Extension - Maintenance, Support, and Decommissioning of Legacy HRA Research System

Description

This Voluntary Ex-Ante Transparency (VEAT) notice does not concern an award for a new contract. It is published by the Health Research Authority (HRA) for the purpose of extending an existing contract for the development, maintenance and support of two principal and six supplementary systems/portals/sites, pending completion of a transition by the HRA to a new microservices architecture for the systems/portals/sites. The HRA will rely upon Regulation 72(1)(b) for this extension on the basis that decommissioning and transition services cannot be provided by another provider and to appoint another provider would cause significant inconvenience and substantial duplication of costs to the HRA given the intricacies of the system and the fact that work is already underway - through a separately procured delivery partner - to develop the future system. The value of the extension does not exceed 50% of the original value of the contract. Please see section II.2.4 and IV.1.1 for more detail. Lot 1: The contract being extended was awarded for the provision of development, maintenance and support services for the HRA's Principal Operational Systems. These services include: • Custom software development • Technical architecture management, including software architecture design • Production, maintenance, and enhancement of Technical documentation • Software QA & QC • Software development process management • Software project management • Issue tracking and task management software (JIRA or equivalent) hosting • Development and testing environment provision and management • Software deployment management • 24/7 Windows server support and maintenance • Microsoft Internet Information Services administration. • Firewall management • Provision, management, and maintenance of source control (Microsoft TFS) infrastructure • 1st line help desk support • Helpdesk VoIP/telephony infrastructure • 2nd and 3rd line support • Systems availability monitoring • SQL Server database administration and performance tuning • Additional professional services as required 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.