MoJ end-user computing contract slashed by up to half

Government responds to bidder blowout criticism by revising big client device services tender

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) revised tender for its end-user computing (EUC) tower services scales the value down to £150m-£200m over five years.

The scope of the client device services tower – originally worth £225m to £300m over five years and halted in June as covered exclusively on ChannelWeb – is broad, covering a broad range of client PC, peripheral, storage related software and services, according to the MoJ website.

There is an option to extend the five years for two 12-month periods, as in the original request for tender.

However, datacentre component services are no longer in the EUC, and neither is LAN procurement – with the former being moved under the Datacentre Facilities umbrella and the latter into a WAN/LAN/Networks tranche, according to the MoJ.

The MoJ has issued some information on its website for hopeful suppliers.

The procurement process, which is part of the MoJ's Future IT Sourcing (FITS) programme, was postponed for an indefinite length of time in June after the government was criticised for letting bidders blow out the budget.

Besides end user computing, there are towers for services integration, networks, hosting and application maintenance and developments. The original contenders for the EUC tower included Computacenter, HP, Atos and Fujitsu.

At the time of the postponement, the MoJ simply told ChannelWeb that "our requirements have changed".

However, last month during a debate in the Commons, Labour MP for Hammersmith, Andy Slaughter, asked the secretary of state for justice for clarification of the reasons for the postponement.

At that time, Shailesh Vara, the Tory MP for North West Cambridgeshire, answered on behalf of the department and said part of the purpose was to open up more procurement to SMBs, using a different process as well.

"Changes are needed to the structure of some of the FITS Programme's Service Towers and is revising the scope of services to be procured," Vara said.

This was be a "material" change of scope, he said, but the MoJ remained committed to the programme nonetheless.

"This new procurement retains the broad requirement of the original, but encourages greater interest from SMEs and companies with significant volumes of SMEs in the supply chain," Vara said then.

"In the event that SMEs are not successful in their own right, SMEs will be given the option of their details being forwarded to qualifying suppliers."