Defra to award lucrative outsourcing deal

The Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) is to outsource its IT systems in a deal worth an estimated £65-80m a year.

The contract will cover existing services and infrastructure managed by the department's central eBusiness directorate, and future initiatives arising from the wider 'Developing Defra' strategy. It is due to be awarded in 2004 and will run for up to 10 years.

'Relinquishing technical delivery of our IT should enable us to concentrate more on our core responsibility of delivering policies, including making best use of the IT which has been developed for us,' said Defra permanent secretary Brian Bender.

The lengthy procurement process began last week with the issuing of a briefing pack for potential suppliers. An invitation to tender is expected by February 2003.

Defra is one of the last significant government departments with a major in-house IT capability and should be in a position to learn the lessons of its predecessors, says Nigel Lee, practice director at public sector consultancy Hedra.

'Defra needs to build in a mechanism to accommodate changes in requirements over the life of the contract.

'It also needs to build in effective exit and transition mechanisms so at the end of the contract there are efficient procedures to manage through to the next one.

'We are getting to the point where some of the early outsourcing deals are being re-competed and the lack of appropriate provisions for exit and transition are becoming apparent,' he said.

Nick Kalisperas, egovernment programme manager for supplier body Intellect said: 'There are contracts being issued and implemented now which look towards meeting the 2005 egovernment targets.

'Those targets need to be met, but within that there has to be an element of flexibility to ensure whatever happens after 2005, it doesn't require tearing up the contract and starting again.'