Sopra Group wins contract to develop shared services platform for Scottish voluntary sector
Sopra Group, the European IT Services Organisation, today announced that the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) awarded it a contract to develop a Common ICT Platform for the Scottish voluntary sector infrastructure. Sopra Group was awarded the project after a competitive tender process.
This development is funded by the Big Lottery Fund in Scotland, through the Supporting Voluntary Action Programme (SVA) being administered by The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO). SVA is designed to strengthen the voluntary sector support infrastructure in Scotland.
The platform that Sopra Group is developing will act as a single entry point to a range of products and services. This will allow sector bodies to better connect and access the information and resources that will enable them to more effectively fulfil their objectives. The platform will provide the voluntary sector infrastructure in Scotland with an online location for collaboration, sharing of information and reporting. The platform will also support a database solution that enables users to more effectively manage data relating to the voluntary sector.
Together the platform and database will facilitate the development of the voluntary sector in Scotland. The technology for this platform will be the newly released Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Although SharePoint 2010 was only officially released in May of this year Sopra Group, through its close partnership with Microsoft, was part of the early adoption programme and has been working with the technology since 2009.
Paul White, Chair of the SVA Management Group said: “This is a vital project for the Scottish voluntary sector and we’re really pleased to have Sopra Group on board. The new platform will enable our sector to become more connected, to share best practice and to work together more closely. Bringing the sector together in this way means that our infrastructure will become more efficient and deliver even better services to the communities we serve. ”
There are 45,000 voluntary organisations in Scotland involving around 137,000 paid staff and approximately 1.3 million volunteers managing an income of around £4.4 billion per annum. Driving efficiencies by sharing resources means that even more can be delivered 'on the ground'.
Alison McLaughlin, Head Of Scottish Public Sector, Sopra Group stated: “We are really delighted to have been chosen to work with the voluntary sector in Scotland on this key project. SCVO approached this project in just the right way, with their business objectives and goals set out from the very start. This was not started as an IT project, this was about making changes that would make the sector work even better, IT is the enabler for that change.”