Defence Commercial
Strategic Supplier
Management
Secretariat
Ministry of Defence
Spruce 3b
Abbey Wood
Bristol, BS34 8JH
Ref: DefCmrcl/SSM/Sec/FOI2024/06317
16 May 2024
Dear Mr James,
Thank you for your email of 18 April in which you requested the following
information:
Please can you respond to the following request for Information.
The details I require are:
Spend on Office supplies and associated products for the below financial years.
1st April 2022 – 31st March 2023
1st April 2023 – 31st March 2024
Start date & duration of Contract?
Is there an extension clause in the contract and, if so, the duration of the extension?
Has a decision been made yet on whether the contract is to be either extended or
renewed?
Who is the senior officer (outside of procurement) responsible for the contract?
Name of Incumbent Supplier?
How long have you traded with them?
If you publish your register of contracts and purchasing, can you please provide a
website link.
In addition, can you confirm if you have a contract in place for Tail End Spend.
I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) 2000. A search for the information has now been completed
within the Ministry of Defence, and I can confirm that the information in scope of your
request is held and is below. Each aspect of the request has been answered
individually.
Under Section 16 of the Act (Advice and Assistance) you may find it helpful to note
that the data provided is the total spend for the department as the contract is owned
and managed at departmental level. Therefore this letter will be sent in response to
each of the requests you submitted regarding Office supplies and associated
products.
In order for you to understand the information presented it is also prudent to explain
that MOD purchases of office supplies and associated products are largely covered
by two separate call-off contracts. A ‘call-off’ contract is a template contract, utilising
a Crown Commercial Service (CCS) framework1.
In addition, some off-contract spend on office supplies is made using individual
Electronic Procurement Cards (ePC). The department accepts there may be a small
amount of additional local spend on office supplies and associated products which
has not been captured in the figures below.
•
Spend on Office supplies and associated products for the below financial years:
Please see the tables below for spend data broken down into the two separate call-
off contracts, “Office Supplies” and “IT Consumables”.
Year
Contract Spend
Office Supplies
IT Consumables
01 April 2022 – 31 March 2023
£9,072,254.11
£7,760,691.38
01 April 2023 – 31 March 2024
£8,909,410.46
£6,033,587.54
Year
ePC Spend
spend against merchant category code descriptions
‘Stationery stores’, ‘Stationery/Office supplies’ and
‘Stationery/Office supplies/Printing and writing paper’
01 April 2022 – 31 March 2023
£598,516.11
01 April 2023 – 31 March 2024
£691,580.99
•
Start date & duration of Contract?
Both call-offs commenced 25th January 2021 with a duration of four years.
•
Is there an extension clause in the contract and, if so, the duration of the
extension?
No extension clauses are included within either call-off
•
Has a decision been made yet on whether the contract is to be either extended or
renewed?
Options are currently being reviewed in order to ensure continuity of supply from Jan
2025. Internal and Cabinet Office approvals will be sought when the proposed way
forward has been established.
•
Who is the senior officer (outside of procurement) responsible for the contract?
There is no senior officer outside of procurement responsible for these department-
wide call-offs. They are managed by Head Office Commercial.
•
Name of Incumbent Supplier?
Office Supplies – Banner
IT Consumables – XMA
•
How long have you traded with them?
1
What is a framework – Procurement Essentials - CCS (crowncommercial.gov.uk)
Agreement records show that we have had CCS call-offs in place with these
suppliers since 2016
•
If you publish your register of contracts and purchasing, can you please provide a
website link
Contracts Finder
•
In addition, can you confirm if you have a contract in place for Tail End Spend.
Yes, there is a contract in place for Tail End Spend.
If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office
in the first instance. Following this, if you wish to complain about the handling of
your request, or the content of this response, you can request an independent
internal review by contacting the Information Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor,
MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail
xxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xx). Please
note that any request for an internal review should be made within 40 working days
of the date of this response.
If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may raise your complaint
directly to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the
Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not
normally investigate your case until the MOD internal review process has been
completed. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found
on the Commissioner's website at
https://ico.org.uk/. Yours Sincerely
Defence Commercial Strategic Supplier Management (SSM) Secretariat.
