Scope
Reference
C168/2024/2025
Description
The Welsh Government remains committed to delivering a national approach to digital services, enabling maintained schools in Wales to maximize the transformational benefits of digital and technology in education. Our vision is to ‘Embrace innovation to transform digital education in Wales’. By harnessing cutting-edge, bilingual digital technology, we aim to create a personalised, safe, agile, and interconnected ecosystem that equips practitioners and schools to prepare learners to thrive in a rapidly evolving global digital society.The Hwb platform is the Welsh Government’s strategic digital channel to support delivering the Curriculum for Wales. It provides education stakeholders with a secure, single point of access to a plethora of bilingual content, resources, and digital tools and services.As a national digital service, we support over 1480 maintained schools, with over 450,000 learners, 55,000 practitioners, and a range of education professionals across the schools’ sector in Wales. The Hwb web platform will need to be accessed by learners, practitioners, and potentially parents. Therefore, we need a service that is customisable to individual users’ needs and preferences. The web platform will need to integrate with a central Entra ID identity service to support different user groups accessing specific content when logged in, as well as allowing public users to access public-facing content. The web platform will need to support standard website functionality, including but not limited to, a content management solution, news, and event management. A key deliverable is to provide a single resource repository supporting the creation and sharing of dynamic and interactive content, resources, assessments/quizzes hosted locally or by accredited partners. The repository will need to support a range of formats from static/interactive resources to immersive VR and AR formats. It is essential the web platform can respond to the evolving needs of schools and embrace opportunities from emerging technology. Our wider Hwb cloud service enables users to access online tools and resources anywhere, anytime, from various web-enabled devices. It provides an integrated platform allowing schools to easily access Microsoft 365, Google for Education, and Apple Classroom tools and services. The web platform will need to support interoperability with these services to ensure resources can be utilised easily as part of lesson planning within virtual classrooms. The platform will need to support a seamless gateway for users to access relevant tools and services through Single Sign-On, using a role-based access control model.The Welsh Government embraces a cloud-first approach and seeks to procure a software as a service (SaaS) solution. The successful bidder will need to design the web platform to our specific requirements, ensuring it is user-centered, bilingual, and fully accessible per the latest WGAC AA standards. The service should embrace secure by design and support simplified code, so content can be published easily and efficiently by our teams. The service will need to be flexible to adapt to the fast-moving and ever-changing technology landscape and provide a gateway to the plethora of services and education technology opportunities delivered by Welsh Government. During the most recent academic year, the existing web platform has supported an average of approximately 3.5 million logins each month. Activity can vary significantly throughout the year, so the service will need to deliver dynamic scaling and full resilience. Our aim is for this service to future-proof the Hwb platform and ensure it’s recognised by educators as the single gateway to meet all their digital education needs for many years to come. The successful bidder has an opportunity to provide a digital service that positively impacts the lives of children in Wales.
Contract 1. Hwb Digital Learning Platform for Wales
Supplier
Contract value
- £6,700,000 excluding VAT
- £8,000,000 including VAT
Above the relevant threshold
Award decision date
21 January 2026
Date assessment summaries were sent to tenderers
21 January 2026
Standstill period
- End: 30 January 2026
- 8 working days
Earliest date the contract will be signed
3 February 2026
Contract dates (estimated)
- 9 February 2026 to 8 February 2029
- Possible extension to 8 February 2031
- 5 years
Description of possible extension:
The Contract will be awarded for a three-year term with possible extensions of up to a total of 24 months
Main procurement category
Services
CPV classifications
- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
- 48000000 - Software package and information systems
Contract locations
- UKL - Wales
Information about tenders
- 3 tenders received
- 3 tenders assessed in the final stage:
- 3 submitted by small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)
- 0 submitted by voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSE)
- 1 supplier awarded contracts
- 2 suppliers unsuccessful (details included for contracts over £5 million)
Procedure
Procedure type
Open procedure
Supplier
Tinopolis Interactive Limited
- Public Procurement Organisation Number: PYCL-7586-NVHD
Tinopolis Centre, Park Street
Llanelli
SA15 3YE
United Kingdom
Email: studio@tinint.com
Region: UKL14 - South West Wales
Small or medium-sized enterprise (SME): Yes
Voluntary, community or social enterprise (VCSE): No
Supported employment provider: No
Public service mutual: No
Connected people/organisations:
Connected organisation information:
Organisation name Tinopolis Group Limited
Companies House number 13037156
Type Organisation
Category Parent or subsidiary company
Registered address Tinopolis Centre, Park Street, Llanelli, SA153YE, UK
Postal address Tinopolis Centre, Park Street, Llanelli, SA153YE, UK
Individual trustee information:
First name Orig
Last name Jones
Nationality Welsh
Date of birth 19 September 1985
Type Individual
Category Director or individual with same responsibilities
Resident country GB-WLS
Registered address Tinopolis Centre, Park St, Llanelli, SA15 3YE, UK
Individual trustee information:
First name Rhys
Last name Bevan
Nationality Welsh
Date of birth 25 October 1971
Type Individual
Category Director or individual with same responsibilities
Resident country GB-WLS
Registered address Tinopolis Centre, Park St, Llanelli, SA15 3YE, UK
Individual trustee information:
First name Adam
Last name Edwards
Nationality British
Date of birth 30 November 1979
Type Individual
Individual trustee information:
First name Rhian
Last name Thomas
Nationality Welsh
Date of birth 09 August 1964
Type Individual
Category Director or individual with same responsibilities
Resident country GB-WLS
Registered address Tinopolis Centre, Park St, Llanelli, SA15 3YE, UK
Individual trustee information:
First name Ron
Last name Jones
Nationality Welsh
Date of birth 11 December 1948
Type Individual
Category Person with significant control
Registered address Tinopolis Centre, Park St, Llanelli, SA15 3YE, UK
Registration date 09 April 1997
Control conditions Owns shares
Individual trustee information:
First name Jennifer
Last name Roberts
Nationality British
Date of birth 16 September 1966
Type Individual
Category Director or individual with same responsibilities
Resident country GB-ENG
Registered address Tinopolis Centre, Park St, Llanelli, SA15 3YE, UK
Contract 1. Hwb Digital Learning Platform for Wales
Contracting authority
Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government
- Public Procurement Organisation Number: PQYQ-3841-BHTP
Gwasanaethau Caffael Corfforaethol / Corporate Procurement Services
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ
United Kingdom
Email: ictprocurement@gov.wales
Website: http://gov.wales
Region: UKL22 - Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan
Organisation type: Public authority - central government
Devolved regulations that apply: Wales