Credit: David Pearson/CC BY-SA 2.0

The National Audit Office is spending £2m on an organisation-wide refresh of its personal-computing estate.

Newly published commercial information reveals that the public-spending watchdog entered into an eight-month contract with Northampton-based IT reseller ACS on 1 March. The deal, which runs until the end of October, covers the NAO’s “2022 main laptop refresh”, according to the contract-award notice. 

This will the entail the supply of at least 1,000 Dell Latitude 9430 laptops, as well as basic deployment services. The deal also provides the audit body with the “option for a further 300 devices within a three-year period”.

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This would comfortably cover a new machine for all of the NAO’s workforce which, as of the end of the 2021/22 year, comprised 911 permanent employees.

The device in question is described by Dell as a “semi-customisable business laptop”.

The value of the NAO contract will be in the range of £1.8m to £2.2m, depending on the number of units required. 

This equates with a cost-per-machine of between £1,800 and £2,000. The Latitude 9430 is currently retailing on Dell’s website at £2,281.

The NAO is the independent body charged with “holding government to account” on issues of public spending and major investment programmes. It is led by auditor general Gareth Davies, and works in tandem with MPs on the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.