Decision details

In 2011 the Council acquired an integrated housing management system software solution that replaced a number of separate systems that were in use and to deliver service improvements, financial savings and promote efficiency.

The support term of the contact ended on 30 June 2020 and there are now a number of ‘out of contract’ modules and some ‘run on’ modules that have been purchased over the life of the contract but without us varying our original contract.

The pandemic has introduced delays and there is not enough time to undertake full market testing so the best option to enable business continuity is to direct award a 2-year contract against CCS framework RM3812 to give us time to go through a full tender process. This would also allow us to bring all the modules we have under a single support contract that ends on the same date otherwise it will be problematic to re-tender the whole system if we are required to give notice to terminate each individual module.

A decision has been taken to exempt this contract from market testing under para 3.2 of Contract Standing Orders, as it is necessary as a matter of urgency and is economically in the best interest of the Council

The decision to award a 2-year contract under CCS framework RM3812 is £80,996.83.

Alternative options considered and why rejected

To go through a tender process but this would mean that a number of modules would remain unsupported until a new contract award is made. This option has been rejected as it is important to protect this core system and its support.