The UK government has signaled its intention to allow a supplier providing maintenance to its online procurement platform to subcontract offshore, having previously said that this was off-limits due to security concerns.

A notice said the variation to an £8 million contract would be negotiated without a prior call for competition because of the "extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable for the contracting authority."

If the Cabinet Office, which ran the competition to support the Central Digital Platform (CDP), an online procurement notice and tendering system, allowed the offshoring of subcontractor work, it would contradict several stipulations in the original contract, which was a call-off from a framework agreement.

In April, the Cabinet Office published a notification

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