Retained or Outsourced Integrator at the Land Registry
The Land Registry is a public agency with 2,300 staff and 11 suppliers covering applications, hosting, network, service desk and security. Each supplier contracts directly with procurement; no one owns end-to-end service. An audit found 260 unmanaged interfaces and repeated finger-pointing during outages. The board wants a service integrator. Option A is an internal SIAM function of 25 FTE. Option B is a managed service integrator on an 18-month transition at £4.8 million a year plus gain-share. Public-sector pay caps make recruitment hard, security clearance for eight roles takes six months, the incumbent service desk contract ends in 14 months, and the minister wants visible improvement before an election in 20 months. Two suppliers are SMEs with limited SIAM experience.
1. Recommend a structural option. Justify it against the constraints and state what must remain in-house.
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Recommendation: a hybrid, but not a 50/50 one. Appoint the managed service integrator (MSI) to run operational integration for a defined term, while retaining a small internal core of accountable roles.
Why not the 25-FTE internal function. The timetable does not support it. Public-sector pay caps make 25 hires unlikely, eight security clearances take six months, and the service desk contract ends in 14 months. Building from scratch would consume most of the 20-month political window before visible improvement. The agency would also need to buy tooling and process capability it does not currently have.
Why not a pure MSI either. Outsourcing all integration would hollow out accountability and create a super-provider with visibility and influence over ten other suppliers. The agency would be unable to challenge performance or change direction without renegotiating.
What must remain in-house. The SIAM lead and end-to-end service owners; service strategy and architecture; commercial and supplier management across 11 contracts; security accreditation and risk acceptance; business relationship and customer advocacy; ownership of performance data and the end-to-end measurement model; and service continuity policy. The MSI operates the process, tooling, reporting and 24x7 major incident coordination. The agency owns the outcomes, the data and the decisions. This gives speed through the MSI while preserving the capabilities that cannot be safely delegated in a public agency.
2. Identify the retained capabilities that must stay in-house regardless of the option chosen, and explain why two of them are non-delegable.
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Retained capabilities.
- Service strategy, architecture and service design authority.
- Governance, policy and risk acceptance.
- Commercial and contract management across all suppliers.
- Security accreditation and information assurance.
- Business relationship management and customer advocacy.
- Ownership of performance data and the end-to-end measurement model.
- Service continuity and crisis decision-making.
Two non-delegable capabilities. Security accreditation is non-delegable because the agency remains accountable to the regulator and Parliament. A supplier cannot accept risk on the agency's behalf when its commercial interest is to pass an audit and move on. The agency must own the accreditation boundary, the risk register and the decision to accept residual risk. Commercial and supplier management is also non-delegable because a managed integrator that also manages the other suppliers has a conflict of interest. If the MSI controls the purse strings, performance data and escalation route, it can favour its own services or conceal margin pressure. The agency must own market-facing decisions, the data and the right to escalate or terminate. The MSI can operate the mechanics of supplier review, but the agency must set the rules and hold the sanctions.
3. What are the two biggest risks of your recommendation, and how would you mitigate them?
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Risk 1: dependency and lock-in. The MSI becomes the single coordination point and accumulates knowledge, making exit costly. Mitigate with a 3+1+1 contract, an open data model, mandatory knowledge transfer, an exit plan and escrow, a right to insource, and retained analytics so the agency can see performance independently of the MSI's reports. Require the MSI to document processes in the agency's format.
Risk 2: provider disengagement. The other ten suppliers may treat the MSI as 'just another layer' and withhold cooperation, especially the two SMEs with limited SIAM experience. Mitigate by writing collaboration, data-sharing and bridge-attendance obligations into all contracts at renewal, giving the MSI clear authority backed by the agency, and running a joint governance forum. Provide the SMEs with a simplified process interface and a named contact rather than a full SIAM toolkit.
Third risk to watch: political expectation. Visible improvement in 20 months is achievable only if the programme targets quick wins such as major incident coordination and a single change calendar, not a full tooling transformation. Phase the work: service desk and hosting first, then applications and network. Publish baseline and improvement data quarterly so the minister sees progress before the election, and avoid claiming that a delayed go-live is a success.