Yorkshire public sector procurement body opens £400m framework

Public sector procurement body Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation (YPO) has opened its £400m framework for data centres, cloud hosting and data security.

Owned by 13 local authorities in the north of England, YPO supplies products and services to councils, schools, charities and emergency services.

In total, 29 suppliers have won a slot on the framework, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), CGI, Daisy Corporate Services, UKCloud and a number of smaller businesses.

Earlier this year, YPO’s managing director, Simon Hill, confirmed the body’s partnership with AWS: “Our recent customer survey showed that 80 per cent of our customers already use Amazon so this will give them an opportunity to complete their list of requirements through YPO, without fragmenting their spend and threatening the ‘one-stop-shop’ proposition.”

Analyst firm TechMarketView’s research has found that AWS nearly doubled its footprint in the UK market last year, turning over £850m, and that use of AWS in the public sector has been “growing rapidly” with customers including the Ministry of Justice, DVLA and the NHS.

The YPO framework, which is divided into 12 lots, is now live and will run until 31 July 2023.