Met Police Prepare £300m Procurement For Integrators And Resellers

The Mayor of London's Office for Policing and Crime is looking to talk to suppliers as it prepares for an IT procurement worth up to £300m.

Working on behalf of the Metropolitan Police, the public sector body is seeking to retender an existing solution provider framework agreement for systems integrators and resellers.

In a prior information notice — a way of having a chat with suppliers before the formal competition begins — the mayoral office says it is looking for suppliers "capable of delivering complex, multi-phased, technologically advanced solutions."

"Providers will be expected to bring functional and technical expertise, which can be drawn upon flexibly to deliver part or whole of a project," it said.

While the procurement will focus on the Metropolitan Police, responsible for policing Western Europe's largest city, all UK Police Forces, the Mayor's Office, and the Greater London Authority will have access to suppliers winning places on the framework.

The framework is split into three lots, the first addressing systems integration. This includes bespoke application development, the configuration of commercial-off-the-shelf software, provision of software-as-a-service, device and software development, and implementation and enhancements to existing applications.

Lot 2 is for a value-added reseller. The buyer wants a supplier to provide miscellaneous hardware and software, Microsoft licences, services, and cloud solutions, maintenance agreements for services not available through the existing contracts and large-scale or high-value hardware and software for corporate projects.

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The third lump of this procurement takes the form of resource augmentation, which, according to the tender, requires the supplier to "augment internal Digital Policing projects," provide specialist resources not available in-house and show ways to validate architectural designs, for example.

The formal contract notice for the competition is set to appear on 15 October 2021.

The solution provider framework could mean IT contracting at the Met could top £1bn over a couple of years. In March, Capgemini won a £600m IT infrastructure deal to run a service desk, data centres, and services management including the integration of other suppliers.

Meanwhile, the competition for an IT services vendor to help run the force's sprawling application estate was launched in October last year in a contract worth up to £350m. ®