Westminster sings London IT framework with Virgin

Westminster sings London IT framework with VirginWestminster has said that it has signed a £190m pan-London IT framework with Virgin Media Business for the creation of a PSN-compliant Next Generation Network resource.

The new framework will provide a single platform for procuring phone, data, video, CCTV and Wi-Fi services for the public sector. Any public sector organization in London will be able sign up to the framework and save millions of pounds worth of savings.

The produce saves costs by offering simplified procurement, standardisation and sharing the technology used by different organizations. The NGN Framework is fully Public Services Network (PSN) compliant and will have a governance board to ensure that it delivers the best in technology services to the public sector in London. Public sector organizations.

"Identifying opportunities to share resources is increasingly important if the public sector is to make the financial savings it needs to, while still maintaining excellent front line services for people," said councillor Melvyn Caplan, Westminster's cabinet member for customer services.

Westminster has already spent on a new wide area network that will connect around 60 of its buildings for saving as much as £500,000 over the next five years. The network will offer speeds of up to 1 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps), which could be increased even faster.