In recent weeks the Whitehall department has entered into £1m-plus engagements with three UK firms, respectively covering the provision of additional staff, tech hardware, and expert support for software tools

The Department for Work and Pensions has signed a £15m-plus contract to provide its data operations with additional expertise over the coming months.

The DWP has also awarded a pair of other seven-figure deals, covering the provision of staff devices and support for key applications.

On 14 March the department entered into a two-year engagement with central London-based consultancy Olive Jar Digital. The contract – which is valued at £15.6m – is headed “provision of DDaT (digital, data and technology) resources for DWP data practice”, according to a newly published commercial notice.

The online document adds that, between now and 2027, the agreement will offer the department’s data unit access to additional staff in a defined set of specialisms.

“This contract is for the provision of DDaT roles to support the Data Practice within DWP Digital,” the notice says. “Only specific in-scope roles can be called off from the contract.”

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On the same day as this agreement came info effect, the department also commenced another significant tech contract: a £2m deal for the “purchase of mobile handset devices to meet demand”, according to online procurement records.

This agreement ran for little more than two weeks, and concluded at the end of March. The engagement was fulfilled by Sync – a device and software reseller registered as GMB Technologies Ltd.

Following on from these two multimillion-pound deals, on 1 April the department entered into a three-year agreement with Symity: a UK tech company that bills itself as “the Microsoft Teams experts”.

The firm has been retained by the DWP to provide “development and support of Microsoft-based applications and services”, according to another commercial notice. This contract runs until 31 March 2028 and is valued at £1.2m.

The three IT and digital deals are cumulatively worth £18.8m.