A MASSIVE contract to ensure the smooth running of flexitime for the whole of Scotland's civil service has been won by an award-winning York company.

Mitrefinch, the time and attendance software experts of Clifton Moor, beat strong competition for the project which entails providing the Scottish Executive with its time and attendance system (TMS).

The TMS software, which will be rolled out across six sites in Edinburgh and Glasgow, also includes an employee self-service module which allows the staff to clock in and out online using their PCs as well as being able to book their own holidays and time off without paperwork.

The exact financial details of the contract is undisclosed, but it is believed to be a six-figure sum.

Tanya Wootton, marketing manager for Mitrefinch, which last month retained its Best Use Of New Technology title in the 2005 Evening Press Business Awards, said: "We had huge competition as you would expect given that this was a prestigious contract for the civil service for the whole of the devolved government for Scotland.

"We were absolutely thrilled to have won. We put a lot of effort into demonstrating not only the technological capability of our systems but that professionalism of our organisation was great enough to handle it."

Mitrefinch recently recruited two extra software developers as well as technical and software engineers. Ms Wootton said: "This contract with others means we have taken a quantum leap in size and our numbers now stand at 87."

"We are hoping that this will give us even more momentum in the public sector, where, as a result of this win in Scotland, we now will have about 100 installations in the UK. We also operate in the island of Ireland through a sister company and we have offices in Sydney and, more recently, Toronto."

Updated: 11:02 Thursday, December 01, 2005