Council pulls out of deal with one of largest contractors

Sheffield City Council is planning to pull out of a deal with one of its largest contractors in a bid to save money.

Capita was supposed to provide IT services for the authority until 2022, but the council is paying an undisclosed sum to be released from the agreement early.

The authority says it wants to bring some of the work currently carried out by Capita back in-house, while also offering contracts to smaller, local firms.

The move is expected to save £3m a year from 2019-20 onwards, according to Sheffield City Council.

Deputy leader for Sheffield City Council and portfolio holder for finance, Cllr Olivia Blake, said: “In bringing this proposal forward we hope we can make improvements to our services and provide opportunities to smaller local buisnesses by breaking up this larger contract into smaller chunks. We plan to invest the savings we will make from changing these arrangements on further improvements in ICT and systems that will help us be more efficient and effective, which will benefit the people of Sheffield”.

“This is a positive step as it also allows us to build our in-house capacity that would help us become a modern, flexible and digitally enabled council”.