Supplier sought to support rollout of advance border control service
Credit: Steve Parsons/PA
The Home Office is looking for a commercial partner that can help deliver a technology platform that allows security officials to “assess the threat posed by individuals who are about to travel to and from the UK”.
The team responsible for the department’s Digital Services at the Border (DSAB) programme has issued a potential £20m contract notice looking for a “delivery partner” to support the rollout of a new service dubbed “advance border control” (ABC). The service will be used by police and Border Force officers, as well as “other key stakeholders”.
“Existing Home Office threat-assessment systems are approaching end of service life and service support,” the notice said. “The DSAB programme is looking to replace one of these systems with the new ABC service. ABC will ensure continuity of business services through replacement of existing capabilities, and act as a platform for innovation to enable business transformation through the delivery of new capabilities.”
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The winning bidder will be tasked with delivering “outcome-based packages of work aligned to the DSAB Programme roadmap”. The chosen supplier “will own the end-to-end delivery of each capability”, the Home Office said.
ABC is already in beta phase, and the delivery partner will join an existing Croydon-based team comprised of civil servants, individual contractors, and other suppliers. Work conducted so far includes the creation of “an application to support the interrogation and visualisation of data… [and] an application for checking travel history data”, according to the contract notice.
Bidding for the contract is open until 20 December, with a deal of up to 24 months in length due to commence on 4 March. The contract could be worth as much as £10m a year.
