Buying Solutions signs £4.5bn deal with Atos Origin, HP and Fujitsu

Deal is one of the public sector's largest framework agreements in history

Suppliers will be expected to provide a wide range of desktop services across different government departments

The government's IT procurement partner, Buying Solutions, has signed a £4.5bn desktop deal with Fujitsu, Atos Origin and HP for the provision of services across several government departments.

The deal is part of one of the public sector's largest framework agreements in history and will last for four years.

The suppliers will be expected to provide a wide range of desktop services across different government departments with requirements for more than 1,500 staff.

The equipment provided will include desktop PCs, laptops and other specialist user devices as well as user services, such as accessibility services, software, authentication, data security, print, mail and intranet services.

The first lot of procurement, for the supply of desktop equipment to the DWP, was awarded to Fujitsu in February 2010. The deal involves 140,000 desktops and, according to a Fujitsu spokesperson, is worth at least £200m over six years. The deal was co-ordinated by Buying Solutions, the national procurement partner for public services.

This article first appeared in Kable.