Channel anxious following 'slight delay' in Technology Products 2 announcement

Crown Commercial Service was due to release 'intention to award' notices yesterday but has today confirmed delay

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has confirmed a delay in announcing the intention to award notices for the Technology Products 2 framework.

Yesterday (19 September) was earmarked as the day suppliers would be told if they had been successful in their application for a place on the framework. CRN understands some public sector teams at resellers were anxiously waiting for the results yesterday.

However CCS confirmed in an email to potential suppliers this afternoon, seen by CRN, that there is a "slight delay" in announcing who has been successful.

The email stated: "Please be aware that there is a slight delay in issuing the results of the Technology Products 2 procurement.

"We will issue them as soon as we can. I apologise for any problems or concern that this delay is causing you."

When contacted by CRN for further comment, CCS said: "As with all framework agreements, a thorough process is undertaken to appoint suppliers, we are working hard to complete this process as soon as possible."

Speaking to CRN, Chris Farthing, managing director at Advice Cloud, said a short delay in the timetable for large frameworks is not unusual.

He said: "I spoke to CCS last week and they said everything is on track and they were talking about the end of the month.

"The timeline they put out that said yesterday was always provisional. It's a very large framework, so I wouldn't be unduly concerned about it.

"People who are used to G-Cloud will be expecting it [the announcement] on a particular day but for the larger frameworks a week's delay is nothing unusual."

Neil Murphy, UK group managing director at Bytes, who has applied to be on the framework, told CRN that he had expected to hear something yesterday, but added he was not too concerned about the delay.

"We wait with bated breath," he said. "You sort of become accustomed to delays in these sorts of matters. Our whole public sector team is waiting."

Technology Products 2 is the successor to the £6bn Technology Products framework, which finally went live last November after facing delays due to legal challenges.

The upcoming framework will focus more on quality, not price, CCS's category leader Kelvin Lee told CRN earlier this year.