---
title: "Procurement of Source code licence"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-047dc9"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-047dc9"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-047dc9.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-047dc9.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Award"
buyer: "DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION"
published: "2024-07-16"
---

# Procurement of Source code licence

Buyer: DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION  
Current stage: Award  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-047dc9

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## Summary

The Department for Education (DfE) has completed the procurement process for the 'Procurement of Source code licence' from RM Education plc. This procurement falls under the goods category and was conducted using a limited procurement method without prior publication of a call for competition. The DfE awarded the contract on 28th June 2024, with a contract value of £273,760. The location of the buying organisation is in London, United Kingdom.

This tender presents business growth opportunities for firms specialised in software packages and information systems. Given the bespoke nature of the Source Code and the technical reasons for the absence of competition, businesses with expertise in providing highly specialised, custom solutions aligned with unique regulatory requirements, such as RM Education, are well-suited to compete in such tenders. The crucial deadline considerations and the specific technical expertise required make this opportunity suitable for businesses with a track record of reliable and proven solutions operating at scale.

## Notice

The Department for Education (DfE) wishes to take a licence from RM Education plc (RM) of the Source Code relating to the provision of the National Pupil Data Achievement and Attainment Tables (NPDAAT).

### Lot Information

Lot 1

The Department for Education (DfE) wishes to take a licence from RM Education plc (RM) of the Source Code relating to the provision of the National Pupil Data Achievement and Attainment Tables (NPDAAT). Taking the licence is time-critical, for reasons of compliance with reporting requirements. DfE wishes to rely on Regulation 32(2) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended) as justification for taking a licence of the Source Code direct from RM. DfE believes that such direct purchase is justifiable on the basis that: * competition is absent for technical reasons (relying on Regulation 32(2)(b)(ii)); and/or * RM has exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights, in the Source Code, meaning that the Source Code cannot be replicated (relying on Regulation 32(2)(b)(iii). * DfE believes that no reasonable alternative or substitute to the Source Code exists, and that the absence of competition is not the result of any artificial narrowing down of the parameters of what should be a competitive procurement. The reasons for this belief are set out in this notice. * In 2020, RM was the only supplier to bid in the final stage of the procurement for the NPDAAT service. Since then, several contract modifications have taken place and, on each occasion, details of them were published. No other suppliers reacted to the published modification notices. * The service to which the Source Code relates is highly bespoke, and only RM has delivered it for the past fifteen years. As such, DfE considers that only RM, as incumbent supplier, can provide the existing technical solution required (namely that embodied in the Source Code). * The Source Code represents the business rules of DfE's policies (as encapsulated in source code and database objects) and that, as such, the Source Code is only relevant in the context of DfE's specific system and for its specific purpose * The intellectual property in the Source Code is vested in RM.

### Procurement Information

DfE believes that competition is absent for technical reasons and/or as a result in the exclusive rights held in the Source Code by RM. DfE believes that no reasonable alternatives to, or substitutes for, the Source Code exist, for the following reasons. (i) It is not technically possible for there to be an alternative or substitute to the Source Code, or to the overarching service provided by RM. The Source Code represents a very small, specialised and bespoke element of the overarching RM service. For example, the Source Code relates to: o the matching of learners from educational attainment data. More specifically it helps identify false and positive learner matches, but within a very specific range of data and values. o the performance measures data for 16-18 year old learners. The Source Code represents the end-to-end process for the application of the rules and how the performance measures should be calculated. These are DfE policy rules that are extremely unlikely to exist in any other system. (iv) The NPDAAT service to which the Source Code relates is aligned with the England's education system, which is unique to England. Therefore, the ability to replicate the Source Code is unlikely to exist elsewhere. (v) For the 16-18 age group, there are around 1,700 'indicators' that are driven by DfE policies and rules. The total extent of code for these indicators is estimated to range from 85,000 to 170,000 lines of code. (vi) For the over/under matching code there are 15 datasets, 15-20 scenarios per dataset, 50-100 lines of code per dataset so 11,000 - 30,000 lines of code in total. (vii) Whilst the Source Code represents a small component of the wider NPDAAT service, it is bespoke to DfE policies and rules, and is a highly nuanced technical subset of the overall NPDAAT system. (viii) The Source Code (specifically) is proven to work at scale in a production environment, and has done so reliably for the past fifteen years. (ix) The code has been refined to deal with anomalies that have occurred while processing live data over that fifteen-year period. No other code set that might be similar can possibly have the same level of testing and reliability achieved during this period. (x) The Department produces a range of measures to assess pupil and school performance for students aged 16-18. This data is shared with schools and colleges in October each year to inform their own target setting and ahead of wider publication and use by the Department and Ofsted. It is critical that the performance measures data is produced by the end of September to meet this established timetable and shared with schools/colleges ahead of the school holidays at the end of October. Therefore, there is insufficient time to conduct production testing to prove that any previously unknown code might be reliable

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/021872-2024 |
| Notice type | Award Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Goods |
| Procurement method | Limited |
| Procurement method details | Award procedure without prior publication of a call for competition |
| Tender suitability | Not specified |
| Awardee scale | Large |
| All stages | Award |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 16 Jul 2024 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | 27 Jun 2024 |
| Contract period | Not specified |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | Not specified |
| Contracts value | £273,760 |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Complete |
| Lots status | Cancelled |
| Awards status | Active |
| Contracts status | Active |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION |
| Locality | LONDON |
| Post town | South West London |
| Postcode | SW1P 3BT |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI3 Inner London - West |
| ITL 3 | TLI35 Westminster and City of London |
| Local authority | Westminster |
| Electoral ward | St James's |
| Westminster constituency | Cities of London and Westminster |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## Supplier

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Number of suppliers | 1 |
| Supplier names | RM EDUCATION |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 48 - Software package and information systems

### Codes

- 48000000 - Software package and information systems

## Release History

- 16 Jul 2024 at 14:25 - Award - Award Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/021872-2024

## Notice URLs

- https://education.app.jaggaer.com/esop/toolkit/notice/showCode.do?noticeId=1360430#fh

## Provenance

This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-047dc9. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-047dc9.json.