The Department developed a wide range of options, as the basis for a short list

1.12  The Department's business advisers, IBM Consulting, identified 30 procurement options in conjunction with the Department. As the PRIME contract did not have provision for voluntary termination, there was no option to put a contract out for competition for the two estates combined. Subject to this, the identified options were wide ranging and provided a suitable basis for further consideration.

1.13  In our view the Department shortlisted for further analysis the seven options, as shown in Figure 2, likely to be most economically advantageous in providing economies of scale, efficiencies and synergies, and most likely to meet the Department's business needs.

1.14  IBM used a high level financial model to estimate the relative cost savings achievable under the different short listed options, and further assessed their ability to meet the Department's core business needs. These encompassed the options' responsiveness and simplicity for the Department's staff, their ability to support current initiatives such as the rollout of Jobcentre Plus, and their flexibility in expanding or contracting the estate in response to future initiatives. The Department also assessed the potential management burden of each option, and how deliverable they were.

1.15  Figure 3 shows that expanding PRIME through negotiation (option 1) was the option that best met the Department's business needs and provided the highest forecast savings.