Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many organisations were asked to provide offers for the purchase of laptops and tablets provided to children to use for home learning.

The department issued tender opportunities for the procurement of devices to all suppliers present under the Crown Commercial Services Framework, under Technology Products and Associated Services (TePAS) Lot 2: Hardware and Associated Services. A list of all suppliers present under Lot 2 of the TePAS framework can be found at: https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6068.

The only exception to the above is the very first procurement, which was a Direct Award to Computacenter made under Procurement Policy Note 01/20: Responding to COVID-19, details of which are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-policy-note-0120-responding-to-covid-19. We awarded this contract directly because of the urgency at the start of COVID-19 outbreak of providing devices for disadvantaged children and care leavers to support access to remote education and social care.