ID cards: The bidding war begins

The UK's controversial national ID card programme has taken a big step closer to reality.

The Identity and Passport Service's (IPS) Framework Procurement has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union, inviting potential suppliers to make approaches.

James Hall, chief executive of the IPS said: "We've reached what we think is quite an important milestone. This is really about procuring IT service capability."

All about ID cards

Learn about every aspect of the UK's national ID cards scheme in the A to Z of ID cards.

The IPS aims to secure around five preferred suppliers over the next nine months to be followed by a series of mini competitions to determine individual contracts.

Hall said: "We want to create a team of people who understand our agenda. We're approaching this whole thing in recognition that we're building a set of long-term capabilities."

The IPS predicts total spending on these procurement contracts will be around £2bn - a significant chunk of the ID card scheme's £5.5bn total budget.

When asked how confident the IPS is in sticking to these predicted costs, Bill Crothers, executive commercial director for the IPS, told silicon.com: "Yes, we're confident."

Suppliers will be required to "design, build, deploy and service" the projects – which will include an overhaul of the Immigration and Asylum Fingerprint System – as well as offer business process and IT outsourcing.

Each project will operate in phases, with the IPS having the option of removing a supplier from a contract, or even the procurement process, if it is not sticking to promises made.

The IPS has previously stated the first UK citizens will receive their ID cards in late 2009, with the scheme being scaled up during 2010.

Crothers said: "This procurement is consistent with that."

With the opposition parties against the ID card scheme and a general election likely in the next two years, some suppliers could be concerned about a change of government endangering the ID card scheme.

Hall responded to this by saying: "We can't sit here pre-judging or guessing what the policies of a future government might be."

Crothers added 70 per cent of the total procurement costs are for projects that need to be done whichever party is in power, describing them as "business as usual".

The ID card schemes has seen a number changes during its life so far with an ID card mega database and iris scanning tech being ditched in December 2006.