The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is seeking suppliers for a new IT framework, which it hopes will better support economic, standard and integrated services across the organisation.
In an Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) notice, the MoJ explained that the ICT contracts that currently exist within the department were negotiated before the creation of the MoJ.
"As a result, the contracts are broadly aligned to business units within the MoJ (HM Courts & Tribunals Service, the National Offender Management Service and the Headquarters, for example) rather than supporting economic, standard and integrated services across the MoJ," it said.
The legacy contracts are due to expire in the next few years, with a Future IT Sourcing Programme (FITS) to replace them. The FITS programme involves procuring separate contracts or "service towers" for the delivery of ICT services across the MoJ.
The "hosting tower" is to be split into two separate requirements: hosting services and data centre services, with the former being covered in the contract notice, and a separate notice for the latter to be published at a later date.
"The hosting services requirement is likely to include the provision, installation, maintenance and operation of ICT systems to deliver centralised hosting, as well as providing a data centre LAN for hosting services, an ITIL service wrap, and possibly the inter data centre WAN," the tender reads.
"The hosting supplier will also be responsible for managing data centre services, on behalf of MoJ, so as to deliver an end-to-end hosting service. The MoJ will contract separately for the data centre services, which are likely to include data centre space from at least two locations, fittings, facility services and facilities for the hosting supplier. The hosting supplier may also be required to manage other hosting related services on behalf of the MoJ," it adds.
The three-year contract, which is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), is worth between £54m and £78m. There is an option for the MoJ to extend the contract by two further 12-month periods.
