Assessment Service Information Systems (ASIS) Contract

Tender description

The Supplier currently provides managed IT services to the Authority under a contract due to expire on 28.2.2022 (the ASIS Contract). The ASIS Contract supports the Authority’s separate contract for health and disability assessment services (HDAS) for a range of social security and other benefits (including Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit) and requires extending for 3 years to enable the service to be safely transitioned prior to the ultimate migration to the DWP Health Assessment Service (HAS) digital service. Lot 1: The ASIS Contract was awarded on 9 June 2014. It was modified in 2018 to include options to extend and is currently due to expire on 28 February 2022. This notice confirms that an extension of up to an additional 3 years to 28 February 2025 has become necessary. The extension period is necessary to ensure the Department can continue to support live service for health and disability assessments, provide business continuity for the HDAS contract, ensure this digital service is able to support the Department’s future requirements for health assessment services and support the DWP’s proposed future strategy for the ASIS service which, in essence, is continued provision of ASIS through to a controlled migration to DWP’s Health Assessment Service (HAS). In order to bridge the period between the existing ASIS contract and this migration, DWP will initially need to extend the current ASIS Contract. A 3-year extension of the service is required due to the significant technical and time restrictions of all other options. Extension of the contract will provide the following benefits: • service continuity will be maintained; • implementation of the optimum solution for delivery of ASIS services post February 2025 will continue to be taken forward in the period following execution of the extension • implementation of the necessary mandatory projects required to both ensure that the ongoing services for health and disability assessments continue to be supported and facilitate transition to another provider prior to expiry of the extension . For these reasons, as explained more fully in Section IV and Annex D, the Department considers the proposed extension to be justifiable under Regulation 72 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, namely Regulation 72(1)(b). The amendments comprising the extension will not be made before the end of a period of at least 10 days from the day after the date of publication of this notice.