FOI_26-236 Current IT contracts

Date of response: 15 October 2026

We have now considered your request of 17 September 2026 for the following information:

Question 1. A list of current contracts for ICT services, network and connectivity, telephony and unified communications, data centre or hosting, enterprise software (finance, HR, housing, social care or similar) and programme or project management services.

For each contract please give

the supplier name,

a short description,

the start date,

the end date,

any extension options,

the annual or total value

and the job title of the contract owner.

If this information is published in the organisation's contracts register under the Local Government Transparency Code, a link to the current register is a complete answer.

If the request would exceed the appropriate cost limit, please limit it to contracts with an annual value over GBP 50,000 or tell me how to narrow it.

I would prefer to receive the response by email as a spreadsheet.

Our response:

Please see accompanying document, our ref: FOI_26-236 Appendix A.

On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request.

We have applied this exemption to the annual value specific of contracts for whom we pay for IT services. It is our belief that release of this information would prejudice the commercial interests of third parties.

The s.43(2) exemption applies to information provided during the bidding, tendering and procurement process (the pricing structure). It is our belief, supported by direct evidence provided by that release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the third-party suppliers noted in Appendix A.

The provision of and procurement of IT software, servicing and maintenance services provided by an organisation to the University and purchased by the University is undoubtedly a commercial activity.

This commercial activity is conducted in a competitive environment. Companies bidding for such contracts need to show competitive pricing, and providing information given during the tendering process would give other parties hoping to compete for this contract in the future an advantage – meaning their pricing could be undercut in a bid to procure this contract. This would also negate our ability to procure cost effective pricing of contracts going forward should we disclose amounts paid for those contracts.

It is our position that the gross annual value and total value for the duration of these contracts is commercially sensitive. Where the spend is agreed to be confidential by the provider of the contract, releasing the information would be prejudice to commercial interest of the concerned company.

We would also maintain that there is likely to be damage to the commercial interests of the third-party suppliers. Under FOI, release to one requester can be considered as release to the world. It is our position that release of this information would, in effect, competitors of those third parties with information that would be prejudicial to the commercial interests of the companies.

Use of such information by competitors would put third party suppliers as noted in FOI_26-236 Appendix A, at a distinct disadvantage in competing for trade in this field and release of the exempted information would detrimentally impact their competitiveness in this market.

Given the competitive nature of the market in question, the commercial sensitivity of the information, we are confident that there is a strong possibility that this information would be used, and that the prejudice would occur.