The defence department has alerted the market that a major tech agreement will expire in two years’ time, with the search for a replacement deal beginning now with provider engagement
The Ministry of Defence has begun preparations for a new IT service desk deal that will be worth almost £170m to the chosen supplier.
In a newly published early-engagement commercial notice, the ministry revealed that “the current Defence IT Service Desk contract provides IT Service Desk services… to circa 220,000 authority users within the Official and Secret domains, [and] expires in June 2027”.
The notice adds: “The authority is looking to procure a new Defence IT Service Desk capability to provide continuity of these critical IT support services for defence users from this date.”
The MoD instructs potential providers that it intends to put in place a five-year agreement beginning around 10 June 2027. This deal will be worth £168m.
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The ministry says that notice is intended to “notify [suppliers] of a potential upcoming procurement and, by doing so, is keen to understand where the market stands in terms of its requirement relating to the Defence IT Service Desk”.
The online post adds: “The authority is initially interested in getting responses to a series of questions within [an] RFI (request for information). Following the receiving responses to the RFI, the authority proposes to engage in a series of industry engagements.”
The timeline and details of these engagements will be provided in due course. The initial deadline to get involved in the RFI process is 16 April.
Tech firm Capgemini has been the MoD’s long-term supplier of IT service-desk offerings. In 2023, PublicTechnology reported on a £68m contract for the company to “operate, support and maintain the tooling that supports operational service management”.
