On 12 October 2026 the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime published a transparency notice for a £297 million direct award to Leidos to finish the Met's command and control system, on grounds of extreme and unavoidable urgency. The legacy contract runs to October 2029. What the notice claims, what the Act requires, and the date to watch.
Somewhere in your organisation there is a replacement system that is late, and a legacy contract with an end date. The Metropolitan Police has both, and on 12 October 2026 the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) told the market how it intends to deal with them: a direct award to Leidos Innovations UK worth £297 million excluding VAT, £356.4 million including it, with no competition, on grounds of “extreme and unavoidable urgency” (Find a Tender, transparency notice 2026/S 000-096067, published 12 October 2026 at 1:12pm).
The legacy system the award protects is supplied by Unisys under a contract that expires in October 2029. That is three years away. And the notice gives the root cause of the urgency in its own words: “the underestimation, by the parties at the time of contract award in 2018/2019”, compounded by the pandemic. If you are responsible for a programme like it, that is the sentence to read twice, because the Act’s urgency test asks exactly who caused the urgency.
Four questions to answer about your own programme
- Which of your legacy contracts has an end date inside the next three years, and is the replacement on time?
- If you had to use the urgency ground tomorrow, could you show the delay was not caused by any act or omission of your own organisation?
- Are the long-term support contracts bundled into your rescue plan, as £132 million of this one is?
- Has your governance seen a market engagement notice for the replacement that contradicts the urgency claim?
What is MOPAC awarding, and to whom?
| Element | Supplier | Value excluding VAT | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interim contract: finish implementation, run the system, then exit and transition | Leidos Innovations UK Ltd | £165,000,000 | About 3.5 years |
| Sub-contract: maintenance of software under exclusive rights | Frequentis | £30,000,000 | 10 years after exit from the interim contract |
| Sub-contract: maintenance of software under exclusive rights | Octave | £102,000,000 | 10 years after exit from the interim contract |
| Total | £297,000,000 (£356,400,000 including VAT) | Estimated 20 November 2026 to 20 May 2040 |
Source: Find a Tender, transparency notice 2026/S 000-096067, 12 October 2026. The three values add up to the total.
The two sub-contracts are £132 million of the £297 million, 44% of it (£30,000,000 plus £102,000,000, divided by £297,000,000). They run for ten years after the interim contract ends and the notice says they will be novated to MOPAC or to a successor managed service provider. So whoever wins the run service later inherits £132 million of maintenance at rates the notice describes as “locked-in”. The interim contract alone works out at about £47 million a year (£165,000,000 divided by 3.5). The money comes from the Met’s budget, which MOPAC’s own report to the London Assembly already shows overspending on Command and Control by £11.2 million against a £68.0 million strategy and transformation budget this year (MOPAC, Report to the Police and Crime Committee, 8 May 2026, section 4.7).
How did a 2019 contract become a 2026 emergency?
| Previous: the 2019 contract | New: the 2026 direct award | |
|---|---|---|
| Route | Mini-competition under the Solution Provider Framework | Direct award, no competition |
| Supplier | Leidos, with Hexagon, Frequentis and Chaucer | Leidos Innovations UK, with Frequentis and Octave sub-contracts |
| Value | £133.7 million as printed in the Met’s contract list | £297 million excluding VAT |
| Plan | 22-month implementation, then a 10-year managed service with a 5-year option | About 3.5 years to finish, run and hand over, plus 10-year sub-contracts |
| End date | 30 October 2031 | 20 May 2040 |
Source: MOPAC, Command and Control Project Final Business Case, decision PCD 670; Metropolitan Police, Top 10 IT contracts by value, August 2024 disclosure (the Leidos figure is printed there as 133,687.000.44 with a misplaced point, and the start date as 18 December 2019); Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-096067. The new total is 2.2 times the value of the contract it rescues (£297,000,000 divided by £133,687,000).
The business case approved capital spending of up to £96 million for 2019/20 to 2023/24 and a 22-month build (PCD 670). By June 2023 the Met’s oversight board was describing “a fundamental reset” of the programme across delivery, finances and commercials (MPS Finance, Change and People Oversight Board, Command and Control update, June 2023). In December 2024 MOPAC approved a £29.3 million uplift to keep the programme going for two months while a refreshed business case was written, recorded that the Home Office deadline for moving to the Direct Communications Server had already been extended in 2023 and in 2024, and warned that without the money Leidos “could seek compensation through litigation” (MOPAC decision PCD 1789, 16 December 2024). Three business cases, one reset and seven years later, the notice calls the position urgent.
Does the notice pass the Act’s urgency test?
Paragraph 13 of Schedule 5 to the Procurement Act 2023 allows a direct award where the services are “strictly necessary for reasons of extreme and unavoidable urgency” and “as a result the public contract cannot be awarded on the basis of a competitive tendering procedure”. Paragraph 14 then defines unavoidable: the urgency “is not attributable to any act or omission of the contracting authority” and “could not have been foreseen by the contracting authority”. Both limbs must be met.
| What the Act and the guidance require | What the notice says |
|---|---|
| Not attributable to any act or omission of the authority (Schedule 5, paragraph 14(a)) | The root cause was “underestimation, by the parties at the time of contract award in 2018/2019”. The authority was one of the parties |
| Could not have been foreseen (paragraph 14(b)) | The reset was recorded in June 2023; the Home Office deadline was extended twice by December 2024 |
| Does not apply where the authority “simply had not allowed sufficient time to undertake a re-procurement” (Guidance: Direct Award, paragraph 36) | The authority says it cannot re-procure and implement a replacement before October 2029, three years from publication |
| Only for what is “necessary to cope with the urgency”; a separate procurement should be started for the longer term (paragraph 37) | £132 million of ten-year sub-contracts travel with the award, justified separately under paragraph 5 (exclusive rights) |
| Consider an informal competition first (paragraphs 38 and 39) | None is mentioned |
Source: Procurement Act 2023, Schedule 5, paragraphs 5, 13 and 14; Cabinet Office, Guidance: Direct Award, paragraphs 35 to 39; Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-096067. The right-hand column is our reading of the notice.
Here is the point our consultants would put to any board in this position. An urgency award is meant to buy the time to run a proper competition, and nothing more. MOPAC itself published a preliminary market engagement notice on 11 February 2026 for a £100 million “Run” service support contract for this very system, to start on 1 January 2028 and run to 2038, and the new notice says further market engagement for a successor provider begins in December 2026 (Find a Tender, notices 2026/S 000-012206 and 2026/S 000-096067). An authority that was testing the market in February for a competition starting in 2028 will find it hard to say in October that no competitive procedure was possible before 2029. If you ever rely on paragraph 13, make sure nothing you have published says otherwise.
Why does 11 November 2026 matter?
There is no mandatory standstill on a direct award made for urgency (section 51(3) of the Act), so MOPAC could have signed the day after the transparency notice. Instead the notice gives 11 November 2026 as the earliest signing date and 20 November as the estimated start. A supplier has 30 days from the day it knew or ought to have known of a breach to bring a claim (section 106(2)). Thirty days beginning with 12 October ends on 10 November. On our count, the earliest signing date is the day after the window for challenging the decision to direct award closes.
Publishing the notice before the contract and then waiting is what the Cabinet Office guidance recommends (Guidance: Direct Award, paragraph 71). It also means the notice itself carries the legal weight. In Apasen v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2026] EWHC 2239 (TCC) the court refused to strike out a claim to set aside interim contracts, holding it at least arguable that a notice claiming urgency is not accurate if the urgency is not made out on the facts, and that the court can look behind the notice. A notice that states the root cause as a 2018 estimate invites exactly that look.
The dates you should know
| Date | What happened or happens |
|---|---|
| October 2018 | Outline business case approved, £36.8 million capital plan (PCD 481) |
| 18 December 2019 | Leidos contract starts; end date 30 October 2031 (Met contract list, August 2024) |
| June 2023 | Programme reset reported to the Met’s oversight board |
| 16 December 2024 | £29.3 million interim uplift approved; Home Office deadline already extended in 2023 and 2024 (PCD 1789) |
| 11 February 2026 | Preliminary market engagement notice for a £100 million run service, 2028 to 2038, responses by 5 March 2026 |
| 12 October 2026, 1:12pm | Transparency notice for the £297 million direct award |
| 10 November 2026 | Last day of the 30-day claim period beginning with publication (our count under section 106) |
| 11 November 2026 | Earliest signing date given in the notice |
| 20 November 2026 | Estimated contract start |
| December 2026 | Further market engagement for the successor managed service provider |
| October 2029 | Unisys legacy contract expires |
| 20 May 2040 | Estimated end of the sub-contract terms |
Source: Find a Tender notices 2026/S 000-096067 and 2026/S 000-012206; MOPAC decisions PCD 481, PCD 670 and PCD 1789; Metropolitan Police contract disclosure, August 2024; Procurement Act 2023, section 106.
What should a contracting authority do with this?
If you run a police body, an NHS trust, a local authority or a university with a late replacement programme, three things follow. First, the record you keep now decides whether you can use paragraph 13 later: a programme board minute that says the delay was the supplier’s, with the evidence, is worth more than any drafting in the notice. Second, keep the urgency contract to the gap. Put the long-term support into the competition, not the rescue. Third, read your own published notices before you claim that competition was impossible, because a challenger will. Testing a direct award against the Act before the notice goes out is part of a Procurement Act 2023 Compliance Review, and building the decision record as the programme runs is where our procurement transformation and advisory work starts.
What should private companies take from this?
If you sell command and control, dispatch or control-room systems, the £100 million run service is the competition to prepare for, with market engagement from December 2026 and a start date of 1 January 2028 in the February notice. The successor inherits £132 million of maintenance sub-contracts, so price your bid around them. If you think the direct award itself is wrong, the 30-day window runs from 12 October 2026 and your advisers need to know this week, not next.
If you are the incumbent on a programme that is running late anywhere in the public sector, this notice shows both sides of your position. The Act lets the authority keep you without a competition when the deadline bites, and the price of being kept is a notice that puts the history of the programme, and your name, in public. Positioning for competitions like the 2028 run service is what we do in Strategic Public Sector Growth.
Questions contracting authorities are asking
What is the Met Police £297 million Leidos direct award?
On 12 October 2026 the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime published a transparency notice (Find a Tender, 2026/S 000-096067) for a direct award to Leidos Innovations UK Ltd worth £297 million excluding VAT: a £165 million interim contract of about 3.5 years to finish implementing, run and hand over the Met's command and control system, plus ten-year maintenance sub-contracts with Frequentis (£30 million) and Octave (£102 million). The notice relies on Schedule 5, paragraphs 13 and 14 of the Procurement Act 2023, the urgency ground, and on paragraph 5 for the sub-contracts.
When can a contracting authority use the urgency ground for a direct award?
Under Schedule 5, paragraph 13 the services must be strictly necessary for reasons of extreme and unavoidable urgency, so that the contract cannot be awarded through a competitive tendering procedure. Paragraph 14 says urgency is unavoidable only if it is not attributable to any act or omission of the authority and could not have been foreseen. The Cabinet Office guidance adds that the ground does not apply where the authority simply did not allow enough time to re-procure, and that the contract should cover only what is needed to cope with the urgency (Guidance: Direct Award, paragraphs 35 to 37).
Is there a standstill period on a direct award for urgency?
No mandatory one. Section 51(3) of the Procurement Act 2023 removes the eight working day standstill for contracts awarded under section 41 by reference to paragraph 13 of Schedule 5. The authority may still choose a voluntary standstill of at least eight working days in the contract award notice (section 51(4) and (5)). MOPAC's transparency notice gives 11 November 2026 as the earliest signing date, 30 days after publication.
Can a supplier challenge a transparency notice that claims urgency?
A supplier can bring proceedings under Part 9 of the Act within 30 days of the day it knew or ought to have known of the breach (section 106(2)). In Apasen v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2026] EWHC 2239 (TCC) the court held it at least arguable that a notice claiming urgency is not accurate if the urgency is not factually made out, and that a court can look behind the notice. Whether MOPAC's notice would survive that scrutiny has not been tested.
What happens to the Met's command and control system after the interim contract?
The notice says exit from the interim contract is targeted for nine months after go-live of the final production release, and that the Frequentis and Octave sub-contracts will be novated to MOPAC or to a successor managed service provider. MOPAC published a preliminary market engagement notice on 11 February 2026 for a £100 million run service from 1 January 2028 to 1 January 2038 (Find a Tender, 2026/S 000-012206) and says further market engagement begins in December 2026.
Sources: Find a Tender, Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, Command and Control System, Refinement, Delivery and Maintenance Services, UK5 transparency notice 2026/S 000-096067, published 12 October 2026 at 1:12pm; Find a Tender, Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, MPS Command and Control ‘Run’ Service Support, UK2 preliminary market engagement notice 2026/S 000-012206, published 11 February 2026; Procurement Act 2023, sections 41, 44, 51 and 106 and Schedule 5, paragraphs 5, 13 and 14, as shown on legislation.gov.uk on 19 October 2026; Cabinet Office, Guidance: Direct Award (Procurement Act 2023 guidance documents, define phase), paragraphs 2, 35 to 40, 71 and 76; MOPAC, Command and Control OBC, decision PCD 481, October 2018; MOPAC, Command and Control Project Final Business Case, decision PCD 670; MOPAC, Command and Control, decision PCD 1508, 2023; MOPAC, Command and Control Interim Business Case Extension, decision PCD 1789, signed 16 December 2024; Metropolitan Police Service, Finance, Change and People Oversight Board, Command and Control update, June 2023; Metropolitan Police, Top 10 IT contracts by value, freedom of information disclosure, August 2024; MOPAC, Report to the Police and Crime Committee, 8 May 2026; Browne Jacobson for Legal 500, Latest judgment under the Procurement Act 2023: urgency and accuracy of notices under scrutiny, on Apasen Limited v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2026] EWHC 2239 (TCC), 21 September 2026; TechMarketView, Leidos set for £297m Met Police command and control contract, 16 October 2026.