Public procurement notice: Contract Award Notice
Published: 2016-12-13
Buyer: The Valuation Tribunal Service
Country: UK
Region: Inner London - East
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 72222300: Information technology services | 72250000: System and support services | 72320000
Estimated value: 610277.34 GBP
Award criteria: Lowest price

Technical requirements: The Valuation Tribunal Service's primary business software application (CDB) holds all business appeal, council tax valuation and council tax liability appeal data. The contract is to allow continued access to the application and provision of certain support services (and related to the application) and is required because the previous supply agreement has expired.
The CDB software application will be used at the Valuation Tribunal Service offices in Doncaster and London.
The Valuation Tribunal Service's primary business software application (CDB) holds all business appeal, council tax valuation and council tax liability appeal data. The data contained in CBD is essential to the Valuation Tribunal Service's operation.
The Valuation Tribunal Service is an administrative statutory body that performs a specific function in managing appeals brought by individuals and businesses against the Valuation Office Agency (an executive body sponsored by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) in relation to disputed council tax bills. Performance of this function relies upon access to, and management of, data recorded by HMRC and its executive agencies, which is currently stored in and accessed via the CDB software application. The Valuation Tribunal Service requires continued access to this data, administrative functionality, and software support services to allow appeals to be processed without interruption. Migration of the data currently held on the CDB system to a new supplier would not allow the Valuation Tribunal Service to perform its functions, as the Valuation Tribunal Service requires continued access to new data regularly added by HMRC, which can only reasonably be achieved through both parties accessing a single database. HMRC are the only supplier to hold the technical know-how, the relevant intellectual property rights and the necessary employees (that have been transferred from the original provider of the CBD application under TUPE Regulations) to continue to support the CBD application and its database, and no other providers are able to provide a solution which will allow the Valuation Tribunal Service to continue to perform its function.
To rely on the Regulation 32(b)(ii) exemption there must be an absence of competition for technical reasons, no other reasonable alternative available, and no artificial narrowing of the parameters of the procurement. In this instance there is an absence of competition as the intellectual property rights required for proper performance of the Services are held and protected by a single third party, and the operation of the Contracting Authority is such that it requires ongoing access to the single database that is currently used by HMRC and its agencies. No other provider is reasonably able to offer services that meet the requirements of the Contracting Authority, and therefore there is no reasonable alternative available. The parameters set by the VTS within this procurement are defined by the specific and niche function it performs, and have not been artificially narrowed.
HMRC have established a not-for-profit organisation (known as ‘RCDTS’) to manage and support the entirety of the Services under a sub-contract arrangement.


Award value: 610277.34
Number of bids: 1