Digital Services framework
About the Digital Marketplace Digital Services framework, which includes specialists for work on specific digital projects.
What frameworks are
Government frameworks are agreements between the government and suppliers. The basic terms of use are agreed by both parties following a formal Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) procurement process. This saves public sector organisations and suppliers the time and cost traditionally associated with individual procurement contracts. Buyers and suppliers still need to sign a ‘call-off contract’ for each service procured through a framework.
Frameworks on the Digital Marketplace
Public sector organisations can use the Digital Marketplace to access services from 3 frameworks:
- the G-Cloud framework, which includes cloud technology and support (eg web hosting or IT health checks)
- the Digital Services framework, which includes specialists for work on specific digital projects (eg technical architects and user researchers)
- the Crown Hosting Data Centres framework, which provides access to physical datacentre space for legacy systems
The Digital Services framework
The Digital Services framework is an agreement between the government and suppliers who provide people for digital projects. Specialties listed under the framework include ‘user research’ and ‘content design and development’.
The basic terms of use are between the government and suppliers following a formal OJEU procurement process.
Suppliers on the Digital Services framework must:
- work in an agile way
- work according to guidance in the Government Service Design Manual
- provide services that are digital by default
There are over 160 suppliers on the Digital Services framework, who provide all or some of the following roles:
| Capabilities | Linked roles |
|---|---|
| Software engineering and ongoing support | Developer, technical architect, quality assurance analyst |
| Agile product design and delivery | Delivery manager, product manager, business analyst, performance analyst, portfolio manager, service manager |
| Front-end design and interaction design | Designer |
| Content design, editorial and development | Content designer |
| System administration and web operations | Web operations, security specialist, database specialist, network specialist |
| User research | User researcher |
| Embedding Agile | Agile coach |
These roles and capabilities may change from iteration to iteration of the Digital Services framework.
Submit services to the Digital Services framework
You can apply to submit your services to the Digital Services framework when an OJEU is open. On average, an OJEU will be open for 6 weeks, every 6 to 9 months. It will be published on Tenders Electronic Daily.
Suppliers were asked to describe and show evidence of their capabilities when applying for a place on the framework. As part of this process, they demonstrated that their methodology meets the Government Service Design Manual and the Digital by Default Service Standard for new or redesigned digital services.
Applications to the framework were evaluated by Government Digital Service (GDS) subject matter experts covering all 7 digital capabilities.
A place on the framework is no guarantee of business to a supplier. For each digital project request for proposal (RFP) suppliers are invited to respond to, they’ll go through technical, cultural and commercial evaluation.
You can find the Digital Services framework agreement on the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) website.
If you need any more information about frameworks, please email enquiries@digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk