The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has added over three years to its contract with Sopra Steria for ICT services.
They have agreed on a 44-month, £66 million deal that came into force on 1 April to maintain the company’s role, which goes back to the early 2010s, is advance of Dstl moving away from its current reliance on an outsourced service.
According to the contract notice, labelled Dstl Digital Extend to Disaggregate, Sopra Steria is being retained to support the transition, which is part of the organisation’s New Information Systems Service Solution (NISSS) programme.
This involves disaggregation through a number of contracts and is aimed at delivering a new information systems service in line with Dstl’s strategic objectives.
The notice states: “The increased focus across defence and security on areas such as cyber, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and CBR, combined with the need to support defence and security capabilities that have an increasing dependence on complex onboard and supporting systems for data collection and processing, means that increased investment and alignment to industry best practice is required by Dstl.”
PA Consulting deal
Dstl has also agreed on a £5.9 million contract for the same period with PA Consulting as NISS service delivery partner.
The notice says the company has been brought on to deliver an agile and scalable information systems service to support the organisation’s delivery of high impact science and technology.
