Tech today

Tax agency signs deal lasting up to three years to support tech teams in delivering trade services and creating ‘common framework for building, running and operating applications in the cloud’ HM Revenue and Customs has signed a near-£20m deal with a digital consultancy to support the management of “critical services” provided by the department at the UK border. The contract, awarded to Tecknuovo, will require the central London-based firm to provide support for various systems that are already in operation in HMRC’s customs and other border operations, according to a recently published commercial notice. The document indicated that these services are run from various environments. “The supplier will provide build-and-run services to assist and enable HMRC Borders and Trade Engineering and Live Service to develop, deploy and manage critical application services for HMRC, on platforms which are hosted either on-premises, virtualised or on-cloud,” it added. The text of the contract...

In preparation for the peak holiday season, Australia Post is recruiting 3,000 seasonal casuals with a specific focus on finding people with skills and experience to help meet the surge in demand. The post is looking for forklift operators, van and truck drivers as well as freight handlers and parcel sorters to fill roles across the delivery network. Roles are available in all states and territories, with the highest demand in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Continue reading Australia Post to recruit 3,000 seasonal workers at Parcel and Postal Technology International.

Poczta Polska, the incumbent postal operator in Poland, has announced plans to turn the business into a ‘modern courier-retail-financial-digital company’. The transformation plan includes modernizing the post’s courier and financial services, as well as its IT systems, logistics processes and sales networks, in response to its deteriorating financial situation. The Transformation Plan adopted by the Management Board is necessary to rebuild the market position of one of the oldest companies in Poland, according to Sebastian Mikosz, president of Poczta Polska. Continue reading Polish Post announces transformation plan at Parcel and Postal Technology International.

Citizens Advice Scotland reveals that it helps more than 3,000 with basic digital skills, and the charity claims exclusion can isolate people from loved ones and prevent access to services The number of people in Scotland who are digitally excluded has risen by almost 60 per cent since 2022, new data has revealed.   According to Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) the number of its clients seeking help because of a lack the skills to use the internet has risen from 1,932 in 2022 to 3,065 this year. The advice network said it is “extremely concerned” by the steep increase, highlighting that those left behind are at risk of losing jobs and benefits, as well as suffering from poor mental health. CAS spokesperson Kyle Scott said: “The numbers affected are higher than many people think and include people from all ages and backgrounds. We see them every day in the CAB network. The consequences of being digitally excluded vary from being unable to ...

The department is offering a six-figure salary for a security leader to roll out a dedicated cyber strategy, as well as the implementation of wider business processes, guidelines and standards The Home Office is offering a six-figure salary for a new chief information security officer to spearhead cyber programmes and professionals across the department. The successful candidate, who will sit at the head of a team of 150 people, will oversee all cyber operations throughout the organisation and serve as “the department’s advisor for cyber risk within its own business operations and be responsible for bringing together the department’s approach to its own cyber and information security”, the job advert says. Key duties will include leading the rollout of a dedicated “department cybersecurity strategy”, as well as implementing a wider “enterprise strategy, approach, and processes to reduce information security risks” faced by the department. These measures will include “standards, c...

The tax department’s annual report for FY24 shines a light on work that has taken place in the past three years to fix, decommission and migrate hundreds of core services HM Revenue and Customs has reported a progress rate of nearly 70% in the department’s ongoing drive to move more than 500 IT services that constitute “critical national infrastructure” out of its legacy datacentres and into a cloud or hosted environment. In its annual report for the 2023/24 year, the tax department provides details of a programme that has been undertaken over the past three years to move services out of legacy environments. Further remedial work is also being conducted on certain services, while others that are no longer required are being decommissioned. As of three years ago, HMRC had “600 services hosted on over 7,000 servers in legacy datacentres”, according to the annual report, which indicated that a large proportion of these were critically important platforms. “By the end of 2023 to 2024...