Purpose

Cloudbooking is the existing Managed Workspace Booking
System (MWBS) deployed by Lincolnshire County Council. The
contract with Cloudbooking was procured through the reseller
Phoenix; the current contract ends on 31st March 2026.

Retaining Cloudbooking
The process to procure and rollout a new contract for a MWBS
will surpass the remaining length of the existing contract with
Cloudbooking; for this reason, Cloudbooking is required to be
retained beyond 31st March 2026 to continue to manage
resources available to staff on LCC sites until a new long-term
MWBS contract has been established and rolled out. The
pressure for desk and meeting room space on campus has
increased and there is an expectation for staff to use all
resources available to them on campus. Without Cloudbooking,
staff will not have the ability to plan their work location with
their peers, and this is likely to negatively affect the office
attendance on campus and hinder collaborative working.

Procuring Cloudbooking through reseller
A new contract needs to be in place with Cloudbooking to
continue using the existing MWBS for our sites. Cloudbooking is
not on the current version of G-Cloud (G-Cloud14) so LCC have
considered options and have concluded procuring Cloudbooking
through the reseller Phoenix as the most appropriate option
available. Phoenix applies a 2.5% fee on top of the contract
value but still represents the best option. This was a
recommendation from the LCC Commercial Team, and they
have confirmed that no exception is required under CPPR.
The quote from Phoenix for a 1-year subscription for
Cloudbooking is c. £41,722.52. This covers all existing meeting
room, desk, car parking, and visitor management resources
on Cloudbooking on campus and the localities. It is
anticipated more resources and buildings will be added to the
Managed Workspace portfolio which would bring the annual forecast to £45,000

Decision

To continue with the use of the Managed Workspace Booking System via Cloudbooking Limited for 12 months from 1st April 2026 through the reseller Phoenix.

To utilise our software reseller contract with Phoenix Software, who act as our broker, and who will then secure the contracts on our behalf, which are up to the value of £45,000.

This is made up of:

- Licences for the system to a value of £41,722.52 of which a PO will be required ready for 1 April 2026. The licencing includes meeting rooms in addition to the desks, visitor management system and car parking.

- Allowance for adding additional desks to be added to the system from any Managed Workspace building or future offices that come onto the portfolio through the Rationalisation Project. POs will be raised as and when
this is required but will not take us over the contract
value.

- Any additional assistance required depending on business need.
There is budget provision for a booking system within
Corporate Property.

Alternative options considered

G-Cloud considered but Cloudbooking is not on the current version of G-Cloud14.

Direct Award considered but contracts would need to be drawn; purchasing through a framework/reseller enables LCC to use existing contract documents. This was the recommendation of LCC Commercial.

Property have been in discussion with IT throughout to understand if they could provision this facility internally but they since have confirmed that they are not able to provide a replacement booking system at this time.

LCC attended a number of demonstration calls with other providers as part of an initial market research programme to understand the capabilities and functionality of other systems. Multiple staff across Property and Business Support who are key to the operations of the system, were involved in order for feedback to be gathered once the demonstrations were completed. A comparison summary was completed by the procurement officer assigned, which gives an overview of the suppliers based on functionality and requirements as well as a pricing comparison of estimated costs (please note this is not fully complete as pricing for three suppliers was obtained from G-Cloud and the remaining two, publicly available information
from their website was used).

Some suppliers could not deliver all requirements so would not be an option and others were priced very highly. Based on both the functionality and pricing, Cloudbooking via Phoenix would be considered to be the best value for money and required the least amount of onboarding time and resources, due to them being our current provider.

A second option was considered with Cloudbooking:

- Option 2 – Continue with Cloudbooking but retain the current licences (desks, visitor management, car parking). Although the monetary value for this contract is less, it would not help improve our workspaces and take up more admin time.

Option 1 is still recommended as it allows the add-on ofmeeting room licences to this contract and complete a rolling plan to onboard these onto the system. This will allow Facilities Management to better manage all resources and allowing staff a single platform for all services. It will be an improvement to the system, enabling the production of reports across the
portfolio which will in turn aid in future decision making and allow utilisation to be monitored actively.

Work is already in progress to procure a future solution and potentially a new Contract/provider to commence April 2027. This is being done in conjunction with Commercial and key stakeholders within LCC to ensure any replacement system continues to meet our needs.