Purpose

Executive Member approved required to award
PPR systems contract to the preferred supplier.
Executive Member to be aware a previous key decision in March 2023
was approved however total cost of ownership has changed.

Decision

The contract for Place systems Replacement be
awarded to Arcus Global (Supplier A) with the contract to begin on
03/06/2024.

Reasons for the decision

Following a robust procurement exercise in
which four suppliers completed the evaluation, the weighted scores
broke down as follows:
 
Supplier A: 94.14
Supplier B: 86.34
Supplier C: 76.81
Supplier D: 75.58
 
Supplier A’s bid fell within the
governing financial envelope for this project.

Alternative options considered

To pursue a waiver and continue with the
incumbent - This option has been explored and it has been
determined that an additional waiver would result in a
non-compliant award.
 
To broaden the procurement to include
suppliers that do not offer a SaaS option but would support an
Azure hosted arrangement - This option is not considered to provide
the level of post implementation support required by users in
respect of functional issues and version upgrades. In addition,
overhead of providing a virtual environment to users to connect to
would have additional costs in licensing, and ICT management.
 
To do nothing - Allowing the contract to
elapse would see the Planning functions and related services at the
Council without a system to function. This would pose significant
issues on many fronts; Planning, Building Control, Land Charges etc
are all regulated services. The Council is required to have systems
in place to manage these services or risk fines. Additionally,
there is a revenue consideration. The Council would potentially
lose revenue by being unable to record and take payments for S106
and Community Infrastructure Levy.