Home Office extends Atlas IT deals by £28 million after procurement dispute

The UK Home Office has given PA Consulting and Mastek contract extensions worth a combined £28 million for work on Atlas, its immigration and asylum case management system, after an earlier procurement was withdrawn following a legal challenge. The awards keep the incumbent suppliers in place on a program that has already missed implementation deadlines and remains central to politically sensitive asylum operations.

PA Consulting received a five-month extension valued at £13.5 million, while Mastek received a four-month extension valued at £15 million. Both awards were made without competition. The department did not disclose a new competitive timetable alongside those extensions.

The Register reported that the Home Office began an open procurement in summer 2025 for new Atlas contracts. Mastek then brought a legal challenge in October after being removed following the second stage of bidding for a £138 million Atlas contract, according to the report.

Mastek alleged that the scoring process contained “manifest errors” and that rival bidders had access to information that was not provided to Mastek. The company sought about £47 million for alleged lost profits and about £158,000 in wasted bid costs. The case was settled in May 2026, and the procurement was withdrawn.

A Home Office spokesperson told The Register that the allegations, including claims that the department breached the Public Contracts Regulations, “have never been proven or accepted,” and that there had been no admission of liability. The Register reported that the extensions were made to maintain service continuity.

A larger reprocurement is being prepared

In June 2026, the Home Office published an early market engagement notice for services, support and development related to the case management software used by the asylum system. The notice is not the start of a formal competition, but it signals a bigger reprocurement effort after the withdrawn tender.

The department said the system needs to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with continuing updates and enhancements. The notice said the software supports “critical national priorities” and ongoing improvement work. Those are broad claims, but the operational stakes are clear: Atlas sits behind immigration and asylum casework, where downtime or poor workflow design can affect a high-volume public service.

The next procurement is expected to be split between asylum and non-asylum immigration systems. The Home Office described Atlas as a containerized, open-source Java microservices application running on AWS, using business process management workflows and event triggers, with releases grouped through agile release trains.

The planned contract is valued at £336 million including tax. It is expected to run from June 2027 to May 2031, with options that could extend it to May 2033. The Home Office said it wants more supplier accountability, collaboration and strategic partnership in the future operating model, though the market notice does not set out how that would be enforced commercially.

Atlas has a long delivery record

Atlas was built by Accenture, Mastek and PA Consulting as the replacement for CID, a legacy immigration system that began development in 2000. In 2025, the Home Office said Atlas was ready to replace CID. The system had previously been projected for full implementation in 2021, but that deadline was missed.

The Register reported in 2023 that the Home Office had also missed a later deadline for the full handover and decommissioning of CID. As of December 2025, Home Office staff still appeared to be using the legacy system for some information.

By June 2026, the Public Accounts Committee said the Home Office was no longer using CID, but found that staff still had to keep their own spreadsheets alongside the case management system. Also in June, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration criticized Atlas for failing to help caseworkers learn from the outcomes of legal appeals.

For suppliers, the £336 million plan represents a substantial public-sector technology opportunity. For the Home Office, the immediate £28 million extension shows the cost of keeping incumbents in place when a major procurement stalls.

This story draws on original reporting from The Register.