East Sussex Fire Authority Seeking IT Partner

East Sussex Fire Authority is seeking a long term IT partner to take over existing services and provide services for the future.

It aims for the move to increase the stability and resilience of its technology to form a firm foundation on which to build new services to support future business requirements.

According to the tender document, the fire service team currently consists of around 800 staff (650 firefighters and 150 support staff) serving a population of over 800,000 residents.

The organisation covers an area of 179,000 hectares from 24 fire stations across East Sussex supported by a headquarters in Eastbourne, a joint control centre in Haywards Heath, a training centre in Maresfield and three engineering workshops attached to the stations.

Its information management department has 15 current staff and manages over 1000 devices and fields more than 6000 service calls per month.

IT is central to East Sussex’s ambitious business change programme as it has the potential to deliver improved processes and reduce costs, as well as enabling its people to work more flexibly and collaborate with other organisations more easily and effectively.

“The supplier partner will help us to deliver the right technologies and services progressively to meet these requirements. The initial focus will be on adopting existing services and consolidating them to improve stability and support,” explains the contract notice.

“From this new foundation, enhancements to make better use of the tool set will be implemented and the portfolio of services will be expanded,” it adds.

Multi-Million Pound Business Change Programme

The chosen partner will also be expected to develop a roadmap for the transformation of IT services relevant to the business strategy and provide a wide range of business and management consultancy services.

Other requirements include demonstration of best value for the IT services over the life of the contract, the development of closer integration between systems and the development of the fire service’s data warehouse and reporting technologies.

The partnership is expected to last for seven years with a value of between £14m and £40m.

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