Purpose

All submissions were evaluated as part of a further
competition run by Commercial from the Crown commercial
services framework 'Payment Solutions 2' (RM6248) - Lot 2
'Pre-paid Cards’ EML Bidder 2 was the highest scoring
submission out of 3 bids received as detailed below.

The Contract price will be £26,880 pa with an initial £2,000
set up cost. The £4.50 issue fee per card will also be covered
by the financial services budget until consultation is
concluded in 2026/7 where it is anticipated these costs will be
chargeable to the client as happens in other authorities.
This will be a 2 year contract with 2 x 12 month extensions.
Overall Total Contract value for 4 years, if all extensions are
agreed, including set up costs, will be £ 112,670.
Implementation costs have been granted by the Finance
Leadership Team in September 2025, these costs will sit with
Financial Services.
The introduction of prepaid cards aligns with the Council’s
strategic plan to manage clients’ finances more efficiently and
safely, while exploring opportunities to offset service costs
through appropriate charging mechanisms.
It is anticipated by the end of year 2 this service will be cost
neutral, a phased reduction in cash requirements should
create modest savings through reduced reliance on the King’s
armoured cash-delivery contract. Future clients will transition
to prepaid cards rather than cash-based money management,
preventing:
• Incremental increases in cash delivery costs.
• Additional administrative processing associated with
cash handling.
The current arrangement of manual cash delivery and
disbursement will reduce in value over the first 12 months
and be replace entirely by year 2. The contract will also
release internal resource when the cash handling is removed.

Decision

To award the pre-paid cards contract to EML following a compliant procurement process for up to 700 cards to be rolled out over a 6 month period to clients with a court of protection order.

The cards will replace cash currently handed to carers and guardians.

The cards will have spend controls and auditable reporting to enable only appropriate spending, offer visibility of transactions and therefore provide an improved level of monitoring and security for both the client and their carers guardians and council staff will have visibility to manage concerns of unacceptable spending and allow improved safeguarding.

The contract will remove the need for the cash delivery and disbursement service which requires internal staff resource and offers limited visibility and controls on spending behaviours. The new service will increase the safety and security of clients, carers and staff.

The tender and contract has been designed to allow further roll out to other client cohorts within the council should this be required without further competition.

Alternative options considered

1. Do nothing – This is not viable because LCC have a
responsibility to support people with a reduced mental
capacity. The finance team currently issue cash to
carers/guardians, roughly £45,000 per month. This poses a
risk to both LCC staff and the individuals and doesn’t afford
any oversight of spending, and a safer and more auditable
solution is required.

2. Not award to EML and consider an alternative
procurement process – The framework selected contained
significant operators in this market and tested relevant
criteria. There is no sound commercial basis to support any
further competition and it would likely negatively impact
the market perception of LCC.