MoD allocates £168m for fresh IT service desk deal

The Ministry of Defence plans to spend £168 million on a IT service desk contract for one of the “largest and most diverse networks in Europe.”

The UK’s MoD plans to go to market by December 16.

The existing £225 million contract is held by Capgemini, which serves 220,000 MoD users across the Official and Secret domains. 

That MoD IT service desk contract resulted in the creation of IT support centres in Nairn and Inverness. It expires in 2027, MoD said. 

MoD plans to contract a new provider for a five-year period from June 10, 2027 to June 9, 2032, it said in an updated pipeline notice this week. 

Announcing the current Capgemini deal in 2020, Chris Moore, Director Operations, Defence Digital said: “The Ministry of Defence has one of the largest and most diverse networks in Europe, covering a global footprint and supporting capabilities from satellites to mobile phones, 24/7. 

He added: “An IT outage in our world is more than loss of productivity, and as such we require a world-class service for our users…  This is an early step in Defence’s bold intent to modernise and exploit digital and data for improved operational and business outputs,” Moore said. 

The pending contract is one of a swathe of IT modernisation programmes taking place across defence; many of which are flashing “red” warning signs under the GMPP or Government Major Projects Portfolio. 

Among them is the Next Generation Communication Network project. 

MoD contracted PA Consulting in April this year to help it design the “next target operating model and selection and procurement of a Network Systems Integrator (NSI) supplier who will then carry the work forward.”

“The Next Generation Communication Network (NGCN) will move us from the current fragmented, expensive, obsolete, and complex networks, towards a Secure by Design, modern, agile, and futureproof network.” 

That’s according to Defence Digital in 2023, which said it is “key to the delivery of the Digital Backbone, connecting sensors, decision makers and effectors in real time.  NGCN will help give our people and partners reliable and seamless access to the data whenever and wherever [and is the] foundation for delivering the MOD Single Enterprise Network (SEN).”

Want to talk about the challenges delivering the NGCN? Get in touch.