Clarifications

If you are not based in the UK, you can use the Royal Mail postcode EC1A 1AA as a generic postcode and the 8 digit number "00000000" as a dummy number for the UK Companies House Registration number if required.

Please refer to DPS Joint Schedule 1- Definitions for the subcontractor and subcontract definitions. Regarding NCSC Assured services, they must always be delivered by the prime supplier listed on the DPS and cannot be subcontracted. Your organisation can only select NCSC Assured services if you have the required assurance.

Duplicate of previous clarification, responded directly

Responded to clarification directly

It is the prime supplier/ bidder that must be assured for any NCSC Assured service/ scheme

Responded to the supplier directly

This can vary from supplier to supplier. A supplier can have individuals in their company that are SC or DV cleared so are able to select this filter. It is worth putting this into a Capability Assessment and writing it explicitly into your Statement of Requirements that your requirement requires the staff working directly on the service to be security cleared to the level required. Similarly, if you have explicit needs for sharing information above official sensitive (e.g. secret or top secret) then it is worth considering using a Non Disclosure Agreement as part of the requirement.

Firstly please notify CCS by emailing info@crowncommercial.gov.uk

Please refer to DPS Joint Schedule 3 - Insurance Requirements. The level of cover required for Public Liability Insurance is a minimum of 5 million pounds.

No - All current appointed suppliers will continue on the agreement until either the DPS closes or the supplier wishes to remove themselves. The extension does not require any action from yourselves.

Questions 162 and 163 are not mandatory questions for joining the DPS. The CESG certifications are set within the Selection Questionnaire and pre-date the agreement - these have now been replaced by the NCSC assured services which your company would need to join via NCSC. We would encourage you to get in touch with NCSC as to whether applications will be open for these pathways in the near future. Similarly, the UK Cyber Security Councils professional titles have recently been released on the agreement which are aimed at individuals with the cyber industry. Again, these are not mandatory in order to join the DPS. You can join and update your service offerings at such a time as you have certifications, NCSC assured services or staff with UKCSC professional titles.

As this agreement is a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS), suppliers do not submit pricing or rate cards as part of their selection questionnaire. Pricing is determined at the further competition stage.

Yes, this is permitted on the RM3764.3 Cyber DPS.

If you contact support@nqc.com then they will be able to provide you with a dummy code for use within the field.

Once the SQ has been completed your application will move into a "Registered 1" Stage where it will remain open until the next DPSQ stage is completed. We do go through the applications which remain at Registered 1 for over a year to understand whether organisations still wish to progress their applications.

We can confirm that answering 'No' to Q144 will not result in an application being rejected on the DPS.

Yes, Questions 133-135 (contract examples) are not required as part of your application and can be marked as No. This will then skip the evidence submission section outlined in Q.136.

Yes, if you scroll down to the bottom of the clarifications page then there is an export button which allows your to export all questions and answers in a spreadsheet format.

Yes, we can confirm that if you are an IASME accredited certification body you would fulfil the criteria for 'certification'

If the clearance has lapsed this should not be selected within Q79, suppliers should only select what they can provide. The DPSQ can be updated at anytime to add any clearances once they have been obtained or renewed.