Public procurement notice: Modification Of A Contract/Concession During Its Term
Published: 2016-02-25
Buyer: Department for Work and Pensions
Country: UK
Region: UNITED KINGDOM
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated procedure
CPV classification: 72000000 | 72500000

Technical requirements: Υπηρεσίες τεχνολογίας των πληροφοριών: παροχή συμβουλών, ανάπτυξη λογισμικού, Διαδίκτυο και υποστήριξη
Technology Transformation: Extension of SSBA in respect of AD and AMS Service Towers for the purposes of transition in-house and exit.
The Service Provider awarded the ACCORD (Access to CORporate Data) Project is required to provide a range of IT services and skills; to perform certain cross-cutting operational services (e.g. help desk); and act as the core IT services provider to support client facing, employer and some corporate business processes. These include:
The estimated value of the application development and application maintenance and support services forming part of the ACCORD Project, which are the subject of this modification notice, is set out in section V.2.4).
Whilst Section IV.2.1) refers to a notice dated in the year 2000, such a notice was actually published in 1996.
The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (SI 2015 No 102) provide for aggrieved parties who have been harmed or are at risk of harm by breach of the rules to take action in the High Court (England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Any such action must be brought promptly (general within three months). Where a contract has been entered into the Court may, depending on the circumstances, award damages, order the Contracting Authority to pay a fine, and/or order that the duration of the contract be shortened.
The Contracting Authority receives the benefit of applications development, maintenance and support services (AD and AMS service towers) pursuant to an allocation of business known as the Standard Services Business Allocation (SSBA) under the ACCORD Project which was awarded under the competitive form of the negotiated procedure following an advertised OJEU contract notice (96/S151-90900/EN). The SSBA is structured into a number of service towers, each of which sets out service requirements and related commercial terms applicable to the various IT services. The AD and AMS service towers are due to expire on 29.2.2016.
For technical reasons set out in Section VII.2.2), the Contracting Authority is obliged to extend the existing contract. This is necessary to ensure continuation of the business critical AD and AMS service towers for a period of up to 2 years whilst the Contracting Authority transitions the AD and AMS service towers to in-house delivery within this timescale.
For the Contracting Authority to comply with its statutory duties, it is imperative that the administration of welfare state benefits and payments are maintained without disruption. Such payments are a critical part of the Contracting Authority's duties and the supporting IT infrastructure, AD and AMS service towers, is designated as business critical. Whilst the Contracting Authority is actively taking steps to transition in-house the critical elements of the AD and AMS service towers to its own management team, the Contracting Authority is obliged to extend the existing contract for an estimated duration of up to 2 years to ensure that critical elements of the current service is maintained without disruption. Such an extension will allow the Contracting Authority to minimise any unacceptable risks of service transition and delivery failure that could prevent the Contracting Authority complying with its statutory duties.
— Transitioning these services immediately would introduce an unacceptable level of delivery risk and would not be practicable due to the complexity of the systems and residual knowledge required to manage the underlying applications;
— This extension recognises that the Application Support service is on the critical path for everything the Contracting Authority takes live across all vendors and covers technologies uniquely used by the Contracting Authority in the world;
— Many of the applications within the scope of the contracted services are no longer able to be purchased on the market on a like-for-like basis and so this would provide an additional barrier to provision by another economic operator;
— The end to end service is fragmented between several tower contracts and in some areas the technical parameters within the systems are so intricate that no other provider would be able to legitimately provide the service.