Purpose

The Council has an
existing contract with a provider for a cloud-hosted telephony
system which provides contact centre, physical phones services,
telephony routing services for a number of critical services, and
backend integration to Council systems to facilitate automated
self-service and Webchat.
 
The Council have
been using a Managed Service contract to fulfil the requirements,
which remain unchanged for almost 3 years, the contract expires on
31 July 2023.
 
The report is to
seek approval for a new 3-year contract with the option to extend
for 1 further year commencing 1 August 2023, through the Crown
Commercial Services’ (CCS) Framework G-Cloud 13, with a value
of approximately £600,100 per year.
 
The contract may
also provide the opportunity to consolidate services which are
currently delivered via other telephony contracts and
telephony-based payment card systems as these agreements come to an
end. A separate paper will present a recommendation when these
services come up for renewal.

Content

(1)    The commissioning of the cloud-based
telephony system service with an external provider for the next 4
years, with an estimated value of £2.41m.
 

(2)    The procurement
strategy to call-off a 4-year, £2.41m, service contract from
theCSS’ G-cloud13 Frameworkto deliverthe cloud-basedtelephony
system service and subsequent contract award.

Reasons for the decision

The current contract for the cloud-based
telephony system is coming to an end.

Alternative options considered

-              
Allow the existing
contract to timeexpire.

-              
Extend the
currentcontract.
-              
Insourcing the service.