Hampshire and Oxfordshire county councils plan ICT partnership

Hampshire and Oxfordshire county councils are planning an ICT partnership that would see them supporting each other in the use of different systems. A memorandum of understanding is already in place and the move will go ahead if it wins approval at Oxfordshire's cabinet meeting on 20 December. The first step is expected to be Hampshire providing supporting the other council's SAP system when its current service contract with Serco ends in late 2012. This is predicted to save the council £1m over three years. It is expected that the councils would later begin to support each in other areas. A spokeswoman for Hampshire told GGC that the first is likely to be disaster recovery, and that the councils will look at a number of line of business systems to see which look most promising. A statement from Hampshire said the agreement could facilitate sharing resources and specialist skills, and help to improve the terms of existing contracts. It claimed this will help the two councils meet growing demands for technology support without increasing costs, and that there is no intention to reduce staffing levels. Councillor David Robertson, deputy leader of Oxfordshire county council, said: "Skills and knowledge sharing would bring added resilience to both organisations and Oxford city council will also benefit given that Oxfordshire county council provides ICT support to colleagues there and has done for some time. "I look forward to this being discussed at our cabinet meeting on December 20 and the recommendation from our officers to my fellow cabinet members is for us to approve the proposed agreement." The leader of Hampshire county council, councillor Ken Thornber, said: "This is another example of where Hampshire county council is encouraging shared service to reduce cost and exploit the potential of IT to modernise." This article is published by Guardian Professional. For weekly updates of news, debate and best practice on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here.