---
title: "Back Office Application Support and Modernisation"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-0655a0"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-0655a0"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-0655a0.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-0655a0.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Award"
buyer: "POST OFFICE LIMITED"
published: "2026-04-30"
---

# Back Office Application Support and Modernisation

Buyer: POST OFFICE LIMITED  
Current stage: Award  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-0655a0

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## Summary

The Post Office Limited has awarded a contract for "Back Office Application Support and Modernisation" to Accenture (UK) Limited. This procurement falls under IT services, specifically consulting and support, within the services category. Located in London, this contract involves significant IT modernisation efforts vital to Post Office Limited's core operations. The contract, directly awarded under the Procurement Act 2023 due to Accenture possessing unique technical capabilities, is valued at £54,000,000 gross, with £45,000,000 as net expenditure, and runs from 1st April 2026 to 30th June 2029. This strategic engagement largely revolves around maintaining and enhancing essential IT systems, excluding the Horizon System, through both current operations and future modernisation initiatives.

This tender represents significant business growth opportunities primarily for large-scale IT firms capable of delivering comprehensive cloud-based services and IT infrastructure management. While Accenture's unique position restricted alternatives due to proprietary applications and extensive know-how of the existing system, such contracts often suggest potential for subcontracting with SMEs that can offer specialised support or enhancements. Businesses with expertise in cloud service integration, legacy system maintenance, or process automation could substantiality benefit, particularly by engaging in aspects like platform optimisation and application modernisation as Post Office Limited evolves its technology landscape in partnership with Accenture.

## Notice

The Back Office IT services contract covers the end-to-end hosting, operation and maintenance of Post Office Limited (POL) core applications and platforms (excluding the Horizon System and Services). This includes business-critical systems supporting finance and ERP, human resources, master and reference data, management information and reporting, integration services, and process automation. These workloads are primarily delivered from the cloud and include a mix of applications, data, integration, and platform services that collectively underpin POL's day-to-day operations. The service encompasses responsibility for the secure, resilient, and performant operation of the estate throughout the contract term. This includes the ongoing support of live production services, maintenance of legacy systems where required, operational monitoring, incident resolution, change and release activity, and business continuity arrangements. The service is designed to allow the Post Office to consume these capabilities as a managed outcome, without the need to directly operate or support the underlying applications or infrastructure. Alongside steady-state operations, the service includes working in partnership with Post Office to support continuous improvement and technology evolution. This includes platform optimisation, automation, and prepare and conduct application modernisation, migration or decommissioning as POL's business and technology landscape evolves, while ensuring services remain secure, compliant, and fit for purpose.

### Procurement Information

Post Office Ltd intends to directly award this contract under Section 41 of the Procurement Act 2023, relying on Schedule 5 (Direct award justifications) paragraphs 5 and 6 "Single suppliers" grounds because: 1. Only Accenture holds the necessary intellectual property rights for certain proprietary tooling, security operations and bespoke services support wrap that are essential to the safe operation of the current Services . Only Accenture can provide these elements of the Services during the term of the directly awarded contract; and 2. Accenture is the only supplier capable of delivering the Services during the period of the directly awarded contract. No other supplier has the requisite know-how and technical understanding of the bespoke system to support the existing Services during the term of the directly awarded contract. The tooling and support services are deeply embedded into the current operational model, including monitoring, alerting, automation, patching workflows, incident response etc. These services and tools are not currently documented, modularised or abstracted in a way that would allow straightforward transfer to an alternative supplier. Transitioning away from these services and tools would require parallel design, implementation, validation and handover activity, which is non-trivial and could not be safely achieved during the term of the directly awarded contract. Only Accenture could do this work while safely continuing to provide the Services to enable another supplier to take over the system. The direct award is both necessary and proportionate, and limited to the period required for Post Office Ltd to prepare and conduct a competitive procurement for future service transformation. POL requires a supplier to provide the Services while conducting preparatory transformation design work. The Services include a complex mix of infrastructure as a service and platform as a service, components, integrations with Horizon (Post Office's electronic point of sale (EPOS) system) and numerous third party and internal systems, and tightly coupled identity, networking, security, logging, and monitoring dependencies embedded within Accenture's proprietary service wrap. There are no reasonable alternatives to the Services because no alternative provider could technically assume responsibility for the service wrap at this time without substantial redevelopment and high-risk of operational disruption. Initiating a change of provider during a period of significant business and operational change would therefore pose a substantive risk to service continuity and the stable delivery of core functions. The Services are critical to the ongoing operation of POL's business. POL cannot accept any gap in the continuity of the Services. Since only Accenture is capable of providing the Services during the period of the directly awarded contract, there is no reasonable alternative to the direct award.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/040050-2026 |
| Notice type | UK7 - Contract Details Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Direct |
| Procurement method details | Direct award |
| Tender suitability | Not specified |
| Awardee scale | Large |
| All stages | Award |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 30 Apr 2026 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | 17 Feb 2026 |
| Contract period | 31 Mar 2026 - 30 Jun 2029 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | £45,000,000 |
| Contracts value | £45,000,000 |

## Status

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

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | POST OFFICE LIMITED |
| Locality | LONDON |
| Post town | Central London |
| Postcode | EC2V 7ER |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI3 Inner London - West |
| ITL 3 | TLI35 Westminster and City of London |
| Local authority | City of London |
| Electoral ward | Bassishaw |
| Westminster constituency | Cities of London and Westminster |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## Supplier

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Number of suppliers | 1 |
| Supplier names | ACCENTURE (UK |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

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

### Codes

- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

## Release History

- 30 Apr 2026 at 14:28 - Award - UK7 - Contract Details Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/040050-2026
- 18 Feb 2026 at 09:21 - Award - UK6 - Contract Award Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/014581-2026
- 17 Feb 2026 at 09:57 - Award - UK5 - Transparency Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/014136-2026

## Documents

- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/040050-2026
  30th April 2026 - Contract details notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/014581-2026
  18th February 2026 - Contract award notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/014136-2026
  17th February 2026 - Transparency notice on Find a Tender

## Notice URLs

- https://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/
- https://www.accenture.com/gb-en
- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents

## 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-0655a0. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-0655a0.json.