Capgemini scoops £13mn to migrate Cabinet Office
Government joins the professional world on Microsoft 365
In an attempt to harmonise the UK government's tech ecosystem, the Cabinet Office has handed French IT consultancy and services firm Capgemini a contract worth £13.5 million.
The contractor will be tasked with helping to move the Cabinet Office from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365, which is already used across central government.
The government published a contract earlier this month that came into effect on 1st April 2023, ending on 31st March 2026.
The migration to Microsoft is part of the Cabinet Office's business transformation programme, which has three primary objectives.
The first is to modernise the Cabinet Office's "OFFICIAL IT" platform estate, develop a new system and migrate personnel from the existing legacy IT systems to the new platform.
Secondly, all business information and data will be transferred from Google Workspaces to Microsoft 365, in line with the rest of central government.
Finally, personnel will be migrated from a Google-centric business environment to a Microsoft 365-based environment, enhancing interoperability between central government departments.
The Cabinet Office, Crown Commercial Service (CCS), Government Property Agency (GPA) and several other arm's length bodies, along with the Fast Stream Leadership programme, collectively depend on the Cabinet Office's IT services.
This critical infrastructure supports almost 15,000 personnel in their day-to-day operations.
At present, the Cabinet Office operates two distinct OFFICIAL IT platforms.
The first, known as the CO OFFICIAL IT platform, supports the Cabinet Office, all of its units, the CCS and the GPA. The Government Digital Service (GDS) and Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) are not included.
The second system, dubbed the GDS OFFICIAL IT platform, is dedicated to the GDS, CDDO, and several digital/technology innovation functions, including the Data Science Accelerator programme and the National Situation Centre.
The Cabinet Office now wants to consolidate the two OFFICIAL IT systems into a modern, singular platform.
The transition is expected to incur third-party project support costs of up to £15 million.
According to the schedule in the documents, the rollout of MS365 is expected to start in September 2023.
The project will see the Cabinet Office undergoing a transformation to conform to Microsoft's suggested security best practices and recommended information and knowledge architecture.
The new platform will also adhere to the guidelines set by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Government Security Group (GSG).
Last year, Capgemini won a government contract worth £51 million to act as the sole supplier for supporting the HMRC's Enterprise Tax Management Platform (ETMP), Enterprise Operations (EOPS) Run & Associated Change Services.
However, the firm was not among the 81 companies who won the CCS's £1.84 billion contract earlier this month.