The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published a tender for software application development, maintenance and testing work.

The notice published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 11 March 2009, says the deal will be worth £200m to £400m.

The requirements are for "application deployment services including application development, application maintenance and support, software configuration services, application testing and integration services, service transition, licence support and maintenance".

The DWP said it was currently looking at its future contracting strategy and expects to advertise formally its service for application deployment via a tender later this year which will include further details on scope, length and value of the contract.

"We are still working on the detail of the requirements however the new contract(s) will enable us to source application deployment services for the whole department over time. Based on the existing Tower structure, application deployment comprises application development and application maintenance and support services," the DWP said in a statement.