Fancy building to-spec PCs for the Bank of England, and more? A £46m end user support contract is up for grabs

The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street needs help managing thousands of laptops, PCs and tablets

The Bank of England has said it is looking for an IT supplier to support its extensive personal computer estate in a contract which is set to be worth around £46.5m.

To get to grips with supporting 6,232 laptops, 589 desktop PCs, 2,237 tablets and around 160 printers, the publicly owned central bank of the UK is looking to appoint "a dynamic and proactive strategic partner", according to a tender notice published this week.

The End User Compute (EUC) contract seeks to establish "single supplier accountability for overall service" and is set to last for five years with an option to extend for a further two.

"We expect our partner to continuously drive improvement in the services with a goal to become operationally silent. We also expect our partner to adhere to the Bank’s values and observe a working ethos based on partnership, transparency and trust," The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, as the Bank is sometimes known, said in the tender notice.

The long list of tasks includes being a value-added reseller (VAR) for hardware and "on-demand" provision of application and software packaging, first-line service desk, and second-line desktop support.

"The Bank is seeking a supplier to drive improvement to end-user experience," it said.

The contractor will also be expected to provide remote build services for hardware including the off-site secure assembling of "Bank build" PCs. Knowledge management, such as the provision of support documentation, FAQ, a self-service portal, knowledge base, and outputs of problem management, will also be part of the deal.

The Bank expects the supplier to build and maintain standard Windows operating system associated tasks, manage group policy objects, and manage the monthly patch cycle. It also wants software and desktop application packaging.

At first, the supplier will be expected to use the Bank's BMC Remedy helpdesk system.

Founded as a private bank in 1694 during the reign of Mary II of England, the Bank of England was privately owned until it was nationalised in 1946. Tony Blair's New Labour government made it an independent public organisation in 1998, wholly owned by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of the government.

In July, The Bank of England awarded Accenture an £81.4m deal to renew its Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service, which settles more than £600bn in UK payments each working day. ®