Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-03-21
Buyer: Warwick District Council
Country: UK
Region: Warwickshire
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 22821000 | 48781000 | 72261000: Software support services
Estimated value: 77277.9 GBP

Technical requirements: The contract is for the support of a specific computer system to support electoral registration and running elections. The original contract for a specific computer system to support electoral registration and running elections expires 31.3.2017. While other systems exist, the current system is meeting requirements and therefore council is not looking to move to an alternative system. The support for the current system can only be provided by a single supplier who own and operate the system. While the Council could decide not to have support for the system this would not be prudent in the long run as the system would not develop to take into account changes in legislation or resolve operational matters.
An procurement exemption has been granted for the software support and a direct award to the company that provided the electoral management system for a 5 year support contract has been sought.
Award of a contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (in the cases listed in Section 2 of Annexes D1, D2 or D3 as appropriate).
Justification for the choice of the direct award without prior publication of a contract notice in the OJEU in accordance with Directive 2014/24 EU of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Other justification for the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the OJEU.
This VEAT Notice is published under the Public Contract Regulations 2015. The procurement is for the support of a specific computer system to support electoral registration and running elections. The supplier has worked closely with the Warwick District Council (WDC) to develop features in the application that are used specifically for WDC purposes. Given the length of time the application has been used there is a considerable amount of data stored on it. While other systems exist the support for the current system can only be provided by a single supplier who own and operate the system. While the Council could decide not to have support for the system this would not be prudent in the long run as the system would not develop to take into account changes in legislation or resolve operational matters. There is no evidence to suggest the Council should change providers of the system, at this time, because the system is operating correctly and changing system would require significant amounts of training for the Council Officers. As per our code of procurement practice, and exemption was granted based on: 6.4.1 Renewal of software licenses or other IT commodity items where the supply is restricted to either the original supplier.
For a price of 77 277.90 GBP, WDC is able to obtain support for their Electoral registration and elections management system support for 5 years. For these reasons, WDC is publishing this VEAT Notice as it believes that this service is only able to be provided by the current supplier. WDC therefore intend to award a contract to Xpress for 5 years commencing 5.4.2017. Following publication of the VEAT notice on 22.3.2017, there will be a 10 day standstill period, concluding on 5.4.2017. Following satisfactory conclusion of the standstill period, we will enter into a contract with Express from 6.4.2017 for 5 years.


Winner: XPRESS
Award value: 77277.9