Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2018-05-17
Buyer: Ipswich Borough Council
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 72210000: Software programming services
Estimated value: 400000 GBP
Submission deadline: 2018-06-29
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Ipswich Borough Council provides a range of services to the residents of Ipswich from refuse collection to sport and leisure facilities. The Finance team, based at the council headquarters in Grafton House, supports all aspects of service delivery through activities such as budget management, financial planning, procurement and payments to suppliers. This procurement will award a contract for consultancy services to improve the main council finance system, supporting a programme of business transformation. The Council targets completion of this project for the summer of 2019.
Ipswich Borough Council (IBC) uses Unit4’s Agresso Business Works (ABW) suite for its finance and procurement functions. Whilst the core software is on a current release (Milestone 6), it is not used to its full potential and requires improvement. This is a major business transformation project for the Council, and in recognition of this, the Council has agreed a substantial budget the services, training and development required to deliver this transformation. The Council has already acquired the additional software licences required for this project.
1) project costing and billing (currently not used) — to provide support for the Councils 100 000 000 GBP capital programme and to enable better management of the Council’s recreational events and commercial activities;
2) procurement (currently used lightly) — to provide a full procurement support to include self-service requisitioning and full contract management support;
3) reporting — to provide a comprehensive self-service reporting facility that is user friendly and allows real-time information to be provided to end-users, reducing the current burden on the Council’s internal finance team;
4) budgeting — to provide a robust budgeting facility which sets-out the Council’s budget with a 4-year horizon;
5) asset management — to provide the Council with a comprehensive asset management system, replacing a number of existing, non-ABW, asset management systems;
6) training and development of end-users and technical finance staff — to enable the Council (officers and in some instances members) to make best-use of the improved system and have an end-user community that is confident in its use of the system. In addition to the above requirements, the Council is keen to investigate whether any existing line-of-business applications (e.g. asset management, Servitor) could be replaced with ABW functionality. The Council envisages that this will be explored in a series of workshops with Council staff.
All dates and time periods specified in this notice are provisional and the contracting authority reserves the right to change them. The Authority reserves the right not to award the contract. It reserves the right not to proceed with all or any part of the project detailed at II.1 above and in no circumstances will it be responsible for any costs incurred by economic operators as a result of the publication of this notice or otherwise in connection with their tenders. Full details of this tender can be found on the Suffolk Sourcing System — www.suffolksourcing.uk
The Council considers that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) apply to the contract. If TUPE does apply, those employees of the current Contractor(s) employed in the part of the service so transferred will become employees of the successful new Contractor on their existing terms and conditions of employment. Information on staff employed by the current contractor(s) on the service are set out in the invitation to tender Appendix G. Please note that this information has been provided to the council by the current Contractor(s). The council supplies it in good faith but does not warrant the information in any way. Under TUPE, there is an obligation to consult with recognised trade unions, professional associations and employee representatives about any likely consequences for staff. Tenderers are advised to seek their own professional advice in order to form their views on the question of TUPE and must specify in their tender the view they have taken, providing reason.
The Authority will allow a standstill period of at least 10 days at the point of the information of the award of the contract is communicated to tenderers. The standstill period provides time for unsuccessful to challenge the award decision for the contract is entered into. The public contracts Regulations 2015 provide for an economic operator who has suffered or risks suffering loss or damage by a breach of the regulations to take proceedings in The High Court. Proceedings must normally be started within 30 days of the date when the economic operator first knew or ought to have known that grounds for starting proceedings had arisen.


Award value: 400000