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Public sector slashes 25 per cent off mobile bill
OGCbuying.solutions bulks up

By Jo Best

Published: Tuesday 20 June 2006

A new bulk-buying discount deal is expected to cut 25 per cent off the public sector's mobile phone bill.

OGCbuying.solutions, the procurement arm of the UK government has signed a new framework agreement that will allow public sector organisations to get mobile line rental from £3 per month with per minute charges of 3p.

The agreement also increases the number of telecoms suppliers to the government to 10, including the big four UK operators, as well as IBM, LogicaCMG and Unisys.

The deal will see more than 750,000 public sector employees covered by one of four 'lots' of suppliers: mobile voice and SMS; data and value added services; total mobile solutions and wide area paging and messaging solutions.

A separate new volume discount framework for IT products and services is also aiming to save public sector bodies 10 per cent on procurement costs.

The IT Goods and Associated Services Framework Agreement is also to be managed by OGCbuying.solutions, and replaces the majority of existing GCat framework deals, which expire in September 2006.

Bulk buying deals have become common in the public sector. A recent deal with Oracle saved the public sector £45m, while other bulk IT agreements are expected to yield £110m savings.