Another departmental grouping established to deploy unified technology has chosen its providers for licensing and integration deals, which come into effect this month and last for up to 15 years
The Unity shared services cluster led by HM Revenue and Customs has picked SAP and Deloitte as its core software and technical delivery partners, and awarded the two firms deals worth a cumulative £450m.
On behalf of the cluster – which also includes the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – HMRC entered into three long-term contracts on 1 November.
The largest of these is with SAP, which will provide the trio of departments with a shared infrastructure of core back-office programmes. The agreement, which is worth £295m inclusive of VAT, covers the provision of “a combined single instance software-as-a-service solution… [for] shared finance, procurement, HR and payroll services”, according to a newly published commercial notice.
Alongside this primary engagement, the cluster has also signed a separate near-£15m deal with Concur – the SAP-owned company specialised in software for expenses, corporate travel management, and invoicing.
Both these arrangements run for an initial term of 10 years, and can then be extended by two further periods of three and two years, respectively – up to a maximum lifespan of 15 years.
As with the other clusters, the Unity group’s licensing contract is accompanied by a discrete arrangement with a systems integrator partner – in this case Deloitte – which will oversee the technical delivery of the shared software rollout in the coming months and years. Although deals were signed separately, software publishers and SIs were required to team up and bid jointly.
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Once tax is included, the Unity agreement with Deloitte will be worth £144m to the consulting firm over the next half-decade.
During that time, the cluster requires “a technical delivery partner delivering systems-integration services… to ensure the delivery of high quality, value-for-money, shared finance, procurement, HR and payroll services”.
The Deloitte engagement can be extended for a further two years, if required.
All three of the departments contained in the Unity segment already use SAP back-office software; HMRC and MHCLG contract directly with the vendor, while DfT works through an implementation partner: Arvato.
The commercial notice announcing the new agreements adds: “The objectives of the Unity programme are to: design and operate a centralised finance, procurement, HR and payroll shared service function; operate a standard set of processes that are fit for the purposes of all Unity departments; design, build, deploy and operate a standard, single set of systems that are scaled to the future and that deliver performant services underpinning the business processes; and migrate data from the Unity departments’ existing systems to the new target Unity systems such that each business process continues to operate without disruption.”
Unity is the third cluster to award its software and SI deals, after the Synergy grouping of DWP, Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Defra , which last month signed contracts with Oracle and IBM worth a cumulative £850m. Shortly after this, the Matrix cluster – which includes nine departments, broadly grouped around Whitehall’s most policy-focused agencies – picked Workday and Cognizant to fulfil engagements collectively valued at almost £175m.
The two remaining departmental collectives yet to award deals are the Defence grouping ,including the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces, and an Overseas cluster, largely comprised of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.
Last year the government projected that the shared services drive will save £1.8bn over the next 15 years.
