Cabinet Office fires gun on bidding for £1bn software framework

The Cabinet Office is inviting IT suppliers to bid for a place on a huge framework which could be worth nearly £1bn.

The government - along with procurement partner Pro5 - unveiled its Corporate Software Solutions contract notice today in the hope of luring in up to 84 suppliers.

The successful firms will provide the UK public sector with a range of tech kit such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and finance and human resources (HR) software as well as CRM and mobile tech.

The framework will last for two years initially - with the option to extend it twice by 12 months - and will be worth between £750m and £950m over that period.

The contract is split into seven lots: ERP software; finance IT software; HR and payroll software; CRM software; enterprise content management software; data management and reporting systems software; and mobile applications.

The Cabinet Office claims the suppliers will make up a "specialist supply base" for the public sector.

The framework will replace the existing Software Application Solutions framework, which finally reaches the end of its lifespan in September. It was recently granted a nine-month exceptional extension beyond the EU-mandated limit of four years to ensure that the government's software needs are met while its successor continues to progress behind schedule.

The Corporate Software Solutions vehicle is one of several new big-ticket commodity IT vehicles in the works, and other incumbent deals - including the £6bn Commoditised IT Hardware and Software framework - have also had to be extended as their replacements have not been put in place in time.

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