UK.gov to chuck up to £5B to gang of back office software vendors

Framework deal set to run until 2029 as central govt transitions to new ERP SaaS model

The UK government has gone to market shopping for back office software in a tender which could be worth up to £5 billion ($6.4 billion).

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) — an executive agency and trading fund that also sits within the Cabinet Office — has fired the starting pistol in the formal competition allowing software companies and services partners to bid for ERP, HR and payroll, financial accounting, procurement and supply chain management, CRM, productivity workflow technologies, content services, service portal, integration software, mobility and accessibility, as well as support and maintenance for these services.

To say back office technology will be a busy place in UK central government is something of an understatement. Whitehall departments are currently in the throes of restructuring their arrangements and moving to software-as-a-service

Buyers on the framework, which does not provide a guaranteed spending figure, could come from central government or other public sector agencies including local authorities, health service, police, fire and rescue, education and devolved administrations.

The new deal, which is set to start in January next year, “will provide a route to market for organizations wishing to purchase software and support for back office systems, directly from the software vendor,” a contract notice said.

The contract is set to come to an end in January 2029, a figure which has been revised from an earlier market engagement. According to a prior information notice published in December 2023, the contract would end in February 2027. While the length of the contract has been extended, the maximum value of the contact has been slimmed down from the £9 billion ($11.6 billion) originally advertised in the earlier notice.

The framework, called Back Office 2, is set to replace Back Office, awarded in 2021. The earlier deal was awarded to a 30-strong gang of vendors and was set to be worth up to £1.2 billion. Winners on that framework included Atos, Capita, Fujitsu Services, SAP, and Deloitte Back.

To say back office technology will be a busy place in UK central government is something of an understatement. Whitehall departments are currently in the throes of restructuring their arrangements and moving to software-as-a-service.

Bundled together in different groups, the departments have already started the procurement process, with HMRC launching the £500 million Unity programme in December, the Department for Work and Pensions leading the £934 million ($1.15 million) Synergy programme and Department for Science, Innovation & Technology heading up the £215.6 million Matrix cluster. ®