The CCTA, the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, has issued a policy statement on single source maintenance of information technology equipment. The statement outlines the government’s experience of single source maintenance, reviews procurement procedures, and addresses some specific problems. The CCTA says that the benefits of single source maintenance contracts include reduced costs, a better quality and more flexible service, lower administrative overheads, and opportunities to extend maintenance to obsolete equipment at no additional charge. Departments can now seek competitive quotations from CCTA-approved suppliers, and the Agency says that public services contracts will be advertised by mid-1991. In the interim, it instructs departments to consider competition for maintenance whenever opportunities arise. The CCTA acknowledges problems with existing single source maintenance contracts. Difficulties have arisen with the supply of spares, diagnostics, documentation, and engineering software. Thus, it intends to recommend that departments do business only with suppliers prepared to co-operate with single source maintainers. The document states that suppliers who lose hardware maintenance contracts and subsequently reduce software support or increase costs, will not be regarded as co-operative. Departments will also be required to seek evidence from bidders that they can meet a department’s needs, particularly in the field of spares and diagnostics. The CCTA has requested that government departments respond to the document by the end of November, 1989.
