Home Office hands £28M to immigration IT incumbents after procurement challenge

Summary

PUBLIC SECTOR Home Office hands £28M to immigration IT incumbents after procurement challenge Continuity support required after £336 million replacement deal delayed by more than a year The UK Home Office has awarded contract extensions worth £28 million to two incumbent tech suppliers of the much-delayed Atlas immigration and asylum system after a legal challenge derailed an earlier procurement process. The Whitehall department in charge of policing, borders, and immigration awarded PA Consulting a five-month contract extension worth £13.5 million and Mastek a four-month extension worth £15 million. Both contracts were awarded without competition. The Register understands the Home Office began an open procurement for new contracts in the summer of 2025. However, Mastek launched a legal challenge in October after it was eliminated following the second stage of bidding for a £138 million Atlas contract. Mastek alleged there had been "manifest errors" in the scoring and that competing bidders had access to information that had not been made available to it. It sought about £47 million in lost profits and approximately £158,000 in wasted bid costs. The case was settled in May 2026 and the procurement was withdrawn. A Home Office spokesperson told The Register: "These allegations, including that the Home Office acted in breach of the Public Contracts Regulations, have never been proven or accepted, and there has been no admission of liability."The Register understands the Home Office extended its existing tech supplier contracts to ensure service continuity. In June 2026, the department published an early market engagement exercise – which does not mark the start of a competition – concerning the provision of services, support, and development to the case management software that supports the asylum system, a politically contentious issue in the UK. "The system has a requirement to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week availability, with updates and enhancements continually del...