Capita has secured a five-year contract worth £1.3m to migrate Suffolk County Council’s on-premise education software to a new cloud-based system.
Capita will use software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to support the council’s statutory education functions, such as managing admissions, school transport, meals and special educational needs.
Capita’s SaaS applications are built into Microsoft Azure, a public cloud service. Once the council’s data is migrated to the new cloud system, upgrades and fixes will be able to be done remotely and out of hours. This will be a significant improvement on the legacy system which has meant this work has to be done manually and only during working hours.
This will also enable the council’s IT personnel to focus on value-added tasks, such as supporting council staff with their IT needs, and operate more efficiently. With minimised ‘downtime’, the council will benefit from improved reporting capabilities which will drive better and quicker decision making and should lead to improved services delivered to schools.
The move to the cloud will also enable quick software upgrades and it will provide the council with predictive analysis and data on areas where they could optimise services and maximise spend. It will also enable better data sharing with Suffolk County Council’s neighbouring authorities who are also moving to the cloud, such as Essex County Council.
Anthony Singleton, managing director of Capita One, said: “Migrating applications to the cloud is an important move for Suffolk and we are excited to be part of this journey. This new partnership with Suffolk is built on our software capabilities and expertise in the education sector but it also shows our strength in supporting local authorities in their digital transformations.”
