Having begun working together in 2019, the Home Office unit dedicated to recruitment checks has extended for another three years its longstanding tech engagement with the Canadian IT services heavyweight
The Disclosure and Barring Service has retained long-standing tech partner CGI to provide IT services in a new three-year valued at more than £70m.
DBS first signed an £85m-plus contract with the Canada-based IT heavyweight in 2019. That deal covered the provision of “application management services and service integration”, according to government procurement records. The two parties extended their engagement in 2021 with the signing of a new agreement covering the period up to 2024.
This extension has been replicated with a further three-year deal which came into effect on 1 April, and runs until 31 March 2027. Once again, the contract – which was awarded by DBS parent department the Home Office – covers “application management services” for DBS, according to newly published commercial documents.
An online notice indicates that the deal was directly awarded to incumbent supplier CGI, without open competition. The value of the new contract is estimated at £71.3m.
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In 2020, DBS set out a five-year technology roadmap, which provided details of the agency’s plans to improve citizen services and modernise IT infrastructure. Included in the strategic plan is the launch of a new website and various digital portals, as well as a revamp of the DBS’s engagement with commercial partners.
In an interview last year, the organisation’s chief executive Eric Robinson claimed that it has thus far ticked off “every milestone” detailed in the roadmap, and was on track to meet all of the plan’s objectives by the 2025 deadline.
“Because we have, historically, some quite old technology, the maintenance of that is quite a significant aspect for us keeping our service running and keeping things safe – and at the same time, we’re creating the new infrastructure that will enable us to leave the old ones and move to something else,” he added.
Headquartered in Montreal, CGI posted annual revenue of more than £8bn in its 2023 fiscal year. The company features among the 39 that are listed on the on the cross-government roster of Whitehall’s foremost “strategic suppliers”. Each of these suppliers works with a specified “Crown representative”, who manages the commercial relationship on a government-wide basis.
The firm recently signed a potential £100m deal to serve as a “strategic delivery partner for Cabinet Office Digital”, and another £40m engagement with the department to support transformation at UK Security Vetting. Other recent wins include contracts with a wide variety of public-sector entities, including HM Treasury and the University of Bristol.
