Massive WA shared services project moves forward

In a brief statment today, outsourcing specialist the ASG Group announced it and bid partner Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) had been awarded preliminary status for the hardware and support elements of a project which will see more than 100 agencies consolidate their back-office functions into three shared services centres.

The contract encompasses infrastructure and application support for desktops, servers and data centres.

ASG chief executive officer, Geoff Lewis, said the award built on a contract won with Oracle to supply and implement IT systems for the centres.

"We see this final phase of the program to as an opportunity to build on our previous investment to continue to deliver high-quality, cost-efficient services to Western Australian taxpayers," he said.

The contract for supply of the services would initially run for five years, with a view to extending to 10, evaluation panel chairman Heather Leaney told ZDNet Australia . She would not disclose the approximate value of the deal.

Leaney stressed the contract had not yet actually been awarded to ASG and CSC.

"We're a long way off signing the contract, we have due diligence processes to go through," she said.

"We're in the middle of an evaluation process...we still don't have a contract."

A contract could be finalised by Christmas, she added.