Queensland Local Government Association discontinues IT services provision

The Local Government Association of Queensland’s (LGAQ) has ceased the provision of IT services to local governments in the state, leaving behind a trail of dead links to web pages that previously provided details of these services.

The body previously supplied IT services via Resolute IT, an approved local government contractor owned by LGAQ. Resolute IT and four other wholly-owned businesses providing other services to Queensland local governments — Localbuy, Propel, Local Government Infrastructure Services, and Total Solutions — were combined in July 2017 into a new wholly owned company, Peak Services.

At the time of the merger, Peak managing director and chief executive Brent Reeman said: “For councils, the five specialist organisations will continue to operate as they know them - the same great service from the same great people.”

Related: Top 5 Benefits of Managed IT Services

When Peak Services was contacted this week in regards to its IT services following the consolidation, the chief executive declined to comment, with a representative saying: "we no longer provide ICT services.”

After pointing out there was a page on the Peak Services website headed “Peak ICT Services” detailing its ICT service offerings, the page was promptly removed. Further requests for an interview remained unanswered at the time of writing.

It is not yet known if IT services will be brought back to the LGAQ's buying panel or which company would step in to fill the role.

Shortly before the merger was announced, Resolute IT was ramping up its ICT services for Queensland local governments. In June last year, CRN reported Resolute IT was working with Vertiv to help a local council combat IT outages with a new data centre deployment. 

Resolute, which was also a Microsoft silver midmarket solution provider and a VMware partner, was helping to deploy a containerised data centre into a purpose-built, elevated facility at Redland City Council. Resolute IT’s Bill Osborne said at the time the modular data centre had been developed in consideration of the council’s needs and situation.

According to his LinkedIn page, Osborne is now CIO of Peak Services, “Responsible for setting the strategic direction of ICT services for the company and the provision of operational support to external customers.”

A similar disorderly withdrawal from the provision of ICT services was also evident on the LGAQ web site. At the bottom of the home page is a list of business partners: Procurement Services; Information Technology; Infrastructure Services; Shared Services; Cloud-Based Technology; Insurance Services.

When CRN checked on 21 March, all those linked to 404 pages except ‘Procurement Services’. That went to the home page of Localbuy where an overlay said:

“Welcome to peak services. … The new name for the Local Government Association of Queensland’s (LGAQ’s) consolidated advisory organisations.  We provide consulting and technical advisory, managed services and procurement expertise across our five specialist organisations  Propel, Localbuy, Total Solutions, Resolute IT and LGIS."

The link to Resolute IT went to an LGAQ page carrying the message “This website is currently unavailable. We apologise for any inconvenience. Please check back in a few minutes or contact our Support Team on 1300 542 700.”

Propel, Total Solutions, Resolute IT and LGIS went to different sections of the Peak Services web site. The Localbuy link simply refreshed the page.

LGAQ declined to comment, and a request to media executives was met with the response: “Peak Services do not wish to comment.”