Steria bags £30m IT deal with Prescott's ODPM

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) has signed a £30m IT outsourcing contract with Steria that will see the implementation of a new IT platform aimed at improving efficiency and cutting costs.

Steria beat off competition from Fujitsu Services and Unisys for the five-year contract covering the ODPM's IT service to more than 3,000 employees across multiple sites in the UK.

Following the initial transition of responsibility for the existing IT services to Steria, the company will work with the ODPM to identify opportunities to improve efficiency through an "IT-enabled transformation" programme.

Capgemini has been brought in by Steria as a subcontractor to provide the change management consultancy services required to manage the impact of the introduction of a new IT platform.

One of the first projects to be rolled out during 2006 is the design and building of a new Microsoft Exchange-based infrastructure that will migrate the full ODPM user-base from the existing Novell/Groupwise platform.

At the same time Steria will develop an electronic document and records management system pilot, which will be rolled out across an initial 300 users in the ODPM's information management directorate.

John Torrie, CEO of Steria, said in a statement: "We are delighted to be so closely involved in supporting this evolution and to have the opportunity to work with the ODPM to realise its aim of becoming a more agile, integrated organisation."