It began with a scoring dispute, as these things usually do. Mastek, a London-based IT company with Indian roots that had contributed to the development of the UK Home Office’s Atlas immigration case management system, filed a lawsuit in the High Court in October 2025. The business claimed it had been unfairly excluded from a £138 million procurement process to carry on developing the very platform it had contributed to. HT-2025-000334 was the case number. The stated losses amounted to more than £47 million in lost earnings.
The case was resolved by May 2026. However, this is not how most settlements operate. There was no announcement of the winning bidder, no payment of damages, and no government acknowledgment of liability. Rather, the Home Office simply withdrew the entire purchase. The £138 million deal was completely withdrawn. A representative clarified that no liability had been acknowledged and that the department did not accept Mastek’s accusations. At least in public, it’s still unclear what truly transpired between the two parties.
That result has some merit. Following a legal challenge from one of its current suppliers, a significant government technology procurement related to the politically delicate immigration and asylum system in the UK was canceled. The Home Office was forced to extend its current contracts with incumbent providers in order to keep the lights on, regardless of the legal merits on either side. The department granted Mastek £15 million over four months and PA Consulting £13.5 million over five months as non-competitive extensions in July 2026. There was no open bidding for either contract. Both were given in order to maintain a vital national system.
One could consider this to be routine. Bridge extensions occur frequently in Whitehall, government contracts are overrun, and procurements are delayed. However, the Atlas system’s unique past makes it more difficult to ignore the pattern. With a complete handover anticipated for 2021, Atlas, which was initially developed by Accenture, Mastek, and PA Consulting, was intended to replace CID, a legacy case management system that started development in 2000.
The deadline was not met. After that, a second one was overlooked. It appears that Home Office employees continued to use CID for certain tasks as late as December 2025. According to a June 2026 Public Accounts Committee report, staff were still using their own spreadsheets in addition to the new platform, despite the fact that the legacy system had finally been decommissioned. The same month, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration added to the criticism, concluding that Atlas had not assisted caseworkers in learning from the results of court appeals.
In a sense, Mastek’s stance during this time was contradictory. At the same time, the company was winning new contracts from the Home Office and suing it. Mastek signed a five-year, £49 million contract in February 2026 to support the Home Office’s National DNA Database and Biometrics Services Gateway, which are used in law enforcement, passport applications, visa processing, and asylum claims. In March, a month later, the business secured an engineering contract worth £85 million to maintain and update the Atlas platform. simultaneously the plaintiff and the partner. Although it’s not totally uncommon in large public sector IT relationships where the dependencies are deep and switching costs are high, it’s an unusual position to be in.
When considering those contracts in conjunction with the Home Office Mastek settlement, it becomes clear how procurement disputes in this area are typically settled. Damages were not paid by the government. It did not admit misconduct. However, the disputed procedure was dropped, the incumbent continued to work, and fresh work continued to come in. Depending on which side of the contract you’re on, that may or may not represent sound pragmatism.
The next step is a replacement procurement worth £336 million, which is anticipated to cover services from June 2027 to May 2031, with a potential extension to 2033. Both asylum and non-asylum immigration systems would receive a portion of the agreement. The market engagement exercise released in June 2026 indicates that the Home Office is considering a more responsible, cooperative supplier relationship in the future. It is a much larger contract than the one at the heart of the dispute.
As is always the case with government IT, it is unclear if that intention will endure contact with the actual procurement process.
