DWP puts application procurement on hold

A spokesperson for the department told GC News that the competition for two of the five lots has been suspended, but insisted that the process as a whole has not been cancelled. The parts of the procurement suspended are lot two for a core benefit system and lot five for application support. This leaves the lots for customer facing systems, business facilitating systems and business prototyping. It launched the procurement in September of last year, with the aim of finding suppliers of a number of applications under a contract worth up to £1.92bn. It emphasised the used of commercial off the shelf packages and said they should be available for re-use by other government organisations. The spokesperson said: "Two elements of the competition have been suspended, whilst the department explores ways in which it might secure earlier reductions in application deployment spend in line with the current economic challenges facing the country. Once that analysis is complete, a decision will be made on the lots that have been suspended. "The department is currently analysing its options regarding the lots that have been suspended." She added that six companies have been bidding to supply the services.