TCS has been awarded a five-year £13m contract by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), a unit reporting to the Home Secretary that is responsible for regulating the private security industry in the U.K. Around £5.4m will be subcontracted to a hosting partner.

TCS is tasked with providing new systems to support the delivery of the SIA's future licensing, approval and compliance operations. The new services are planned to commence at end June 2014. The new system will need to interface with the Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) and HM Passport Office. SIA also recently launched a new service with the Post Office making it easier to apply for a license.

TCS is ousting Liverpool Direct Ltd (LDL), a JV between BT and Liverpool County Council. As well as being price-competitive, factors that will have helped in the selection of TCS include its work for DBS (where it ousted Capita), and its ability to use the new 300-seat IL3-accredited Liverpool facility being set up to support the DBS contract.

This is exactly the type of U.K. government sector engagement involving re-platforming to support service transformation that TCS has been targeting - and has been winning. In case anyone had missed it, TCS has emerged as a significant, rather than aspirational, IT services provider to this sector. Looking ahead, the knowledge from developing this system will be relevant to other government licensing schemes.