HMRC picks Bain as its £20m strategic partner to shift away from Aspire contract
Huge task on hand for Bain & Co to help HMRC transition away from expensive Aspire contract
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has picked global management consulting firm Bain & Co as its "strategic partner" to help it to transition away from its Aspire outsourcing arrangement towards a wider range of smaller contracts.
HMRC had issued a tender worth between £5m and £20m for a strategic partner back in June, as it wanted to plan for the fallout of its Aspire contract expiring in 2017. The aim is for the organisation to move from one mega-contract and multiple sub-contractors, to managing more than 400 IT suppliers. It wants to ensure that no one single contractor will have a contract worth more than about £100m.
According to the contract award notice, Bains & Co was deemed the best fit out of nine companies. The award criteria was based on both technical expertise (85 per cent) and price (15 per cent).
"HMRC [and its] Chief Digital and Information Officer (Mark Dearnley), are looking for a strategic lead partner who has a deep and expert knowledge of the task facing HMRC to support the programme management team exist from a large-scale outsourced IT arrangement," the initial tender notice had stated.
"This knowledge combined with significant experience, will include the management of exit from a large-scale outsourced arrangement, system process re-engineering, programme management and governance, supporting people and culture change with access to further expertise as required," it added.
When the initial tender notice went out, Tony Collins, writing for UKCampaign4Change suggested that the contract value seemed somewhat low compared to the level of work required.
"A spend of £5m to £20m for help to replace Aspire seems ridiculously low given the risks of getting it wrong, the complexities, the number of staff changes involved, the changes in IT architecture, and the legal, commercial and technical capabilities required," he said.
TechMarketView managing partner Anthony Miller added that any IT supplier that considered the project should have an ‘all care, no responsibility' clause firmly cemented into the contract - or ask for more than £20m.
The move away from Aspire is part of a broader government policy of ending large IT contracts in favour of smaller and shorter contracts, enabling a wider range of organisations to tender, as well as opening up the market to smaller and medium-sized IT contractors and services companies. At the moment, Aspire's main supplier is Capgemini, with Fujitsu and Accenture the main subcontractors. According to HMRC CDIO Dearnley, ditching the deal will save taxpayers at least £200m in costs.