CCS out to tender for technology services framework worth up to £2bn

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has published a pan-government framework contract worth up to £2bn over four years.

This is the third iteration of its technology services framework for central government and its arm’s-length bodies, NHS organisations and local authorities.

It is divided into eight lots, with the first covering technology strategy and service design. This includes capability analysis, technology gap assessments, road-mapping and business models, and is worth £120m.

Lot 2 is worth £260m and covers transition and transformation, including risk analysis and management, programme management and decommissioning legacy services.

The contract notice said the public sector bodies “have a need for a technology service framework agreement, which will deliver local, regional and national technology service”.

It added: “Where requested by the buyer, suppliers will provide a range of services to deliver full network infrastructure management to buyers. 

“Services may include but are not limited to: planning, delivering, operating, managing (including security), supporting and monitoring the on-premise local area network (LAN) infrastructure and/or its assets.” 

Lot 3 is divided into four sub-lots and covers a range of operational services including end-user services, operational management, technical management and application and data management.

Lot 3 is worth a total of £940m, while lot 4 covers major services transformation programmes and is worth £580m and lot 5 covers service integration and management and is worth £100m.

To be eligible for a place on lot 4, suppliers have to be successful on the previous lots.

The contract notice follows a prior information notice published in May 2020, but at the time, the CCS envisioned the framework would be worth only £500m.

Suppliers have until 3 December to apply to be part of the framework.

In August 2020, the CCS published a similar framework contract notice for IT management services for NHS and social care worth £800m. That framework will cover services for DevOps, digital definition, build and transition, end-to-end development and management, according to the notice. The CCS hopes to establish the framework and award contracts by the end of January 2021.

In September 2020, CCS also went live with the 12th iteration of the government’s G-Cloud procurement framework, with 5,224 suppliers being awarded a place on the framework.