Redstone Converged Solutions and Redstone Telecom will provide thought leadership and innovation to the council's current IT infrastructure and help the council deliver new services such as a community network for council, schools and the community, making it a council for the 21st century.
Councillor Keith Vickers, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services at North Lincolnshire Council said: " We chose Redstone as an experienced and safe pair of hands to work with us to help transform our technology for the benefit of the people we serve. The council is committed to providing best value for money. By changing contracts we are able to do just that. With the new contract we are able to save thousands of pounds and improve the service we provide."
Redstone beat off some 30 other tenders to win the contract, worth approximately £1.2 million and it will provide voice and data lines linking over 140 council premises. All existing lines and telecommunications services with BT will be transferred to Redstone before the start of the new financial year in April 2006. Now through automatic billing to each department, better analysis of costs, savings will be in the region of 55 per cent on call charges and a reduction of 25 per cent on line rentals. Already the council has identified an additional £10,000 of savings from under used ISDN lines.
Martin Balaam, CEO, Redstone plc said: "By linking all council premises telephone lines together a strategic base is provided on which to develop shared delivery of services across all agencies for example, contact centres, kiosks and service and presence points. With further projects underway, we look forward to our continued strategic relationship with North Lincolnshire Council offering further step change guidance and helping them to meet their vision of e-Government."