DWP quietly cancels open bids for two bits of HP work

Eyebrows have been raised in many quarters as to the depth of commitment in some parts of Whitehall to new ways of working with ICT suppliers with the news that DWP cancelled competition for business worth more than £100m a year in March and is sticking with its incumbent supplier - giant HP.

The news only emerges after a Freedom of Information process inaugurated by local government research body Kable.

HP will remain the Department's supplier for applications services in two big areas, core benefit and labour market systems and application support, after those two pieces of business were taken out of a new IT application services contract.

The business adds up to a combined £115m and will run until 2016 at least.

The revelation does clear up a minor mystery; DWP recently announced tranches of work being handed out to (also big, of course) suppliers IBM and Capgemini, but no word came about the status of other lots in the contract process. (If two were already cancelled in HP's favour, that still leaves one as yet dangling, customer facing systems, a £40m lot, however.)

DWP told Kable in its formal response to the FoI request that extending the existing contracts with HP would providesought-after savings "earlier than otherwise" reducing the daily and monthly charges for the services.

"In addition to extending existing HP contracts, we have also revised them to introduce application deployment-like delivery improvements within the next year... The extension will also provide continuity of service for us in the short to medium term while the department brings in some major programmes such as universal credit and pension reforms," it added.