Department seeks supplier to support potential six-month investigation

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The Home Office is auditing its incumbent IT systems to help it prioritise investment and clear the path for the implementation of a new digital, data and technology strategy.

The department has published a contract notice seeking a supplier to fulfil the second phase of the process. During this stage, the chosen firm will be asked to help “enhance” the data gathered during an initial inventory-taking exercise being conducted by software consultancy ThoughtWorks, which signed a £233,100 contract with the Home Office in November.

The successful bidder for the second phase of the audit will be expected to “develop the data to a greater level of detail and to bring in more systems into scope”.

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The Home Office said: “In order to implement the DDaT strategy, we need up-to-date information about our existing IT estate. We need to enhance the audit data we have so that we can prioritise where the CTO function needs to provide advice and assurance, to identify where there are opportunities for shared technology services, and to gauge which services are being or can be delivered in a product-centric way. We would like to capture business entities, identify business capabilities and identify where there is duplication. The inventory will feed into system road-mapping and life cycle planning.”

It added: “We would like to explore tooling and maintenance options and to continue to improve data visualisation. We also need to increase the scope of the existing audit to include our internal-facing business services.”

The first phase of the audit will result in the Home Office agreeing approximately 20% of its estate as a priority for investment.

The second stage will be conducted over the course of a three-month contract, which could be extended by up to six additional months.

The winning bidder will be expected to visit Home Office sites to gather information on the technology in use across the department and then report back.

Bids for the project are open until 24 March, ahead of a scheduled start date of 1 May. An estimated financial value has not been given.