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Official: BT wins £420m Wales PSN gig... just as we said it would

Logicalis binned 7 years after setting up and running contract

The Welsh government has finally coughed to what El Chan readers have known for months, that BT dislodged incumbent Logicalis from the next Public Sector Network (PSN) contract valued at roughly £420m over seven years.

The gig to provide the public sector in Wales with broadband and other IP services was actually awarded to the hugely dominant Brit telco at the start of August, multiple sources told us at the time.

But official spokespeople decided to keep schtum as Logicialis, which won the inaugural PSN deal in 2007, had the chance to appeal the decision, as BT did in Scotland when Capita and Updata won the PSN framework there.

Economy Minister, Edwina Hart, gushed:

“The Public Sector Broadband Aggregation contract benefits public service organisations throughout Wales by making significant savings whilst contributing to provide people with valuable and effective services.”

Well, it did when Logicalis was running the show. The new contract will see 80 public sector organisations – including the police, schools, hospitals and local gov offices – using PBSA WAN, which will support 4,000 public sites across the country.

On top of WAN services, the scope of the contract also includes maintenance, managed services, the evaluation and trial of new networking gear, migration services, training and support, and a cloudy-based tech element.

Twenty out of 22 local authorities use the PSBA for all their networking requirements, so the contract award is a big win for BT and a knock for Logicalis, which had a team of around 50 staff providing the service, which was run on a separate P&L.

In a canned PR blurb, Ian Dalton, president of global government and health at BT Global Services, said very little that was worth quoting. Here's a snippet:

“We know that having a great infrastructure can really improve efficiency and the delivery of better joined up services.”

Logicalis won the deal to build a PSN in Wales back in 2007, initially valued at £74m, but it was extended for several years in 2012 when it was expanded to include data centre solutions, managed services, comms and collaboration and a cloudy element.

We asked UK MD Mark Starkey for comment, but he has yet to respond. ®

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