The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has issued a notice to suppliers and contractors about a proposed £150m-plus deal for “innovative and cost-effective solutions” for hosting and storage technologies.

Among the services Defra plans to open up to bidding include data centre facility management, server rooms management, infrastructure services, and cloud engineering services.

In the recently published market engagement notice for the project, the department notes that its primary objective with the work is to ‘ensure high availability, scalability, and security of our data and applications’. 

According to the public notice, the project is designed to procure Future Hosting and Storage Services to support our ICT infrastructure, which will include integrating hosting for ongoing programmes such as the Legacy Applications Programme, including exiting from old data centres, removing obsolescence, and bringing applications into mainstream support.

The estimated value of the work is £128 million, which adds up to £153.7 million, once VAT is included.

Although not quite open for competitive bidding yet, prospective partners are encouraged to apply to attend a virtual supplier briefing presentation on Friday 6th September, where Defra will provide detail on the current Hosting and Storage arrangements, along with strategic direction for the project.

In 2023, the National Audit Office reviewed the department’s current ICT network and concluded that “Defra’s systems and services are out of date, creating high risks of operational failure and cyber-attack, inconvenience for service users and additional staff and maintenance costs”, but noted steps were already being taken to address the problem.

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According to the NAO report, Defra’s budget for digital investment across 2022-23 to 2024-25 stands at £871 million, but according to the department itself it would need ten years for the full transformation of the estimated 1,962 business applications it uses.

Last year, parliament’s Public Accounts Committee conducted a review of Defra ICT infrastructure, saying that the department’s legacy IT systems felt outdated and difficult to use for its customers, which range from farmers to vets to scientists to traders and beyond.

At the time, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, deputy chair of the committee, said: “Defra’s IT systems are so outmoded and disconnected that in some cases the professionals who keep our food, water and air safe have been forced to buy obsolete equipment just to fill in the forms to fulfil their regulatory responsibilities.”