Cora Systems recently won the tender to implement a Project and Portfolio Management system for IT Assist.

IT Assist is part of the Department of Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland and provide IT support for email, desktop, helpdesk and network services across the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS), supporting 18,300 users across 11 Government departments.

To find out more there is a case study available at the Cora Systems website:

http://www.

1st February 2010 – Team Solutionz Ltd has today announced that it has been selected by Lisburn City Council to provide an Absence Management system that will improve  the efficiency, control and management of the Council’s Policy for Managing Attendance.

Through a quotation exercise, the Council set out to find a supplier who could demonstrate project implementation experience as well as suitable technical expertise to deliver, manage and support a system which all managers in the Council would use.

Having provided this system and other related systems to twelve other Councils, Team Solutionz was able to demonstrate its experience and capability in delivering successful IT projects and also a deep understanding of the business issues relating to Absence Management.

At The Education Show 2010 (4-6 March), Texthelp Systems (stand F68) will be showcasing Schools Access Software Suite; a specially developed assistive technology package designed to provide continuity of support and access for learning for students. Already supporting over 270,000 students with special educational needs (SEN) through the Government’s Home Access scheme, Texthelp is now extending this provision to schools and local authorities to help all students become motivated, independent learners. The bundle includes Texthelp’s award-winning Read&Write GOLD for Schools software, MindView mind-mapping and iZoom screen magnification tools.

NORTHGATE MANAGED SERVICES WINS CONTRACTS WORTH £50 MILLION IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR

-Company announced as ICT provider for UK’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) projects.

Newtownabbey- based Northgate Managed Services (Northgate) has confirmed its position as one of the UK’s leading providers of ICT education services after winning contracts in excess of £50 million with Blackburn with Darwen and Bolton Borough Council, and Hartlepool Borough Council. Both contract wins are part of the Government’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in England.

- Kainos joins the ranks of 20 select providers approved to supply IT solutions to the UK public sector -

London & Belfast, January 7th , 2010 – Kainos, (www.kainos.com) a leading IT consulting company, has today announced that it has been appointed as a supplier on the Buying Solutions select framework agreement for software and service provision to the UK public sector.

Learning Pool's Community Evangelist, Dave Briggs, has written a handy quick-start guide to Twitter.

The guide takes absolute beginners to Twitter right from the start - explaining what Twitter is, and how to sign up - right through to replying, retweeting, hash tagging and using tools to measure success.

Dave has been promoting the use of interactive websites and social networking in government for the last five years, and has been a keen user of Twitter since February 2007.

North Lanarkshire Council has forged an ICT Service Delivery Partnership worth £6.5m with leading ICT company, Northgate Managed Services (Northgate).  The contract is part of the Council’s drive to operate more efficiently and cost effectively in line with the Efficient Government programme impacting all Scottish Local Authorities.

- A customised Emergency Notification solution from SpeechStorm, which uses automated speech to enable self-service, will remove laborious administrative steps from pager management, improve incident response times and incident reporting, and bring costs down-

London & Belfast, UK – December 7th , 2009 – SpeechStorm, (www.speechstorm.com), the specialist provider of phone self-service solutions, has today announced that Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, one of the largest Trusts in the UK employing some 20,000 staff, has deployed the first phase of its automated Emergency Response Management system to transform the way it handles and responds to urgent incidents.

Brighton & Hove is a unitary or single tier authority, which means the council is responsible for all local governance functions within the area.  This includes functions such as education, social services, libraries, planning, licensing and much more.   

Hilary Masters is Head of the Primary Special Facility in the Education section of Brighton & Hove Local Authority and has been a Dyslexia Specialist teacher for ten years within Brighton and Hove Children & Young People's Trust, supporting statemented Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) pupils, at both primary and secondary levels.

The need for accuracy in reading and writing skills in the work place is very important, but difficult for people suffering from literacy difficulties such as dyslexia.

Read&Write GOLD is Texthelp’s literacy support tool designed to assist users of all ages who require extra assistance when reading or composing text. The software provides continuity by supporting users throughout education from primary through to tertiary level and into the workplace.

Contract unpins continued success for Northgate Managed Services.


Department of Education and Classroom 2000 (C2k) has agreed a two-year extension, worth £24m with Newtownabbey based ICT education specialist Northgate Managed Services (Northgate) as part of its post primary and special need schools managed services contract.


The contract, which will extend Northgate’s involvement in the project from five to seven years, will see a complete refresh of desktop and printing hardware, network enhancements and an extension of helpdesk and support services.

Consilium Technologies, the Antrim based specialist in enterprise mobile solutions for public sector bodies such as government departments and local authorities, is aiming to grow its business in the US through a substantial investment in marketing backed by Invest Northern Ireland. The organisation has also substantially underpinned Consilium’s development efforts in the last number of years.

The company has received Invest NI assistance towards consultancy and marketing support and participation in US trade missions to explore opportunities in the United States.

The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has awarded a contract to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for the provision of Information Technology to Health and Social Care (HSC).

The contract is an enabling framework which allows HSC organisations to procure ICT equipment and services and includes projects such as the modernisation of a Patient Administration System which is used across all hospitals in Northern Ireland. The framework has an estimated value of between £10million and £70million over its four year period.

EG Information Consulting, the Belfast-based specialist in Internet solutions, has won its first open tender in England with help from Invest Northern Ireland.

The company came top in a public tender competition to develop a new web application for an orthopaedic hospital at Oswestry, near Wrexham, which is to become a foundation trust.

The successful tender – the first won by EG Information from an open public tender taking place outside Northern Ireland– was assisted by the company’s participation in an Invest NI marketing support programme designed to provide practical support to local companies seeking to expand business outside Northern Ireland.

NI Water selects Magdalene and eircom NI for communications services contract.

NI Water has chosen Magdelene and eircom Northern Ireland to provide and maintain its essential internal telecommunications network in a 3 year contract worth over £2million.

Magdalene and eircom, chosen following a competitive tender, will upgrade and maintain NI Water's telecommunications infrastructure and position the government-owned company to rollout efficiency-enhancing initiatives.

NI Water, the sole provider of water and sewerage services in NI, has formed a Strategic IT Delivery Partnership with leading ICT company, Northgate Managed Services as part of its cost saving and efficiency drive.

The three year IT managed service contract, which is worth £2.8 million will result in Newtownabbey-based Northgate taking responsibility for NI Water’s entire IT infrastructure and the delivery of fully integrated IT services across its sites province-wide.

As a result of financial constraints and capacity issues Blaenau Gwent considered how traditional training delivery needed to change to cope with these new challenges.

The classroom based recruitment and selection course, which was delivered to 450 managers in the previous 2 years, was redeveloped into a blended programme of e-learning and mentoring.

The old programme required learners to attend three half day classroom based courses, complete a mock interview process with each other and then with volunteers who were attending a prepare- for-work programme.

Redstone plc, the national IT and Communications solutions provider, announces today, that as part of a consortium led by Catalyst Lend Lease & Bovis Lend Lease, it has been selected as preferred bidder to deploy the complete converged IT and communications infrastructure for the Building Schools for the Future (“BSF”) programme in Birmingham. Financial close is expected to take place by May 2009.

The 15-year scheme involves the redevelopment of 89 secondary and special needs schools across the city, providing for the educational needs of over 77,000 students.