Government department retains major tech supplier to help create online services to support the planned lowering of the UK voting age, as well as making good on other manifesto promises
A specialist supplier has been signed to a deal worth up to £75m intended to help “deliver the government’s manifesto commitments and other priorities” via the “development of digital elections services”.
On 9 March, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government entered into an initial two-year engagement with IT services heavyweight Atos, a recently published commercial notice reveals. The text of the contract itself indicates that London-based software-development consultancy Softwire will be a “key sub-contractor” on the agreement.
Over the course of the contract – which could be extended four times, up to a potential overall length of seven years – “the supplier will help the MHCLG elections team deliver the government’s manifesto commitments and other priorities, alongside continuing to iterate and improve our existing products and services”.
The most notable of these commitments is a pledge to lower the UK voting age to 16. Last summer, the local government ministry opened recruitment for a role leading its Elections Digital Division, with the advert specifying that preparing GOV.UK and its services for the policy was a key responsibility of the position.
Opening voting to an additional 1.5 million young people “requires changes to all our elector-facing services, making them the first interaction that many young people will have with the gov.uk estate”. Alongside the flagship Register to Vote online offering, the division is responsible for overseeing a suite of seven digital services – a portfolio which has been “rapidly expanded… over recent years”, the advert said.
To support the officials working for this unit, Atos and Softwire will be tasked with providing additional individuals and teams specialised in various digital and data disciplines.
“Requirements will vary from a full multi-disciplinary team to individual(s) to complement an existing team for a short to medium period,” the procurement notice adds. “The supplier shall provide expertise in delivery and implementation, product management, discovery and user research, business analysis, service design, development, testing and technical architecture.”
Throughout the agreement, the providers will work on various services and discrete projects.
“We expect to have a number of concurrent requirements of different sizes running through this contract, but this will vary based on need,” the notice adds.
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If it runs for its full possible term, the deal will reach its end in 2033 and is expected to be worth a total of £76.4m, inclusive of VAT. This includes a guaranteed £22m to be spent during the next two years.
The personnel provided via the deal will include professionals in roles “including delivery manager, product manager, service/UX designer, business analyst, content designer, user researcher, technical architect, data architect, developer(s), senior developer/tech lead [and] tester”, according to commercial documents.
The agreement also sets out two special terms to which the suppliers will be required to adhere.
The first is that “use of removable media is prohibited, unless specifically required and authorised by the buyer in advance”, while the second is that “any bring-your-own-device scenario must be pre-approved by the buyer and follow all restrictions and policies previously outlined by the supplier and its subcontractors”.
The deal was awarded via the £3bn Digital and Legacy Application Services which, although open to all public-sector bodies, was jointly developed by the Crown Commercial Service and HM Revenue and Customs – with the primary objective of helping the tax department upgrade legacy systems.
PublicTechnology contacted MHCLG requesting comment and more information on its digital elections work planned for the coming years.
