Recommendation 9

However, we do not see how this step alone will address the existing gaps in the MoD’s data. For instance, when new systems were introduced in DE&S’s central warehouses through the Team Leidos contract, DE&S stated that it had to engage a private company to do a lot of work on the data for them.18 We were also concerned to hear that the contract for the Bridging the Gap programme, valued at £515 million, was awarded to a large defence prime contractor without a competitive tendering process.19 The Bridging the Gap contract was a five-year contract extension with the same supplier—Boeing Defence UK—of the £800 million Future Logistics Information Services (FLIS) that was signed in 2010 and due to run until 2022.20 The MoD explained that the contract extension would “provide capability that Bridges the Gap between the FLIS contract and the future long-term strategic solution, known as the Business Modernisation for Support (BMfS) project”.21 The MoD told us that it intended to competitively procure the suite of contracts relating to its larger future transformation of its legacy IT systems, with its contract for engineering support and asset management software currently out to tender.22 Transformation plans