Computacenter has won its biggest local government deal in terms of geographical coverage, as VARs continue to reap the benefits of the looming local government online services deadline.

Last week North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) signed a six-year managed IT services deal worth £12m with Computacenter. The corporate VAR will manage NYCC's IT infrastructure and take responsibility for installation and maintenance.

Colin Brown, government sector director at Computacenter, said: "The public sector is our biggest services market. The opportunity will increase as government IT investment peaks."

John Moore, director of Finance at NYCC, said the authority reviewed its IT infrastructure two years ago and realised it was not good enough to meet e-government targets. "Rather than outsource a problem, we are insourcing the skills from Computacenter," he said.

Five Computacenter staff will be permanently based at the council's Northallerton headquarters and will manage the council's 35 IT staff.