Suppliers have until 27 April to submit bids for monster public sector IT services framework
The government has estimated that its incoming Technology Services 2 framework will be worth at least £1bn to suppliers.
In a contract notice issued on Friday, Crown Commercial Services (CCS) revealed more details of the framework, which covers a range of IT services including hardware and software support, enterprise security and data management.
Set to go live in late August, Tech Services 2 - also known as RM3804 - is the successor to the Technology Services framework, which will expire on 27 May 2017.
Its target customers will be the full gamut of public sector organisations, including central and local government and the NHS.
Suppliers have until 27 April to submit their bids for the framework, which has an estimated purse of between £1bn and £3bn over its lifespan of between two and four years.
The framework is divided into four Lots, namely: Technology Strategy and Services Design; Transition and Transformation; Operational Services; and Programmes and Large Projects.
According to the official timeline, bidders will be given a 'yay' or 'nay' on the week commencing 7 August. The end of the mandatory standstill period is slated for the week commencing 21 August, as is the agreement start date.
Although government IT frameworks have often been beset by delays in the past, CCS' sisiter Technology Products 2 framework went live last October bang on schedule.
In an interview with CRN following Technology Products 2's launch, the CCS executive in charge of the procurement hinted that eventually its respective frameworks for products and services could come together.
CCS said at the start of the process that Technology Services 2 would be developed with customers, suppliers and key stakeholders, and a bidder webinar featuring a briefing and Q&A session will take place this week.
Although Technology Services 2's £1bn to £3bn valuation is only an estimate, it dwarfs the £100m to £200m valuation CCS put on its Technology Services predecessor, which featured 85 suppliers including Softcat, Computacenter, SCC and ANS.
