Involve v DWP: success for Ewan West KC and Alfred Artley in the TCC

Involve v DWP [2026] EWHC 2209 (TCC)

The Technology and Construction Court (O’Farrell J) today handed down judgment in the Involve procurement dispute, dismissing the claimant’s challenge to the exclusion of its tender for non-compliance.

The claimant (Involve) is the incumbent supplier of audio-visual services to DWP for key services including Universal Credit. It submitted a bid for the replacement video solution, but its tender was disqualified on the basis that it failed to meet the minimum score for one of the technical questions (Question 6.4). Although at the original moderation Involve had originally received a score of 7 for that question, one of the evaluators remained concerned that Involve’s solution, which used ‘URL masking’ (where a customer is re-directed to a non-GOV.UK domain, but that is then ‘masked’ from the customer by showing a GOV.UK URL in the address bar), did not meet the requirement for the solution to be “integrated and provided from within DWP web pages”. A re-moderation meeting was therefore convened, at which it was agreed that URL masking did not meet the requirement: Involve’s score for Question 6.4 was therefore reduced to 1, leading to its disqualification and the award of the contract to another bidder (Accenture).

Involve challenged the disqualification on the three grounds, claiming (i) that DWP’s decision to re-moderate the scores for Question 6.4 was in breach of the principle of transparency and/or manifestly erroneous; (ii) that DWP’s conduct of the re-moderation process was in breach of the principles of transparency and/or equal treatment and/or its obligation to act proportionately; and (iii) that the score awarded to Involve for Question 6.4 on re-moderation was manifestly erroneous.

A further issue arose following the service of Involve’s witness evidence, which showed that Involve’s Director of Technical Services had drafted sections of its bid. DWP considered this breached the conflict of interest mitigations which Involve had previously agreed (given its incumbent status), which prohibited the relevant individual from taking part in “detailed bid assembly”. DWP therefore obtained permission at the pre-trial review to amend its Defence to allege that even if Involve had not been disqualified as a result of URL masking, it would have disqualified Involve in any event for breach of the conflict of interest rules in the ITT.

Following a two-week trial in January 2026, the Court dismissed Involve’s challenge, finding for DWP on almost every issue. The Court held that

• DWP’s decision to re-moderate the scores for Question 6.4 was not in breach of the principle of transparency and/or manifestly erroneous.
• Although DWP had breached the principle of transparency by using extraneous material to evaluate Involve’s proposal during the re-moderation, that breach had no effect on the outcome of the re-moderation or the procurement and caused no loss to Involve. DWP’s approach in the re-moderation, that URL masking was not capable of meeting the requirements of Question 6.4, was not manifestly erroneous.
• The score awarded to Involve for Question 6.4 on re-moderation was not manifestly erroneous.
• DWP was entitled to, and would have, rejected Involve’s tender in any event for failure to comply with the conflict of interest rules in the ITT and the agreed mitigation measures.

The judgment therefore provides helpful guidance as to the proper conduct of moderation meetings and how the principle of transparency applies in practice to challenges to disqualification. It also illustrates the risks to tenderers of failing to comply with conflict of interest obligations.

Ewan West KC and Alfred Artley acted for DWP (instructed by the Government Legal Department).