Met Police hands £350m IT deal to Capgemini

A Capgemini-led consortium has beaten EDS to a seven-year IT outsourcing deal with London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) worth around £350m.

The MPS has chosen the Cubit consortium, which consists of BT, Capgemini and Unisys, as preferred bidder for the contract after an intensive six-month assessment of the shortlisted bidders.

The EDS-led metAgility consortium loses out but has been retained as "reserve bidder" until final contract negotiations have been completed and approved by the Metropolitan Police Authority. Capgemini is expected to take over running the Met's IT operations next summer.

The Met's decision to outsource, which was exclusively revealed by silicon.com last year, has been driven by the need to consolidate a number of existing contracts. These include a £125m desktop and network support services deal signed in 1999 with Sema (now Atos Origin), a £75m Damovo telephony contract and a £60m eight-year deal signed in 2000 with EDS to run the force's crime reporting system.

MPS director of information Ailsa Beaton said in a statement that one of the key aims of the contract is to increase the quality of IT service for all Met staff.

She said: "Also we want to achieve strategic benefits through the streamlining of contract management; the provision of improved management reporting of service and cost data; and enabling the benchmarking of service costs against market rates to ensure they remain competitive over the life of the contract."

It is the second time that Capgemini has beaten EDS to a major public sector IT contract after winning the Inland Revenue's £3bn Aspire outsourcing contract in 2003.

Tola Sargeant, analyst at Ovum, said in a research note: "This contract will strengthen Capgemini's own position and profile in the UK criminal justice market and puts it in a good position to go after future opportunities in this relatively high growth sector."