Whitehall’s digital unit reveals plans to enter into a contract of up to five years in length and covering the provision of software to enable assessment of performance and security

The Government Digital Service has revealed plans to invest more than £7m in an “observability tool” to provide round-the-clock monitoring of the One Login platform – as usage of the government sign-in tool grows to encompass potentially tens of millions of users.

In a recently published commercial pipeline notice, GDS sheds light on an intention early next year to issue a tender for a “One Login observability tool [that] will empower developers and support teams to investigate system issues with confidence, and identify problems before they escalate”.

The notice provides potential bidders for the contract with a range of technical requirements, and sets a stipulation that the software platform should enable One Login to increase adoption, while also maintaining the necessary security and performance standards.

“We are seeking full-stack observability of end-to-end journeys, an intuitive interface, well-tuned alerting, compatibility with serverless architecture, compatibility with open standards (e.g. OTEL, OCFF), and secure UK-based hosting,” the notice says. “Insights from this tool will provide continuous visibility of SLIs, SLOs (service-level indicators and objectives) and error budgets across the service, empowering decision-making at all levels of the organisation and ensuring that One Login operates as intended.”

The document adds: “This tool is an essential part of our observability strategy, enabling One Login to meet critical reliability and security commitments and scale to higher volumes – all while maintaining a smooth and responsive experience for users.”

Related content

• One Login needs to manage risk of ‘complex roadmap and dependency on departments’, annual report finds
• GDS identifies ‘small but significant margin’ of One Login users that lack evidence for verification
• Defra retains £6m deal for customer ID system – but intends to integrate One Login

GDS expects to go to market and open bidding around early February, and intends to enter into a contract with its chosen supplier in August 2026. This engagement will last for an initial term of three years, plus potential extensions of up to two additional years. The deal is expected to be worth £7.2m to the winning bidder.

Figures recently referenced by GDS officials indicate that more than 13 million people have already used One Login, which has been deployed across 110 government services. The service is likely to accrue millions more users as it is rolled out by some of Whitehall’s biggest departments – not least HM Revenue and Customs, which will use One Login to replace Government Gateway, which has registered more than 50 million accounts during its 25-year lifespan.

Plans for the deployment of the observability tool to monitor One Login’s performance and resilience come at the end of a year in which the sign-in tool has faced uncomfortable questions about its security. The scrutiny has come following reports of flaws identified in red-teaming exercises, and even the loss of certification against government’s formal digital identity standards framework – which is operated the GDS parent organisation the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Ministers recently claimed that the One Login team is “working closely” with a key technology supplier to help regain the badge.

Several months ago PublicTechnology also revealed that the end date for completing delivery of the new government-wide sign-in system has been formally pushed back by three years, with additional extra investment likely to add up to hundreds of millions of pounds. But government has insisted that this did not constitute a delay against the previously scheduled timeline – but rather an expansion stemming from the success of the project’s implementation so far.