According to a contract notice for an initial feasibility and design project, entitled 'Single ERP Platform for Government', a large number of Oracle ERP solutions require upgrading and Whitehall is using this as an opportunity to consider consolidation.

The notice reads: "Central government has a large portfolio of ERP implementations which require some form of upgrade in order to continue to receive support and to reduce the cost of that support.

"The Next Generation Shared Services programme is looking to consolidate ERP solutions and deliver standard processes across central government departments."

If the feasibility study, which is set to last four months from award, found that savings could be made from consolidating and deploying a single platform across government, any subsequent contract negotiations would pit indstry giants such as Oracle and SAP into ferocious competition.

It would also be likely to raise questions about how this aligns with the government's strategy around moving away from signing huge ICT contracts with a single supplier - even if savings can be generated by doing so.