Public sector
IBM Maximo for UK public sector and defence
Maximo for public-sector and defence estates: G-Cloud procurable, ISO 55001 aligned, federated multi-agency tenancy, and long-term stewardship without lock-in.
Who keeps score
Six readers of a public asset register, and what each one rejects
Scrutiny arrives from several directions and rarely at a convenient moment. The design test is whether the answer can be produced from the live record in year twenty, by people who were not there in year one.
| Ref | Scorekeeper | Asks for | Will not accept |
|---|---|---|---|
| PS1 | National Audit Office, and beyond it the Public Accounts Committee | Evidence that public assets are maintained and replaced on a rational basis, traceable to the assets themselves. | Aggregate assurance with no asset-level trail. A total that cannot be decomposed is a claim rather than evidence. |
| PS2 | HM Treasury Green Book, and the finance function defending the case | Options appraised on credible evidence, including asset condition, criticality and remaining life. | Condition evidence from a one-off survey with no link to the maintenance record. It ages the day it is signed. |
| PS3 | Your departmental security function, under the Government Security Classifications Policy | Handling, hosting, access control and personnel controls appropriate to the classification of the data held. | Shared administrative accounts, and support access that cannot be attributed to a named, cleared individual. |
| PS4 | Government Digital Service monitoring, under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 | Any custom user interface at WCAG 2.2 level AA, with an accessibility statement that reflects testing. | An accessibility statement written from an assumption rather than from a test that was carried out. |
| PS5 | Your certification body, ISO 55001 | A documented line of sight from organisational objectives to the maintenance work executed, with performance evaluated. | A strategic asset management plan with no trace into the work management system. |
| PS6 | The department, against the Government Service Standard and Technology Code of Practice | User needs evidenced, open standards used, and a plan for the service after the project closes. | A delivery plan that stops at go-live. The standard is interested in the next ten years. |
Codes PS1 to PS6 are stable, so a bid writer or assurance reviewer can cite one by reference.
The buying route
Two instruments a procurement pack asks for
The fourth column is the one worth reading: it states where each instrument stops.
| Credential | Issuer and reference | Covers | Does not cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK G-Cloud 14 | Crown Commercial Service, Digital Marketplace Supplier 721548 Verify → | A route to purchase. A UK public-sector body can call off MaxIron implementation, MAS upgrade, managed hosting and application support under framework terms, with the service definitions, terms and pricing published in full. | An endorsement of MaxIron by government. Suppliers on the framework are neither compared nor ranked, so the listing confers no position relative to others on it. |
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | ISOQAR Limited, UKAS-accredited Certification Body 0026 Certificate 27274 Verify → | The MaxIron information security management system for delivery of IBM Maximo services and MaxIron Cloud, with a Statement of Applicability addressing all 93 Annex A controls. | Your accreditation. The decision to operate at OFFICIAL or OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE stays with the departmental security function that owns the risk. |
Federated estates
What the centre mandates, and what an agency keeps
The mandated core
The smallest set of structures that has to be identical across agencies, districts or trusts for the centre to report on the estate it funds.
Local by design
Everything a district can change without asking, because the centre has no reporting interest in it.
What it covers
Asset classification, criticality scale, condition scale, failure taxonomy and the work types the centre reports.
Work order routing, crew and shift structures, local supplier arrangements, local reports and start centres.
Who changes it
The centre, through a documented change route, once the agencies have agreed the definition.
The district or trust, inside the platform, without a change request.
What moving the line costs
Mandate more and districts keep a shadow spreadsheet, so consistency exists on the report and nowhere else.
Mandate less and the centre loses comparability across the estate it is accountable for.
In conversation with Rob
Robert Carew
Chief Executive Officer · 21+ years in EAM and IBM Maximo
Rob on the operating discipline a public estate inherits
- Why does a public body need IBM Maximo specifically?
-
The asset is held for forty years and scrutinised for all forty. The National Audit Office, a select committee and a Green Book appraisal are three audiences asking one question: can you decompose that number to the asset. Maximo holds a maintenance record that is still answerable in year twenty, across a federated estate, under a classification regime.
- You say the real decision is whose operating discipline the estate inherits.
-
The software is the smaller half of what is being bought. Three suppliers over twelve years each add what the requirement of the day demanded, and the result is an accumulation. The current team can operate it and cannot safely change it, so change requests get quoted defensively and the estate calcifies. The question worth asking in procurement is whose habits you are inheriting for the next decade.
- What is the specific failure you see most on public estates?
-
Condition data commissioned rather than collected. A capital case needs evidence, so a survey is bought. It is accurate the day it is signed, it diverges immediately, and the next case buys another one. Meanwhile the technicians attending those assets every month capture nothing, because the form does not make it easy. That is an operating model choice and it never appears as a line item.
- What do you refuse to sell a public body?
-
A configuration only we can maintain. Every bespoke element is a future upgrade cost and a reduction in your ability to compete the contract at the end of the term, so configuration is the default and any custom work is named, documented and given an owner. The second refusal is the claim that better data settles a business case. We make the evidence current and traceable; the judgement stays with the accountable officers.
Rob co-founded MaxIron in 2022 and stays personally close to every implementation and MAS programme we run.
Boundaries
Three positions we hold on public-sector delivery
Each costs us scope on occasion, and each leaves the client with a cheaper estate to own.
Accreditation is decided by your security function
We design and operate to the controls the classification requires and support the assurance process throughout. The decision sits with the function that carries the risk.
Federation follows an agreement between the agencies
A common data model works once the agencies have agreed what must be common. Until then the platform documents the difference and we facilitate the conversation that closes it. It will not settle it.
The business case stays an economic judgement
Green Book appraisal rests on evidence, and we make condition and criticality evidence current and traceable. The weighting of options stays with the accountable officers.
The measure
A well-run public estate is one that is cheap to hand over, and we build to that measure deliberately.
Configuration is documented to a standard an incoming supplier can pick up, inherited bespoke code is assessed item by item under customisation modernisation, and the data model stays yours. A public body that cannot document its own estate cannot credibly compete the contract at the end of the term.
Maximo in the public sector, questions we are asked
- How do we buy MaxIron services through G-Cloud?
- MaxIron Ltd is supplier 721548 on UK G-Cloud 14 through the Digital Marketplace. Implementation, MAS upgrade, managed hosting, application support and the Maximo Health Check are called off under framework terms without a separate tender. The listing is a route to purchase and not an endorsement: framework suppliers are not compared or ranked.
- Can you operate at OFFICIAL and OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE?
- Yes. Hosting, access control, named support access and audit logging are designed against the classification of the data rather than retrofitted at accreditation, and every action is attributable to a named individual. The accreditation decision itself sits with your departmental security function.
- What happens to the estate at the end of the contract?
- You keep a documented, transferable estate. Configuration is documented to a standard an incoming supplier can pick up, bespoke code is avoided where configuration carries the requirement, and the data model is yours. We treat ease of replacement as a deliverable, because it is the assurance of value a framework can actually enforce.
Bring your last supplier transition and one capital case.
The transition shows how documented the estate really is. The capital case shows whether the condition evidence under it came from the system or from a commissioned survey. We read both and name what we would fix before the next procurement cycle.
Bring this to the first call
- The configuration documentation you would hand an incoming supplier today
- One capital business case and the condition evidence behind it
- The list of bespoke code still deployed, if it exists
- The data structures the centre currently mandates across the federation