Successor to IT Managed Services framework has lots aimed at increasing presence of small suppliers
The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has pushed the government’s agenda of breaking up big IT contracts with a new procurement agreement, Technology Services, for IT managed services to the public sector.
It has been set up as a successor to the IT Managed Services framework and developed with the Government Digital Service, aimed at helping public authorities comply with the ‘digital by default’ agenda.
The new arrangement takes in 85 suppliers of specialist services, more than half of which are small and medium businesses, and has been designed to help buyers break down large supplier contracts into a number smaller deals.
Although it has 11 lots, as with the previous contract, they have been restructured to extend the scope for smaller suppliers. It is notable that fewer lots now contain a reference to availability as part of an overall managed service.
In addition, data centre provision has been dropped, reflecting the recent creation of the Crown Hosting Data Centres.
The lots in the new agreement cover: help/service desk; desktop support; network management; network and content security; infrastructure and platform maintenance and support; audit services and asset management; IT infrastructure transition services and delivery; service integration; disaster recovery/business continuity; back-up and data services; and asset disposal.
Savings picture
The CCS is aiming to building a long term picture of savings by requiring buyers to provide data on their procurement, and their incumbent services, to create a customer benchmark record.
It has provided a benchmark service against which the purchase price can be compared to provide an estimate of savings. If this is not possible it wants to assess the price of a purchase against that from a mini-competition process.
The organisations added that the agreement should help public authorities towards complying with the ‘digital by default’ agenda, and that customers are expected to come primarily from central and local government and NHS trusts.
The move is the latest in the campaign, launched with the election of the coalition government in 2010, to break down the dependence on large single supplier deals in parts of the public sector. It derived from Conservative Party policy before the election of that year.
IT Managed Services has been in place since August 2010 and is scheduled to be terminated this August.
Picture from gov.uk, Open Government Licence v3.0
