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UK government rings £1.5bn dinner bell for software design and implementation, 54 vendors come running

Though framework agreement 'cannot guarantee any business'

The UK government has awarded 25 suppliers places on a framework deal for software design and implementation which could be worth up to £1.5bn.

Big names like Deloitte, Accenture, and Fujitsu join the list of tender winners who will be expected to provide the services "required when deploying a new cloud-based ERP system or upgrading a legacy IT system," according to a contract award notice.

The Crown Commercial Service, the commercial wing of the Cabinet Office, has put together the framework deal initially for two and a half years with the option extend for up to 18 months.

Public bodies able to access the terms of the agreement include central government departments and all other UK public bodies, including local authorities, health, police, fire and rescue, education, and devolved administrations.

Although £1.5bn might seem a princely sum, the Crown Commercial Service is at pains to underscore that it "cannot guarantee any business through the framework agreement."

The deal sets out a requirement for software design and implementation services to cover strategy, architecture, design, software selection, impact assessment, implementation, integration services, data migration, change management, training, onboarding, and business process automation.

It comes during a period of transition for central and local government alike as they plan to ditch on-prem or cloud-hosted systems and migrate to software-as-a-service to get their business applications.

For example, Whitehall department plans come under a shared service strategy, launched in March, which groups ministries and other units into five shared service centres in their move to SaaS.

In local government, Norfolk, Surrey, and East Sussex councils have all committed to move to SaaS systems, for example. ®

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