The Cabinet Office has confirmed that 12 out of 16 bidders made it onto the Public Services Network (PSN) framework.

The pan-government agreement – a brainchild of the previous administration – is made up of managed telecoms services to "ease collaboration and communication" between various public sector departments.

Suppliers that made the grade include Logicalis, KCOM, Thales UK, Fujitsu, BT, Virgin Media Business, C&W Worldwide, Level 3 (formerly Global Crossing), Capita Business Services, Updata Infrastructure UK, MDNX Enterprise Services and eircom UK.

The services covered in the £500m to £3bn two-year framework include network connectivity – including local and wide area networking; information assurance services; and design, deployment, transition and biz continuity services.

Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office, said the PSN is a "fundamental building block" of government's ICT blueprint to dish out services to citizens "more efficiently and cheaply".

Maude said: “The 12 successful suppliers named in the PSN Connectivity Framework include small and medium-sized enterprises as well as major industry names, underlining our commitment to establish a more open and competitive ICT marketplace at the heart of the UK public sector.

“Work in the 21st century needs to be about what you do, not where you do it and the longer the public sector lags behind, the more this costs the taxpayer and constrains innovation.” ®