The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has added a year to its contract with Tata Consultancy Services for support of the Children’s Platform technology estate.
The extension, which came into effect at the end of March, is worth £14.6 million on top of the £36 million from the initial contract agreed in 2018.
According to the extension notice, it has been necessary due to the prospect of “inevitable service disruption” created by finding an alternative supplier to take over at short notice.
The most significant element of the contract involves supporting the Child Maintenance Service 2012 System, with new developments for business and technical requirements taking in a number of applications and suppliers.
It also covers the rest of the Child Maintenance Group’s (CMG) digital technology.
“Technical (including interoperability) reasons prevent a change of contractor,” the notice says.
“Significant elements of the CMG IT estate are based on tightly coupled, highly customised commercial off-the-shelf products. Detailed functional knowledge of the customisations to support CMG’s processes is required in addition to product knowledge. This functional knowledge rests with the incumbent supplier.
“Transferring responsibility for managing, supporting and modifying the solution to another supplier without having completed CMG’s planned key business and transformation initiatives would therefore carry a high risk of disruption to service continuity, with elements that another supplier may be unable to support or replicate.”
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