Spark 101

There is a new DPS for suppliers of innovative technology solutions ‘Spark: The Technology Innovation Marketplace DPS ‘.

This new DPS hopes to fill a gap identified by CCS and its public sector clients for the supply of new products emerging from technology innovation, such as those developed as proof of concepts between a Public Sector Buyer and Suppliers.

In case you don’t know, a ‘DPS’ is a Dynamic Purchasing System, which means suppliers can join at any time during the contract lifetime. Due to the nature of the technology that Spark (as we will now lovingly refer to it) is hoping to provide we welcome the decision from CCS to make it a DPS. Knowing that suppliers can join anytime will allow those who provide the most up-to date tech the chance to sell to Gov without the constraint of committing to one product or service on application, such as with frameworks like G-Cloud.

Suppliers on Spark must demonstrate that they can provide at least one new or innovative technology for one or both of ‘Radical’ and ‘Disruptive’ Innovation.

 Subject areas for the DPS include:

• Corporate: Finance, HR, Customer Service, Facilities, Data
• Transport: Rail, road, air, maritime
• Defence: army, airforce, navy
• Health: diagnostics, treatment, prevention
• Local gov: Waste management, planning, social care, licensing, citizen engagement, electoral
• Police/justice: prevention, prediction, evidence gathering, protection, custodial
• Education: learning outcomes, testing
• Environment: mapping, agriculture, fisheries

Some of the types of tech the DPS is looking to source include:

• Data management platforms
• Connectivity
• Machine learning
• Speech Recognition
• RPA
• Virtual Assistants
• Brain-computer interface
• And more….

A full list of the tech that can be supplied can be found in the bid pack.

Much of the hype around this marketplace seems to be positive with an estimated value of £20m in its first year, rising to £50m in its third year!

However, it is worth noting that, looking at the requirements, it is not as ‘SME friendly’ as it could be. For instance, the Dun and Bradstreet Failure Score threshold is 60 (that’s 5 points higher than needed for Network Services 2, a notoriously tricky framework to get on…). There also seem to be a lot of standards that suppliers need to meet (dependent on what is being supplied), some of which include ISO27001, ISO9001 and other IT and Accessibility standards. So, not impossible for SMEs to achieve but perhaps not as ‘inviting’ as we would hope!

Minor quibbles aside, we are certainly excited to see where this one goes…