Government Names Suppliers For Public Services Network

The Cabinet Office has announced the successful suppliers who will provide IT services to the Public Services Network (PSN), in what has been called a “major milestone” for the government’s IT strategy by Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office.

Twenty-nine suppliers have been named on the new framework being established by the Government Procurement Service (GPS), which was tendered last year.

The suppliers include the likes of BT, Vodafone, and Telefonica as well as CSC, the company blamed by the government for its role in the failure of the £12.7 billion National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

Cost-effective services

“The goal of the Government’s ICT Strategy is to ensure we can deliver smarter, more cost-effective, modern public services. With the award of the PSN Services Framework, following the PSN Connectivity Framework in April, we have passed a major milestone by establishing a competitive ICT marketplace at the heart of the public sector,” said Maude. “The PSN will drive savings and efficiencies by removing duplicate network connections, providing simpler procurement and greater competition, and allowing public sector employees to work in more flexible, user-focused ways.”

The PSN is being billed as a unified ‘network of networks’ that will bring together suppliers and customers into one single logical network and marketplace to substantially reduce costs. PSN-compliant services are already being used by local and central government, with confirmed savings of £64.2 million in 2011-12.

It offers services such as CCTV, physical security monitoring, teleconferencing systems, mobile services, messaging services and secure gateways.

“The PSN Services Framework, together with the PSN Connectivity Framework, provides the public sector with the preferred route to market for all PSN networks and telecommunications spend,” said PSN programme director Craig Eblett. “A fair and open PSN marketplace is now in place and there is strong demand from public sector organisations to access it. I’d like to congratulate all the successful suppliers and wish them well as they compete for work under the framework.”

The full list of suppliers is as follows:

2e2 UK Ltd
Airwave Solutions
Azzurri Communications Ltd
British Telecommunications plc
Cable & Wireless Worldwide
Capita Business Services Ltd
Cassidian UK
CSC Computer Sciences Ltd
Computacenter (UK) Ltd
Daisy Communications Ltd
Easynet Global Services
Everything Everywhere Ltd
Freedom Communications (UK) Ltd
Fujitsu
Global Crossing (Level 3)
Icom Holdings Ltd
KCOM Group plc
Logicalis UK Ltd
NextiraOne UK Ltd
PageOne Communications Ltd
Phoenix IT Group Ltd
Siemens Communications
Specialist Computer Centre
Telefónica UK Ltd
telent Technology Services Ltd
Thales UK Ltd
Uniworld Communications Ltd
Virgin Media Business Ltd
Vodafone Ltd

What do you know about cloud computing? Find out with our quiz!