The Home Office has handed Specialist Computer centres PLC a £60m contract to manage hardware procurement and support across its estate for the next five years.

The deal, described in the award notice as "a Single Strategic Channel Partner Contract also known to the industry as a (Value-Added Reseller (VAR)", will assist with "all of the infrastructure refresh activity required over the next 5 years." A VAR-style channel partner contract typically sees a single supplier act as the buyer's route to market for hardware, licensing and associated support, bundling procurement and maintenance under one arrangement rather than running separate tenders for each need.

The notice, titled N&I Hardware VAR, Licencing, Support and Maintenance of Hardware Asset, was published on Contracts Finder with reference tender_515684/1585583.

Suppliers into government IT infrastructure and hardware resale will want to note the scale and duration of the arrangement, even though this notice concerns the award itself rather than an open competition.