The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs has awarded a contract for IT services under the Defra UnITy Programme to Atos IT Services UK Ltd worth an estimated £135 million in total.
Defra has procured the contract for the delivery of hosting and application IT support services to Defra and the Core Defra Group at locations in England, Scotland and Wales.
The Core Group includes the Environment Agency, Natural England, Animal and Plant Health Agency, Marine Management Organisation and Rural Payments Agency.
Other organisations within the wider Defra group will also be potential service recipients and may be added to the contract at a later date.
The Contract is one of a suite of contracts collectively referred to as the “Unity” programme to replace existing ICT Services which are currently delivered under separate contracts by two separate service suppliers to the Environment Agency and Defra.
The hosting and application support services include implementation, provision, management and operation of:
- Data Centre (DC) site services
- DC facilities management services
- infrastructure services
- platform services
- application support and operations, and
- service management layer to support the new Defra Group ICT Service Management Operating Model.
Under the contract, Atos will also provide a subset of hosting and application support services in 150 distributed server rooms (DSRs). The supplier will provide continued access for approximately 21,000 end users to approximately 250 unique applications. The Services are hosted from 5 data centres and the DSRs.
The applications support a diverse range of existing business services and are of varying age and complexity.
The maximum estimated value of £135 million covers a 6-year contract term – applicable if Defra takes up a one-year extension option.
Atos was among seven suppliers who bid for the contract, which included a tender from an EU Member country.
Sulzer has launched a new global Center of Excellence (CoE) for Water Treatment Solutions - the CoE consolidates Sulzer’s wastewater treatment expertise in a unified and global manner.
“SAS (Surplus Activated Sludge) is a bit weird and 
Owen Mace has taken over as Director of the British Plastics Federation (BPF) Plastic Pipes Group on the retirement of Caroline Ayres. He was previously Standards and Technical Manager for the group.
PureTec Separations, the Ledbury-based water treatment engineering firm, has appointed Dan Norman as its new Sales Manager – Water Process Systems, supporting the company’s continued growth in the UK and international markets.
Hear how Scottish Water has completed its £235 million Ayrshire Glasgow Resilience Project - customers across Greater Glasgow, Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire will now benefit from a more secure and resilient water supply.
Hear how United Utilities is accelerating its investment to reduce spills from storm overflows across the Northwest.
Find out more about the remarkable career opportunities on offer at WSP - scroll down to watch the inspirational video.