Deloitte wins £100mn IT contract for new border platform

Replace patchwork of systems with a single source of truth

HMRC has awarded Deloitte a contract worth up to £100 million, to design, build, operate and maintain a new digital system for businesses trading across the UK border.

The "Single Trade Window" (STW) is intended to "provide a gateway between businesses and UK border processes and systems, allowing users to meet their import, export and transit obligations by submitting information once, and in one place."

Although set out as a traditional tender, the STW contract never went to open competition. Instead, was awarded according to the pre-existing Technology Services 3 framework agreement.

The proposed single system marks a big change from the patchwork in place today, where businesses might have to submit information to three or more different services.

That is because the UK government introduced new rules on cross-border trade after Brexit, which has caused massive hold ups at the border and turned the M20 into short-term HGV parking.

"We've got a whole bunch of lorries that aren't clearing because something isn't working, and it's not incompetence on our part," Steve Cock, director of customs consultancy at The Customs House, told Bloomberg last year.

These systems include the Goods Vehicle Movement Service (GVMS); the Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System (IPAFFS); the Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES), which IPAFFS replaced but is still used in Northern Ireland; and the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) system (due to be decommissioned this year).

This convoluted and bureaucratic arrangement came as little surprise, given that the government only began researching post-Brexit customs systems four months before the end of the transition window in 2020.

The STW aims to change this, delivering "a set of technology capabilities that make a range of border policy changes possible that were historically not feasible due to the disparate sources of border data across government."

The tender document says the winner will need to "work flexibly with the STW Programme and its delivery partners across HMG departments to ensure the service design and delivery of the STW is fit for now and for the future."