The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is to issue tenders for several IT services, at a combined estimated cost of £782m.
In a prior information notice on the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) website, the MoJ explains that it is looking for suppliers for service integration and management (SIAM), specialist security services, end user computing services, networks, hosting, mobile telephony, application development maintenance, and programme management.
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The contract, which is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), is divided into lots. MoJ said it is particularly interested in engaging with small and medium-sized enterprises to help it to understand how best to shape contract opportunities that are attractive to SMEs, either by means of a direct contract or as a sub-contractor to a "prime contractor".
The first lot described in the notice is for the SIAM function, and will be a five-year contract for an estimated cost of £90m.
The second lot is for specialist security services such as protective monitoring, forensic analysis and IT health checks and is worth £25m. MoJ said it is still evaluating the packaging and procurement options for this lot and could choose to further divide the services into sub-lots.
The end user computing lot is split into two main components: the first is infrastructure and devices, for which the responsibilities for the contractor would include the provision, management and maintenance of desktops, laptops, local IT hosting environments, storage and access to data, local area networks and workplace productivity applications.
The second component is for common services such as authentication, messaging facilities and directory services. The MoJ intends to use the PSN connectivity and services framework agreements currently being tendered by the Cabinet Office for the five-year £220m contract.
All of the remaining lots - the £230m networks contract, the £180m application development, maintenance and support lot, £20m programmes management service lot and the £7m mobile telephony contract - are for a contract term of five years.
