Lincolnshire Police Authority has selected G4S as preferred bidder for its wide-ranging support services deal. Worth “in excess of £200m”, the contract covers responsibility for a number of police operational areas (from custody to firearms licensing), as well as ICT, facilities management and HR BPO services.
So the spirit should be decidedly festive at security services provider G4S, and no doubt at their partners Capgemini. Hats off also to Lincs Police for completing the procurement on such a complex and pioneering deal in less than a year.
The announcement is less good news for competing bidder Steria. As we’ve pointed out before, the company already runs the only other example of a similarly wide-ranging outsource in the UK police sector (see Steria and G4S shortlisted at Lincolnshire Police), so it looked to be well positioned. But the deal does serve as an example of how BPO and support services can draw in “unusual suspects”. Subscribers to our BusinessProcessViews programme can read a lot more on this theme in John O’Brien’s recent report Construction companies “unusual suspects” in UK BPS.