UK.gov doubles hardware spending framework to £24B in 6 months
- Reference: 1765883002
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/16/ukgov_expands_enduser_tech_framework/
- Source link:
Earlier this month, UK tech minister Liz Kendall told the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee the government was addressing [1]ongoing concerns about extracting value from major vendors through centralized public sector procurement.
Server prices set to jump 15% as memory costs spike [2]READ MORE
"We're systematically looking at tech spend across central government and public services [including] negotiating whole government agreements," she said. "We're going to start with end-user services, like laptops, but also cloud, to make sure we get the best value for money.
Last week, Crown Commercial Service (CCS), a unit of the Cabinet Office, published a [3]pipeline notice for buying off-the-shelf hardware, software, and associated services.
Hardware covers laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones, all peripherals, monitors, printers, scanners and “human interface devices”, broadly described as “end user computing”, the notice says.
[4]
Software includes commercial off-the-shelf software and open source software licenses. Services set to be associated with these products includes hardware support, implementation, maintenance, and recycling.
[5]
[6]
The framework - under which vendors agree discount pricing for indicative spending of £20 billion excluding value added tax (VAT) or £24 billion including it - is scheduled to run from July 2027 until January 2030, with a possible extension to 6 July 2031.
[7]Faced with £40B budget hole, UK public sector commits £9B to Microsoft
[8]UK government's cloud strategy: Pay more, get less, blame vendor lock-in?
[9]UK tech minister negotiated nothing with Google. He may get even less than that
[10]UK govt office admits ability to negotiate billions in cloud spending curbed by vendor lock-in
CCS published [11]an earlier version of the “pipeline notice” in June, pegging the maximum value at £12 billion including VAT. The Register has asked CCS why it increased the nominal value of the agreement.
The full name for the framework is Technology Products and Associated Services (TePAS) 3. It replaces TePAS 2, awarded in November 2023 for £8 billion and later expanded to £12 billion after [12]it was extended by 18 months to a total of four years . That arrangement expires in October 2027.
The UK government’s appetite for striking mega frameworks is illustrated by a [13]£19.2 billion (including VAT) agreement for technology services and [14]£16.8 billion (including VAT) for cloud services. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/08/uk_tech_deals/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/04/server_prices_15_percent_jump_memory_costs/
[3] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/082326-2025
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUGQLSgTh0tCvRuoCOHQTgAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUGQLSgTh0tCvRuoCOHQTgAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUGQLSgTh0tCvRuoCOHQTgAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/07/uk_microsoft_spending/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/28/uk_government_cloud_strategy/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/16/uk_gov_google_comment/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/04/uk_cddo_admits_cloud_spending_lock_issues_exclusive/
[11] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/033509-2025
[12] https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/9869bc83-e214-433f-9b20-21b41b411e2f
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/17/uk_technology_services_4/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/28/uk_g_cloud_15/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: How much of that £24 billion ...
What are the odds that a 'friend' of a government minister gets the disposal contract for all that hardware...? It does not matter who is in charge, they are all as corrupt as one another. IMHO, the probable next PM (Farage, the owner of the perpetual grin and buddy of Trump) will make it even worse with his motley collection of failed MP's.
Re: How much of that £24 billion ...
Funnily enough, during the last Government, the husband of a sitting Cabinet member set up an IT Asset disposal company, fronted it with a separate company with an NHS-friendly face (we'll give you lots of money back or donate to your Hospital Charity if you give us exclusive access to all your stuff) and was aggressively selling those services to NHS vertical.
We all told them to fuck off once we spotted the scam and corruption.
Great in theory - hard to access
Two problems really:
1) When we Procure via one of these Frameworks we don't get access to fixed pricing so any savings are either impossible to quantify or non-existent.
2) We don't have the money in the system to buy in anything like the theoretical value of the Framework. We're looking at this locally rather than nationally with more modest but realistic value ceiling.
Laptops but no servers. The big stuff will still be done on somebody else's computer.
How much of that £24 billion ...
was forced on them by Microsoft's insistence on new hardware thus consigning perfectly capable kit to the growing pile of e-waste ?