The Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs has made a direct contract award for a data licence without going out to tender with an estimated value of £296,500 including VAT.

The contract covers the British Geological Survey Licence 2026 – the data licence is required for the Defra Group.

The data can only be purchased from British Geological Survey who are the sole providers who can supply the goods, services or works required, and there are no reasonable alternatives to those goods, services or works. 

The data licence provides the use of a number of British Geological Survey (BGS) data layers which include multiple geology and groundwater datasets.

Current start and end contract dates are 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027.