The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded reseller XMA a contract to provide 11,000 iPhones, with details suggesting it is paying slightly less than the normal consumer price for asset-tagged devices.

The department agreed a price of £4,181,628 for 11,000 mobile devices, £380 each. According to a document published with the contract award notice, these will be iPhone SE 2020s with 64GB of memory, which the UK Apple store sells for £399.

However, as part of the deal DWP’s devices will be supplied with waterproof and tamper-evident asset tags holding bar codes and numbers, with XMA providing the details of the tag number, IMEI identifier and serial number of each phone issued.

DWP has purchased the iPhones through a call-off from a Crown Commercial Service (CCS) framework agreement for technology products and associated services. The relevant lot, hardware and associated services, provides access to 37 suppliers.

The department agreed a price of £4,181,628 for 11,000 mobile devices, £380 each.

The department has also awarded procurement consultancy Bramble Hub a deal worth up to £4.25m to provide third-party independent support for IBM software for 24 months, in this case using the cloud support lot of CCS’s G-Cloud 12 framework agreement. Origina, which supports more than 800 IBM software products that were acquired by HCL Technologies, is listed as the subcontractor.

The title, contract agreement and supported software products have been redacted from the published version of the contract on the basis of commercial confidentiality, although detail on the ending of the contract suggests the software in question runs with an Oracle database. The consultancy services included will be delivered at DWP’s Peel Park office in Blackpool if Covid-19 allows.