Plain speaking on outsourcing

摘要

We report this week on two ground-breaking local government outsourcing developments: Somerset's "South West One", behind which stands IBM, and Westminster City Council's declaration that it will be free of IT infrastructure by 2015. Westminster's CIO David Wilde tells a lucid story about how his council will go further down a road many councils are part travelling: outsourcing the IT infrastructure. Meanwhile, in Somerset, IBM has sought to stop the county council from divulging key details of a ￡400m outsourcing deal in the teeth of the fact that the councilis obliged under the Audit Commission Act to disclose this information to local electors or anyone paying business rates in the area.