CCS hints that services will be included in Technology Products 3

In a blog post for techUK, procurement agency predicts that the next iteration of the flagship IT framework ‘could revolutionise commodity tech buying for the public sector’

The next generation of the government’s £4bn flagship IT framework “could revolutionise commodity tech buying for the public sector”, according to the Crown Commercial Service.

CCS this week supplied a guest blog post for industry body techUK, in which the procurement agency provided an update on the Technology Products framework. Now two years into its second iteration, the contract – which is worth an estimated £2bn to £4bn to the 36 featured suppliers – is the public sector’s biggest commodity IT framework.

Technology Products 2 went live on 31 October 2016 and reaches the end of its initial two-year term in less than three months’ time. CCS has the option of extending it for up to a further 24 months thereafter – but intends to implement Technology Products 3 long before its predecessor’s potential ultimate end date of October 2020.


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To help shape the new agreement, CCS has recently worked with techUK and others to host a number of workshops in which it has sought the input of suppliers and buying groups.

“The sole purpose of these events was to reflect upon the factors that make the current agreement so successful, to see where we could make improvements and develop innovative ideas for the next agreement,” CCS said in the blog post.

“The easier path would be to simply extend and fulfil the full four-year term. However, since listening to our market base, it has become very clear that – with a few small changes to the scope, structure, and buying process – Technology Products 3 could revolutionise commodity tech buying for the public sector.”

Although there is currently little detail on what these potential changes could entail, CCS suggested that one major change for the next generation of Technology Products could be the inclusion of not just hardware and software product, but related services as well.

“One fundamental discovery output from the workshops is the desire for customers to buy commodity tech products and services as a solution via one procurement process, an aspect which we will take away and test in further work stream activities,” the blog said.

CCS expects to finishing designing the Technology Products 3 framework over the next two months. The deal is scheduled to go out to tender between March and April 2019. Contracts will be awarded in August next, according to CCS, ahead of a scheduled go-live date of September 2019. 

Sam Trendall

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