Procurement of Source code licence

The Department for Education (DfE) wishes to take a licence from RM Education plc (RM) of the Source Code relating to the provision of the National Pupil Data Achievement and Attainment Tables (NPDAAT).

The Department for Education (DfE) wishes to take a licence from RM Education plc (RM) of the Source Code relating to the provision of the National Pupil Data Achievement and Attainment Tables (NPDAAT). Taking the licence is time-critical, for reasons of compliance with reporting requirements.

DfE wishes to rely on Regulation 32(2) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended) as justification for taking a licence of the Source Code direct from RM. DfE believes that such direct purchase is justifiable on the basis that:

• competition is absent for technical reasons (relying on Regulation 32(2)(b)(ii)); and/or
• RM has exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights, in the Source Code, meaning that the Source Code cannot be replicated (relying on Regulation 32(2)(b)(iii).
• DfE believes that no reasonable alternative or substitute to the Source Code exists, and that the absence of competition is not the result of any artificial narrowing down of the parameters of what should be a competitive procurement. The reasons for this belief are set out in this notice.
• In 2020, RM was the only supplier to bid in the final stage of the procurement for the NPDAAT service. Since then, several contract modifications have taken place and, on each occasion, details of them were published. No other suppliers reacted to the published modification notices.
• The service to which the Source Code relates is highly bespoke, and only RM has delivered it for the past fifteen years. As such, DfE considers that only RM, as incumbent supplier, can provide the existing technical solution required (namely that embodied in the Source Code).
• The Source Code represents the business rules of DfE's policies (as encapsulated in source code and database objects) and that, as such, the Source Code is only relevant in the context of DfE's specific system and for its specific purpose
• The intellectual property in the Source Code is vested in RM.