Planning, Parking, Highways & Transport

Business, Corporate & Resident Services, Culture & Heritage, Windsor

Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime, and Public Protection

To consider the procurement and tendering outcome for the Council's Case Management System, approve the award of the contract to the successful bidder and delegate authority for future contract period extensions

Please note restricted appendices to this report have been circulated separately to Cabinet members. 

Cabinet considered the joint paper relating to the procurement and tendering outcome for the Council's Case Management System.

Councillor Haseler, Cabinet Member for Planning, Parking, Highways & Transport, proposed the recommendations and explained that the report summarised the procurement and tendering outcome of a tender for a cloud based Case Management System to support services carried out by approximately 130 users within Planning, Environmental Health, Housing & Trading Standards; Licensing; Highways and the Local Land & Property Gazetteer custodian. This exercise had been undertaken because the current contract was due to end in March 2024. It recommended that a new contract be awarded to the winning bidder (Bidder A) whose bid had been considered as the most economically advantageous on the basis of the technical and financial evaluation undertaken. The new contract incorporated a specification that ensured continued service provision that would support the Council's transformation agenda, as well as lead to improved customer experience and more efficient ways of working. If the new contract was not awarded, the Council would be in breach of the Public Procurement Regulations (PCR 2015) as the Council would be out of contract and would not benefit from the proposed enhancements and transformation. Additionally, the Council would be unable to efficiently deliver statutory functions in a timely manner.

The response to the market engagement indicated, that based on the current market, the Authority should be moving from an on premise to a more up to date 'cloud' based, hosted option. This also aligned with the Council's IT preference of 'Cloud First' hosted solutions and, although the transition to this model would represent a significant change for the authority, it was anticipated that the benefits and associated efficiencies in ways of working would outweigh any investment required. Additionally, the Council had follow-up conversations with other authorities who had moved to a hosted model, and they confirmed it brings significant benefits. Procurement and legal officers had been involved in the process and their advice had been followed. Both procurement and legal colleagues had contributed to the procurement process and can confirm that advice has been provided to ensure that the exercise was fully compliant.

Councillor Rayner seconded the proposals explaining that the cross council report had seen ICT, highways and transport teams come together to agree the iCloud system to replace the iDox system. She explained that it was proposed to reduce the annual maintenance cost and allow the Council to transform services going forward.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY that:

i)               the report be noted;

ii)             the award of the case management system contract to the Bidder A on the basis of a 4 year contract, with the option to extend for a further 4 years in 1 year periods be approved. The contract was due to commence in January 2023 with go-live in March 2024 and its value is detailed in Appendix A of the cabinet report which was Part II by virtue of paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972; and

iii)            delegated authority be approved to the relevant Director to extend the contract beyond the initial 4 years, on a yearly basis, up to the maximum contract period of 8 years.