Health Research Authority Principal Operational Systems: Development, Maintenance and Support

Opportunity overview

The original contract award was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) on 16 March 2016, reference number 2016/S 053-088027 (ITT60042), with a value of £3.7m. The original contract duration was three years, with options to extend by up to two further years. In 2021, the HRA further extended the contract to 21 April 2023, valued at an additional £1.03m, to allow time to procure replacement services and ensure critical exit and transition services. The extension relied on Regulation 72(1)(e) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015). The HRA considered that it could also have relied upon Regulation 72(1)(b) for that extension, though it chose to rely only on Regulation 72(1)(e). In 2022, due to challenges in implementing the replacement services, the HRA revised its strategy to adopt a microservices architecture. The contract was further extended to 30 June 2025, at an additional value estimated at up to £1.672m + VAT, to allow for a further exit/migration period, the decommissioning of the existing system and the appointment of a new delivery partner to build the new microservices architecture. The HRA relied on Regulation 72(1)(b) for that extension, on the basis that the decommissioning and transition services could not be provided by another provider for technical and economic reasons and a change of supplier would cause significant inconvenience and substantial duplication of costs to the HRA, given the intricacies of the system and the planned procurement to appoint a new provider for the future provision of similar services. The HRA then appointed a new delivery partner. The discovery phase of that delivery partner contract has made clear that the planned roadmap will not be delivered until July 2027. The HRA therefore requires a further extension of this contract to 30 June 2027, with an option to extend by a further 3 months if needed. This extension is being made under Regulation 72(1)(b), again on the basis that it is necessary to obtain additional services from the original contractor because a change of contractor cannot be made for technical and economic reasons given the need to continue operating the existing system, and as such any change of supplier would cause significant inconvenience and duplication of costs for the HRA. The modification has an estimated value of £1.6m (and the sums paid further to the extension may well be lower than that), and so does not exceed 50% of the value of the original contract.

Awarded to

Amounts belong to published awards or contracts. Where several suppliers share one value, it is labelled as shared and is not a supplier-specific allocation.

Classification

• CPV72260000 — Software-related services
• CPV48200000 — Networking, Internet and intranet software package
• CPV48600000 — Database and operating software package
• CPV48800000 — Information systems and servers
• CPV72200000 — Software programming and consultancy services
• CPV72320000 — Database services
• CPV72400000 — Internet services

Lots

• The Contract originally covered a comprehensive range of technical services supporting custom software development and associated infrastructure, including but not limited to architecture design, QA/QC, issue tracking, software deployment, server and firewall management, database administration, and multi-tier help desk support. This modification enables the continuation of essential software support and maintenance services pending transition to a replacement solution. The scope of services covered under this modification has been reduced from the original contract to reflect current operational needs, as certain elements of the original scope are no longer required.Value not stated