Defra Secures a $2 Million Contract With AWS

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have inked a $25 million contract. Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon will provide Defra with cloud hosting, its bring-your-own-license software management solution, as well as support, managed and technical services, and staff training. The duration of the contract is three years, beginning on 1 January 2023, when Defra initially signed. The agency has committed to investing a minimum of $4.7 million yearly but anticipates actual expenditures to total $25 million. This is a sixfold increase above the 2021 contract Defra inked with AWS, which was set to expire at the end of 2023. 

This most recent transaction is governed by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between AWS and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), also known as the One Government Value Agreement. This MOU was struck in 2020 and provided clients in the public sector who signed a three-year contract with AWS an 18 percent discount, with an extra 2 percent discount for those who paid in advance. After the MOU, several agencies, including the Ministry of Justice as well as the Home Office, among others, have signed contracts with AWS totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. 

AWS announced in March 2022 that it would invest $2.37 billion in the construction and operation of data centers in the United Kingdom. National Audit Office estimates that Defra, the agency that oversees environmental protection, food supply and regulations, agriculture, fisheries, and rural areas, would have the second-largest legacy IT spend from 2021 to 2022. According to a study published in December 2022, the department spent $894 million on its legacy IT and has around 2,000 apps, of which 30 percent are not supported by a vendor.