VT and RM Education have been invited by Portsmouth City Council to continue to the next stage of the procurement process to deliver ICT in Portsmouth's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in secondary schools throughout Portsmouth.

Councillor John Ireland is cabinet member for Education, Children and Young People at the city council.

He said: "After several months of intense work and our close evaluation of initial bids by three companies, we are delighted to invite VT and RM to continue to develop their plans with us for transforming ICT in our secondary schools.

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"Their work has shown these two companies are best placed to be able to deliver ICT in our secondary schools that will transform how our pupils learn in the future. We are excited by their plans so far and look forward to receiving their final bids."

Three companies, VT plc, RM Education plc and Redstone Converged Solutions Limited, submitted initial bids.

A detailed evaluation of these bids has been completed by a wide-ranging Portsmouth BSF team including ICT experts and secondary school ICT leads. The final bids from RM and VT must be received in April and the preferred bidder will be selected in May.

Two private sector partners are to be selected by the city council to deliver its £200 million BSF programme, one to design, build and maintain the schools and one to deliver the ICT.

Private companies Shape and Bouygues Partnership are bidding to deliver the contract to construct the schools through a Local Education Partnership (LEP) and the preferred bidder to deliver the LEP will be selected in July.

(CD/BMcC)