UK govt dept sent a document 'in error.' Now it's being used in a £370M contract lawsuit
Comparison between 2 vendors was never meant to be seen ... or made
The UK's pensions and welfare ministry has slammed its outsourcing provider, SSCL, for sharing a document the department says it "inadvertently provided", a document that later surfaced in a legal dispute over a £370 million contract.
As The Register reported earlier this year, Sopra Steria is suing the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) after it rejected its bid for a new shared service contract, and accepted rival Capita's bid instead. Via its SSCL subsidiary, which provides back office functions to the department, Sopra Steria also supports the current Oracle-based HR and finance system on which the DWP relies. Both Sopra Steria and the department agree that the document – referred to in the legal filings as "Comparison Document" – was sent to one employee and one contractor from that SSCL subsidiary in August 2025.
Capita has already told The Register it took part in a robust procurement process and stands ready to work with the DWP to ensure a smooth transition of service and value for money. It is set to take over running the service after IBM and Oracle won the £711 million ($950 million) contract to build the new Oracle Fusion-based system, awarded in 2024 as part of the so called Synergy project which would provide a HR and finance system to three other central government departments too.
The DWP awarded Capita the Business Process Service (BPS) contract earlier this year for £370 million over ten years. The initial earmarked maximum figure was £958.7 million.
The lawsuit
Sopra Steria began a legal challenge of the procurement in January this year, alleging Capita's price was abnormally low and the process was contrary to UK public procurement rules. Capita and the DWP both deny the claim.
Part of the case focuses on the "Comparison Document" that the DWP shared with SSCL — the Sopra Steria subsidiary — in August last year. In its defense filed with the court last month, the DWP confirmed it had sent a link to the document to one SSCL employee and one SSCL contractor. It said the individuals had been "inadvertently provided with access to the Comparison Document, which on its face was confidential and had clearly been shared in error."
Ethical wall Agreement
The DWP said it had earlier signed an "Ethical Wall Agreement" (EWA) with Sopra Steria to ensure it and SSCL took "all appropriate steps" to avoid financial or personal conflicts of interest during the BPS procurement in which Sopra Steria was taking part.
The department goes on to claim in its defense documents that: "In breach of the EWA, when SSCL staff members were inadvertently provided with access to the Comparison Document, which on its face was confidential and had clearly been shared in error, shared that document with [Sopra Steria]."
The DWP said that in September 2025, its solicitors notified Sopra Steria's solicitors of the DWP's "serious concerns in this regard" and that it was being investigated.
It then said that Sopra Steria's alleged breach of the EWA entitled the department to exclude Sopra Steria from the BPS procurement.
A Sopra Steria spokesperson told The Register:
"Sopra Steria was not excluded by the Department for Work and Pensions from the Procurement, and we do not accept that there was any breach of the Ethical Wall Agreement."
The DWP also claims the Comparison Document was written after it had evaluated the BPS bids. It claims the document was shared with three bid evaluators but "not for the purposes of evaluation"; instead for other aspect of their roles.
The DWP claims the document was designed only to help with the transition of the service to the new provider. "The purpose of the comparative exercise was to review both [bidders'] implementation responses to identify some generic anonymized information from both bidders to create some planning assumptions common to both plans that could be shared with the wider program to support program planning," it said in its defense documents.
The pros and cons list
The Project Support Manager who created the documents did not know the outcome of the procurement, the DWP claimed. Although the document included names of both bidders, the author did not have access to bid evaluator assessments and had no knowledge of the evaluation when the document was created, the DWP asserted in its filing. The document did generally reflect the content of Capita's tender "save that there were errors," the DWP said.
The DWP went on to claim it had not "instructed or authorized" anyone to make the Comparison Document. It said it had conducted an investigation into the disclosure of the document and the "surrounding circumstances."
Some details of the document are redacted from the court filings, but the DWP notes that Sopra Steria published brief details of its claim in early September, shortly after it was able to access the document.
The Register asked the DWP for further comment. An official said it could not comment on an ongoing legal matter.
In its claim, Sopra Steria alleges the Comparison Document contained summaries of its bid for the BPS deal along with details of Capita's bid. It claims it was also circulated among at least eleven DWP staff, including evaluators in the procurement.
After Sopra Steria told the DWP it had been allowed access to the document, the DWP wrote to it saying there had been a "breach of confidentiality" which was under investigation. The DWP wrote that the document had been created for a "separate and internal process which was focused on internal transition planning," and not the procurement.
As part of its claim, Sopra Steria alleges that the document contained details of plans between the DWP, Oracle, and IBM to make changes to the project, which included consolidation of go-live dates across Synergy departments, postponing go-live dates and altering parts of the solution. The DWP decided to renegotiate Capita's tender to help it align with this change request after the outsourcing company's selection as preferred bidder, the claim alleges. "Such renegotiation of the tender and/or amendment to the Synergy Contract is in breach of," the DWP's obligations under the procurement rules, Sopra's claim alleges.
The DWP has denied breach of these rules.
Sopra Steria wants the court to terminate and/or rerun the procurement process. It is also asking for damages. The case continues. ®