Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2016-04-23
Buyer: HM Revenue and Customs
Country: UK
Region: UNITED KINGDOM
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 30100000 | 30121100 | 30121200 | 30121300 | 30123000
Estimated value: 175000000 GBP

Technical requirements: HMRC’s objectives are to maximise revenues, improve customer experience and reduce costs in a sustainable way. Our strategy is based on understanding our customers, so we can deliver services tailored to their needs and positively influence their behaviour. HMRC’s digital strategy will help us meet our objectives and specifically states: “The drive to Digital by Default will significantly reduce both the volume of paper produced and sent to customers by mail and the amount coming in to HMRC. HMRC currently issues in the region of 220 000 000 letters (c. 450 000 000 A4 images) to customers each year and receives some 11 000 000 letters for processing.
HMRC is looking to procure a set of services that will allow us to continue to send and receive paper output but that also enables us to move towards full multi-channel communication, ultimately reducing the volume of paper that we, as an organisation, has to handle.
HMRC currently owns the design of documents in-house within its Digital Services team and has a desire to take ownership of all composition activity (composition for bulk printing is currently performed by a third party supplier) and channel control services. The solution will need to allow us to streamline the processes, so that form / letter creation and change is materially quicker and cheaper, and allows us to create outputs capable of delivery to customers through the channel of HMRC's choice based on customer preferences. This includes, where required, print-ready files to send to production. HMRC already has a long term strategy for managing customer preferences, but would also be interested in looking at options for the short to medium term within the market for a solution to store customer preferences and integrate this to its systems in order to direct communications accordingly.
Due to the digitisation programme in HMRC, the volumes of physical paper both produced and received will reduce significantly (up to approximately 75 %) through the life time of this parliament ( i.e. 2020).
a) Ensure continuity of high quality print and scan services through the transition to the new suppliers and through HMRC's digital transformation journey and the reduction in paper input and output;
c) Support the control, storage and management by HMRC of the channel preferences for communication with customers;
e) Provide digital image capture including key information to identify who the customer is (such as a national insurance number or the self-assessment unique tax payer reference) and what their correspondence is about (e.g. whether it is a form or a letter requesting a refund); securely store the digital copy of the customer correspondence in a digital library enabling HMRC staff to retrieve a digital image of the correspondence and create electronic workflow based on the type of digital correspondence so we can flexibly deploy work anywhere across our network of offices for processing;
f) Adopt industry best practice and standards in document handling for both physical and digital media;
Suppliers will need to demonstrate they will be able to process the volumes of work set out in this PIN and meet the minimum standards of security required by HMRC as set out in the HMG Security Policy Framework and Cyber Essentials scheme along with compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998, all accessible via www.gov.uk
Suppliers are advised that certain services delivered under existing contracts are performed by supplier staff and are subject to TUPE regulations.
This is the default service for c. 39 000 users who create outputs on their desktops and moves the printing from their local office printers to a centralised print and despatch facility and generates in the region of 13 000 000 letters per year (39 000 000 images) including enclosure of mail and sorting for presentation in general to Down Stream Access mail distribution. The current third party contract for Central Print expires in December 2016.
For all output services, HMRC requires the utilisation of the lowest cost postal services available for all qualifying mail.
Due to the digitisation programme in HMRC, the volumes of physical paper both produced and received will reduce significantly (up to approximately 75 %) through the life time of this parliament ( i.e. 2020).
a) Ensure continuity of high quality print and scan services through the transition to the new suppliers and through HMRC's digital transformation journey and the reduction in paper input and output;
c) Support the control, storage and management by HMRC of the channel preferences for communication with customers;


Award value: 175000000