After work on the UK’s post-Brexit digital trade system is suspended for 16 months, attention turns to the implications for the commercial agreement that represents half the project’s delivery cost
Having paused work on the £200m Single Trade Window project, HM Revenue and Customs is assessing any potential impact on tens of millions of pounds in commercial agreements – although no formal dispute settlement process has yet been launched.
The Single Trade Window (STW) programme is intended to provide traders with a single digital system for managing their post-Brexit interactions with authorities, while helping government better manage customs data.
Having begun work in 2020, the £200m scheme was scheduled to conclude implementation in March 2027. But, as of the spending review and budget delivered last month, the programme has been formally suspended for at least the next 16 months.
“In the context of financial challenges, the government is pausing delivery of the UK Single Trade Window in 2025/26,” online GOV.UK guidance says. “As part of its efforts to support businesses trading across the UK border, the government will consider the role of the Single Trade Window and will provide an update as part of the next phase of the Spending Review, reporting in late spring 2025.”
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It adds: “The first strategic release of Single Trade Window functionality, including the user interface for safety and security, will not be launched this financial year.”
In 2023, HMRC signed a potential £100m deal with Deloitte – working alongside vendor IBM – to serve as the major technology delivery partner supporting the rollout of the scheme. The possible value of the agreement represents a little over half of the estimated overall STW project delivery cost of £198m.
Financial secretary to the Treasury Lord Livermore said that the tax agency is currently considering how the suspension of work on the digital border programme might impact existing commercial agreements – including the core deal with Deloitte.
“Following the decision to pause work on the Single Trade Window, HMRC is working with its delivery partner to assess the impact of this decision on existing contracts, including an assessment of delivery to date,” he said, in response to a written parliamentary question from Conservative peer Baroness Neville-Rolfe. “There is no formal dispute resolution process running.”
According to commercial documents published when the agreement was awarded, Deloitte was retained to serve as “a technology delivery partner that can co-design, build, operate and maintain a market leading digital platform for the UK STW”.
The contact notice adds: “The chosen supplier will need to work flexibly with the STW programme and its delivery partners across HMG departments to ensure the service design and delivery of the STW is fit for now and for the future, to enable the range of ambitious border transformations that government is undertaking. These ambitions include the integration of supply chain data into HMG’s border model and ultimately implementation of the ‘ecosystem of trust model’ which HMG is currently piloting with industry. The contract with the chosen technical delivery partner will include clear mechanisms that will enable both the buyer and the supplier to be responsive to future changes that the Government wishes to implement at the border, supporting the cross-government and cross-nation evolution of the UK border.”
Having officially launched four years ago, the latest set of government major project data says that the scheme is intended to “provide a seamless customer experience by delivering a digital gateway that serves as a single point of interaction between users and all UK border processes and systems and ensure that available data, information and events provide greatest value to traders and government”.
As of the end of the 2022/23 fiscal year, the programme was assigned an ‘amber’ delivery confidence rating by government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
This indicates that: “Successful delivery of the project to time, cost and quality appears feasible but significant issues already exist requiring management attention. These appear resolvable at this stage and, if addressed promptly, should not present a cost [or] schedule overrun.”
