktop support, server and data storage and consultancy.