The UK's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is leading a £958.7m ($1.2bn) search for a supplier to develop business processes for new business and HR systems to bring together four central agencies.

This month the DWP launched the Synergy Business Process Services (BPS) procurement, which will see it and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Home Office and their associated arm's-length agencies transferred to an ERP and HR systems with a common set of processes.

In June, the DWP launched the procurement for the technical side of the renewal, with up to £934 million ($1.15 billion) on the table to update a business system in the cluster of Whitehall departments. With the new business process side of the project underway, the total expenditure on the new system could almost reach £1.9 billion ($2.5 billion).

The Synergy program is part of a wider mission across central government departments to consolidate and upgrade their business and HR systems into clusters. This mega project has been heavily criticized for lack of funding and an insufficient business case.