Tax agency is one of various departments to have used heat and motion sensors via a £4m commercial arrangement put in place by the Ministry of Justice three years ago

HM Revenue and Customs has agreed a six-figure extension to a contract for technology to monitor desk occupancy, while it works on implementing a “strategic solution” to provide the same functionality in the long term.

On 1 April, the tax department expects to enter into an initial one-year engagement with FM:Systems – the owner of the OccupEye system, which uses heat and motion sensors to monitor and report on the utilisation of desks, meeting rooms and other office facilities. The agreement, which can be extended for a further year at the tax department’s discretion, is valued at almost £218,000, according to a recently published contract notice.

HMRC already uses the tool to monitor three of its offices – but plans to deploy an alternative in the longer term.

“This procurement is for a web-based reporting solution to measure and report on desk and room utilisation,” the notice says. “It will be provided by a physical sensor recording motion and those sensors then sending this information to the cloud where an agreed set of reports provide the occupancy data.”

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The document adds: “HMRC is looking at options around a strategic solution. However, progress on this solution has been delayed, so a HMRC continuation of this tactical solution in the current three sites only for a further 12 months with the option to extend for up to 12 months is required. HMRC therefore requires OccupEye Gold Level maintenance for the existing estate of sensors across the three sites, dashboard analytics hosting and SmartView Cloud Analytics Dashboard access.”

The department hopes that the replacement technology will be ready by April 2027, but the notice says “an extension may be required if the long term strategic solution cannot be put into place before the end of the initial term of this contract”.

The current tool was “deployed into HMRC as part of a trial” led by the Ministry of Justice on behalf of government. The previous deal with the supplier – awarded by the MoJ and covering the provision of the heat and motion sensors used for monitoring by various departments – was signed in late 2022 and valued at £4m.

HMRC’s extension and continuation of these arrangements was directly awarded to FM:Systems without any competitive process “as the existing hardware installed across three separate HMRC offices is compatible only with the incumbent supplier’s software”, according to the notice.

“This means that changing suppliers would create disproportionate technical and resource challenges, [and] that would impact business operations and not demonstrate commercial value or provide the most economically advantageous outcome,” the document adds.