City of Edinburgh Council has extended its ICT services contract with CGI for an extra six years.
The deal is now set to run until 2029 rather than the original expiry date of 2023.
The council said it will involve CGI continuing as primary ICT provider and supporting its digital transformation, and that it expects further savings of £12 million.
Among the plans highlighted in the announcement are the creation of smart city operations centre for Edinburgh to deliver services using technologies including artificial intelligence, the internet of things and advanced analytics.
There are also plans to increase the use of smart city systems such as intelligent traffic signals and street bins, to make more use of cloud services, increase remote working by council employees and step up digital security around the council’s network and data.
Council leader Adam McVey said: "Thanks to the work we've already achieved with CGI to use technology in much smarter ways, we've been able to respond quickly to the challenges of the pandemic and remote working, making sure our services can still be accessed by residents.
"Building on this will be crucial as we adapt to life beyond Covid and we want to create the most connected, efficient and sustainable capital we can. The contract extension will allow us to make substantial savings without compromising on our ambitious goals for the city or on the progress we’re making improving core and lifeline services for our residents.
“I’m looking forward to seeing Edinburgh evolve into a genuinely smart city and our partnership with CGI will sit at the heart of that work."
Sustainable city
His deputy and the council’s smart cities lead, Cammy Day, commented: “Becoming a smart city will make Edinburgh a more sustainable and fair city so I'm pleased we've secured CGI's long term support to help us with our vision.
“We're already well on our way to transforming the way we deliver many council services, making them much more efficient and easy to use for residents. We want to develop this further and under the contract we're looking at making digital learning services a lot more accessible and inclusive for all our pupils and residents.
"The work we'll do with CGI will also support our plans for lowering carbon emissions and lowering costs by using smart technology. We realised savings of £45 million when our partnership began in 2015, with an additional £11 million in 2018 and this extension will save the council a further £12 million at a time when our finances are under pressure."
Image: Princes Street from Calton Hill, Edinburgh by Kevin Rae/Geograph.org.uk
