Planning

Open Referral Tool

  • Department for Work & Pensions

F01: Prior information notice (prior information only)

Notice identifier: 2026/S 000-013293

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-065399 (view related notices)

Published 13 February 2026, 10:50am



Section one: Contracting authority

one.1) Name and addresses

Department for Work & Pensions

Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA

London

SW1H 9NA

Contact

Commercial Team

Email

cddigital.ucwa@dwp.gov.uk

Country

United Kingdom

Region code

UK - United Kingdom

Internet address(es)

Main address

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions

Buyer's address

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions

one.3) Communication

Additional information can be obtained from the above-mentioned address

one.4) Type of the contracting authority

National or federal Agency/Office

one.5) Main activity

General public services


Section two: Object

two.1) Scope of the procurement

two.1.1) Title

Open Referral Tool

two.1.2) Main CPV code

  • 72222300 - Information technology services

two.1.3) Type of contract

Services

two.1.4) Short description

The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP). referred to as “the Authority", is conducting market research to assess the availability, capability, and indicative costs of off the shelf solutions for storing and managing service information that supports individuals. These solutions must comply with the Open Referral UK standard and be suitable for use across multiple organisations and use cases.

This RFI does not commit the DWP to undertaking any formal procurement activity. This notice has also been published on Contracts Finder.

For further information and details on how to respond to this RFI, please refer to the attachment found on the documents section of the Atamis e-Procurement portal:

https://dwp2--prospend.vf.force.com/apex/CS_ContractPage?filters=&page=1&Preview=Yes&searchStr=&SearchType=Projects&sortStr=Alphabetical&uid=a1MdO000002h4wrUAA&sfdcIFrameOrigin=https%3A%2F%2Fdwp2.lightning.force.com

two.1.6) Information about lots

This contract is divided into lots: No

two.2) Description

two.2.3) Place of performance

NUTS codes
  • UKI - London

two.2.4) Description of the procurement

The Authority supports individuals to access appropriate services and interventions (collectively “referrals”), including local and national support offers delivered by public, voluntary, community, and private sector partners.
The Authority’s objective is to improve:
• Data standardisation across organisations
• Interoperability between systems
• Data quality (accuracy, completeness, timeliness); and
• Reusability of referral data across multiple channels and users.
The Authority is exploring a tool aligned to Open Referral UK (currently v3.x) to enable consistent publication, search, validation, and reuse of referral data.

two.3) Estimated date of publication of contract notice

1 April 2026


Section four. Procedure

four.1) Description

four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes