The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government becomes the second major Whitehall department this week to award a multimillion pound contract to access support for user centred design projects
The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has signed a deal potentially worth tens of millions of pounds to access support for its most pressing work to develop policy and new digital services in the coming months.
Last week the department entered into an initial two-year agreement with Surrey-based digital consultancy Scrumconnect. The deal provides MHCLG with the ability to issue individual statements of work to intended to address “urgent requirements for user-centred policy design expertise”, according to the text of the contract.
The document adds that the supplier will be expected to assist with “the design of user centred policies and services; this support will scope, design, and deliver policy and service projects”.
The agreement only commits to initial spending of £120,000 – but, “subject to budget approvals”, has a ceiling of £19m during the two-year lifespan of the deal.
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“Spend/ further work will be dependent on the successful completion of SoWs as the contract progresses,” the contract adds.
MHCLG has the option to extend the engagement by a further 12 months.
As part of a recent bid to recruit a new deputy director, the ministry’s digital directorate revealed that, in the coming months, it would have a particular “focus on building and running re-useable services that can be used to drive efficiencies throughout the department and in local government”.
The MCHLG is second major Whitehall department this month to sign a multimillion-pound deal to support the delivery of user-centred design services. On 7 October the Home Office entered into a potential £14m agreement with Capgemini intended to help the department “scale user-centred design capabilities to meet demand”.