Existing supplier Deloitte is awarded another contract to provide additional skills and assistance for project to develop new system to access online government services – which will be used throughout departments

The Government Digital Service has awarded a £16m contract to tap into external support for its work to deliver a new government-wide login system.

One Login is already being used as the means through which citizens can access a handful of services. Implementation work will really ramp up over the coming 18 months, during which time the intention is that the vast majority of services offered by departments will migrate to the new system.

Development of the tool is being led by GDS, supported by a handful of external supplier partners – by far the largest of which is Deloitte. The professional services firm has previously signed a deal with GDS, worth £7.2m, to support the creation of an identity-verification app, as well as a £12.3m contract to provide overall delivery support.

Added to that list of engagements is now a £16m deal, which came into effect on 20 July and last for an initial 12-month term, plus a potential additional year’s extension.

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Newly released commercial documents reveal that Deloitte will serve GDS as a “capability delivery partner to support the delivery of the GOV.UK One Login digital identity solution”.

The text of the contract between the two parties states that the services firm will assist the digital government unit with developing software code and, in addition to providing additional staff in the short term, will be expected to help transfer knowledge and skills to GDS to empower the organisation’s work in the longer term.

One of the key performance indicators on which Deloitte will be judged is “partnering behaviours and added value” and the expectation that “the supplier actively promotes positive collaborative working relationships, within and across the team, by acting in a transparent manner [and] shows commitment to buyer goals through adding value over and above and knowledge sharing and upskilling of GDS staff”.

The document added: “The supplier works closely with the Contracting Authority to jointly design and deliver a programme of repeatable activities and work streams to identify and build the contracting authority’s capability across DDaT skills and at different levels of seniority and experience.”

The latest contract takes the total value of deals signed with Deloitte to support the One Login programme to more than £35m.

This represents about 11.6% of the overall cost of £305m of delivering One Login, as revealed by recently published government major projects updates. The data also indicated that the implementation of the system is ultimately forecast to deliver benefits of £1.75bn.