Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2018-02-07
Buyer: Suffolk County Council
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Competitive dialogue
CPV classification: 32400000 | 32430000 | 32500000 | 64200000 | 72000000
Submission deadline: 2018-03-07
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Suffolk County Council (SCC) wishes to appoint a Partner with the relevant experience and a proven track record to implement and support the Suffolk Public Sector Cloud programme. The Suffolk Public Sector Cloud (“The Suffolk Cloud”) is a platform to meet the communications requirements of public sector organisations in Suffolk and adjoining areas. The initial contract will last for a period of 5 years with the option to extend for up to a further 5 years in a minimum of yearly increments. It is difficult to predict the exact value of this contract as the Partnership’s property portfolio is likely to vary over the contract term, but it is estimated that the total value will not be less GBP 5 000 000 or greater than GBP 75 000 000.
Suffolk County Council (SCC) wishes to appoint a Partner with the relevant experience and a proven track record to implement and support the Suffolk Public Sector Cloud programme. The Suffolk Public Sector Cloud (“The Suffolk Cloud”) is a platform to meet the communications requirements of public sector organisations in Suffolk and adjoining areas. The contract will be available for use by Suffolk County Council as the anchor tenant including any trading organisations wholly owned by the Council:
— arm’s length bodies established by the Council and members of the Suffolk Cloud programme which includes any public contracting authorities within the geographical boundaries of the East of England including Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Luton, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Southend-on-Sea, Thurrock and Essex including but not limited to district and borough councils,
We envisage awarding one contract for the Suffolk Cloud with terms and conditions covering the provision of the underlying communications infrastructure and the provision of the managed services however SCC reserve the right to amend the award scope and nominate a subcontractor for the provision of infrastructure as part of the Competitive Dialogue process. The Managed Service provider must provide Suffolk County Council or its nominated agent with an “Indefeasible Right to Use” (IRU) or similar arrangement of up to 20 years that covers all duct and fibre infrastructure used to connect public sector sites if that infrastructure has been directly funded by SCC or the Suffolk Cloud Partnership. The commercial model for this arrangement will be finalised as part of the Competitive Dialogue process but is expected to be included in the Managed Service terms and conditions. The initial contract will last for a period of 5 years with the option to extend for up to a further 5 years in a minimum of yearly increments. It is difficult to predict the exact value of this contract as the Partnership’s property portfolio is likely to vary over the contract term, but it is estimated that the total value will not be less GBP 5 000 000 or greater than GBP 75 000 000.
The Council intends to select a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 bidders, should their scores be significantly close following the evaluation against the published evaluation criteria.
Suffolk County Council incorporates a minimum 10 calendar days standstill period from the point at which information on the award of contract is communicated to the tenderers. This period allows unsuccessful tenderers to seek further debriefing from the contracting authority before the contract is entered into. If an appeal regarding the award of contract has not been successfully resolved: The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as amended provide for aggrieved parties who have been harmed or at risk of harm by a breach of the rules, to take action in the High Court (England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Any such action must be brought promptly.