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LEGISLATION PLATFORM CONTRACT

The National Archives

This public procurement record has 1 release in its history.

Tender

14 Aug 2026 at 11:27

UK4 - Tender Notice
Summary of the contracting process

The National Archives is procuring information technology services to maintain, secure and develop the legislation.gov.uk Platform. The work covers the public legislation website, its open-data API and linked-data services, plus Statistics.legislation.gov.uk, Publishing, Editorial and Research services. It also includes the Linked Data Service, RDF data store, public SPARQL endpoint and related internal systems. The supplier will provide cloud hosting management for AWS infrastructure across live, quality assurance, user acceptance testing and disaster recovery environments. Responsibilities include infrastructure management, application deployment support, monitoring, security, resilience, performance and cost optimisation. The services support the publication and public access of legislation from the UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd, Northern Ireland Assembly and the UK governments, across England and the wider UK.

The procurement has reached tender: The National Archives invited offers through an open competitive flexible procedure. Stage 1 tender responses are due by 25 September 2026 at 17:00, with enquiries due by 2 September 2026 at 17:00. The four highest-ranked Stage 1 bidders will be invited to Stage 2 and assessed on their Stage 2 tender responses; the planned award decision date is 21 December 2026. There is one lot. Its maximum value is £8,500,000 excluding VAT and £10,200,000 including VAT over the full term. The contract is scheduled to run from 1 August 2027 to 31 July 2029, with three possible extensions of up to 12 months each, to a maximum end date of 31 July 2032. Evaluation is 60% quality, 30% price and 10% social value.

This opportunity suits software and cloud service providers able to operate and continually improve a complex, public-facing digital platform supporting critical statutory services. Strong capability is needed in AWS infrastructure management, Infrastructure as Code using CloudFormation and EC2 Image Builder, and application deployment through Jenkins and CodeDeploy. Suppliers should be able to manage environments for live operation, testing, development, staging and disaster recovery, while maintaining security, resilience, performance and cost control. Relevant experience may include high-volume public websites, open APIs, linked-data platforms, RDF stores, SPARQL services, publishing workflows, editorial systems, research tools and log-based usage analytics. The procurement is identified as suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises, and electronic tender submission in English is allowed.

How relevant is this notice?

Notice Information

Notice Title

LEGISLATION PLATFORM CONTRACT

Notice Description

The purpose of this procurement process is for The National Archives (TNA) to select a Supplier to maintain, and develop its Legislation Platform. The intention is to award the Contract for an initial period of 2 years, with options to extend for three further periods of up to twelve months each (2+1+1+1). The Invitation to Tender document gives an overview of the Platform requirements and should be read in conjunction with Annexes 1-7, which set out in more detail the various components of the legislation.gov.uk Platform. Annexes 1-7 are available on request. If you require access to them, please contact us at procurement@nationalarchives.gov.uk We estimate the maximum contract value over the whole contract term (i.e. 5 years) to be circa PS10,200,000 (inc. VAT). The availability of freely accessible, up to date legislation in print and online underpins the rule of law in the UK. It is at the heart of the business of government, vital to our democratic society and drives economic activity. Most new legislation starts with a drafting team based in a government department. In the case of primary legislation, the legislative process involves a Bill (a proposed Act), initially drafted by the Government (or an individual MP in the case of Private Members Bills) which passes through various stages in the relevant Parliament, Assembly or Senedd, undergoing a range of amendments until the final version is agreed, passed, and receives Royal Assent. Secondary legislation is made under powers created under primary legislation, for example granting a particular Secretary of State the authority to create regulations in relation to a specific area of law. Secondary legislation mainly comes in the form of Statutory Instruments, and is mainly drafted by lawyers within Government departments. The National Archives, in its capacity as the King's Printer of Acts of Parliament, the King's Printer for Scotland, the King's Printer for Wales, and the Government Printer for Northern Ireland, has statutory obligations to register, publish, and make available in print, legislation produced by the UK and Scottish Parliaments, the Welsh Senedd, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Governments of the four nations. The legislation.gov.uk Platform enables The National Archives to deliver statutory and service responsibilities. The National Archives gives strategic leadership to the services, operates the governance framework and provides legislative, policy, publishing and editorial expertise. It also provides technical direction in relation to the architectural approach and standards to be adopted by the Platform Supplier. The legislation services to be provided by the Platform Supplier involve maintaining and developing the legislation.gov.uk Platform consisting of: * the legislation.gov.uk website (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/) which provides public access to legislation, both as originally enacted and in a revised form, and provides open data through an API for data users to include in their own products and services. It also includes a Beta linked data service that provides metadata about legislation that is directly accessible to the public and which is driving website functionality; * Statistics.legislation.gov.uk, a service for The National Archives and the Supplier that processes website usage logs to allow analysis of website traffic for performance and user research monitoring. * legislation.gov.uk Publishing (http://publishing.legislation.gov.uk/) used by people working for other government departments to register statutory instruments and associated documents and to manage the publication of all primary and secondary legislation from all UK Parliaments, Governments and Assemblies; * legislation.gov.uk Editorial (https://editorial.legislation.gov.uk/) used to edit and update legislation by our in-house team; * legislation.gov.uk Research (http://research.legislation.gov.uk/) for academics, policy makers and researchers, which provides downloadable bulk data and a range of easy-to-use tools that enable research across the entire statute book. * the legislation.gov.uk Linked Data Service an RDF Linked Data Store that holds metadata relating to legislation, that facilitates sharing of information between internal legislation systems as well as driving services on the main legislation website and providing direct public access to data through the Linked Data API and public SPARQL endpoint. The Platform Supplier is also responsible for providing Cloud hosting management services. The legislation.gov.uk platform is hosted in the Cloud within AWS, largely following an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach. It is hosted across dedicated Live, QA, UAT and DR environments - scaled down replicas of the live environment are used for testing, development and staging. Infrastructure is provisioned and managed using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) through AWS CloudFormation and EC2 Image Builder, while application deployments are managed through Jenkins and CodeDeploy. The platform relies heavily on EC2 and makes extensive use of AWS services including S3, CloudFront, ELB, VPC, Athena, Shield, GuardDuty and others. The Supplier must manage, secure, monitor and continually optimise the infrastructure to ensure that it meets performance, resilience, security and cost requirements.

Lot Information

Lot 1

Renewal: Three extension options of up to 12 months each.

Notice Details

Publication & Lifecycle

Open Contracting ID
ocds-h6vhtk-06e474
Publication Source
Find A Tender Service
Latest Notice
https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/077604-2026
Current Stage
Tender
All Stages
Tender

Procurement Classification

Notice Type
UK4 - Tender Notice
Procurement Type
Standard
Procurement Category
Services
Procurement Method
Open
Procurement Method Details
Competitive flexible procedure
Tender Suitability
SME
Awardee Scale
Not specified

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

CPV Divisions

72 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

CPV Codes

72222300 - Information technology services

Notice Value(s)

Tender Value
£8,500,000 £1M-£10M
Lots Value
£8,500,000 £1M-£10M
Awards Value
Not specified
Contracts Value
Not specified

Notice Dates

Publication Date
14 Aug 20261 weeks ago
Submission Deadline
25 Sep 20265 weeks to go
Future Notice Date
Not specified
Award Date
Not specified
Contract Period
1 Aug 2027 - 31 Jul 2029 2-3 years
Recurrence
Not specified

Notice Status

Tender Status
Active
Lots Status
Active
Awards Status
Not Specified
Contracts Status
Not Specified

Buyer & Supplier

Contracting Authority (Buyer)

Main Buyer
The National Archives
Contact Name
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Email
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Phone
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →

Buyer Location

Locality
RICHMOND
Postcode
TW9 4DU
Postcode Area
Twickenham
Country
England
Major Region (ITL 1)
TLI London
Basic Region (ITL 2)
TLI7 Outer London - West and North West
Small Region (ITL 3)
TLI75 Hounslow and Richmond upon Thames
Delivery Location
TLC North East (England), TLD North West (England), TLE Yorkshire and The Humber, TLF East Midlands (England), TLG West Midlands (England), TLH East (England), TLI London, TLJ South East (England), TLK South West (England)
Local Authority
Richmond upon Thames
Electoral Ward
Kew
Westminster Constituency
Richmond Park

Further Information

Notice Documents

Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)

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