SCC bags £91m deal after contract to support HMRC system initially set at £85m

Take a hike

SCC, a UK-based tech services and reselling dynasty, has won a five-year contract extension with UK tax collector HMRC worth £91m for IT software and services.

According to a contract award notice from December last year, the five-year extension to a relationship that began in 2016 would be awarded for £85m. Perhaps SCC did some last-minute negotiations. We've invited Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to explain the valuation.

The award, apparently made without competition, is set to see SCC provide software licences and support services in partnership with IBM to keep the Declaration Management Service (DMS) system up and running.

With the option of an additional two years, the contract purports to offer updated licences for requirements and additional modules and professional services in support of the development of Customs Declaration Processing.

In a pre-canned statement, Richard Reader, head of public sector at SCC, said the products and services provided are supposed to "help this critical Government department evolve its digital strategy."

It's been a busy few weeks in the IT market for Britain's tax collection agency. HMRC signed IBM for a 15-month, £11m contract to help exit three data centres by June 2022, under the banner of Securing Our Technical Future.

Also this month, IT consultancy and services biz Capgemini signed a £51m agreement to continue supporting UK tax systems first created under a contract HMRC was planning to replace since 2015. The French firm was awarded the three-year deal to support HMRC's Enterprise Tax Management Platform (ETMP) and Enterprise Operations (EOPS) Run & Associated Change Services as a sole supplier under a single lot, according to a contract award notice. It began work to build and support the systems under the controversial £10bn Aspire contract, a joint venture between Capgemini, Fujitsu, and HMRC first agreed in 2004.

Other deals include an award of up to £7.9m to Fujitsu for pre-production environment web solutions and application development, and Softcat was awarded a deal worth up to £20m for a Microsoft Azure reseller agreement. ®