A freshly formed English council waves £18m at UK tech industry, asks: Can somebody design and run pretty much everything for us?
- Reference: 1602086592
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/10/07/bcp_council_18m_tender_notice/
- Source link:
The unitary authority in England's south-coast county of Dorset is looking for a "strategic implementation partner" to help design its organisational model and build the IT to run it.
Like one of those comedy shopping lists that unfurls as the recipient thinks they have reached the end, the organisation seeks IT consulting, software development, computer-site planning consultancy, business analysis consultancy, information technology requirements review, accountancy, business management, HR, procurement, and business organisation services – and much, much more.
It also wants a single supplier to take on so many responsibilities that observers may wonder what the council might do if, heaven forbid, the relationship does not go according to plan.
Formed in April 2019 after the merging of Bournemouth and Poole unitary authority with the non-metropolitan district of Christchurch, BCP Council has been charged with integrating services across the organisations it inherited.
But the council, which serves a population of 395,331, [1]said in a tender contract notice there has "always been a clear recognition that a more fundamental transformation is required to fully realise the opportunities that local government reorganisation can bring, as well as remove the complexity, duplication and therefore cost of the operating model that BCP Council has inherited as a result of the way that it came into being."
It is looking for a service partner to develop an "operating model, ways of working and technology architecture" and "identify a recommended operating model design and develop a high-level implementation approach." The supplier needs to be able to offer "management consultancy services, commercial consultancy services, technology implementation and project management consultancy services, strategic advice to senior stakeholders and additional resources to support Council capacity and capability."
However, there is no guarantee the lucky provider would get its mitts on the whole £18m. Jobs will be split into "work packages" to be commissioned individually from the supplier. "Whilst the value of the Strategic Partnership Agreement contract has been set at the figure [of £18m], this is not a guaranteed value," the tender document said.
The area has become known as something of a playground for the rich and famous. Its Sandbanks peninsula is the setting for some of the UK's most expensive houses outside of London, with one [2]rumoured to be on sale for £11m .
The winning services provider will be hoping for similarly rich pickings. ®
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[1] https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:473202-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0
[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8813991/Sandbanks-expensive-mansion-used-belong-Harry-Redknapp-goes-sale-11m.html
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: £18m?
It's probably the figure their preferred partner came up with, just that they have to go through the public procurement process to be able to award the contract...
From the requirements list, it seems that a consultancy with an enterprise architecture capability is needed.
Standard?
It must be a standard set of requirements by now... My late father was the Treasurer to our (smallish) local authority. He was responsible for the installation of one of the first local authority systems (in the mid/late 1960s, Burroughs?). It’s main job was to look after the rates, and pay bills and salaries - It worked. I was just getting into science/technology then, and was allowed to go and see it working in its own room. The manufacturer was sufficiently pleased that it was used as a reference site, and for some reason "gave" them an ANITA calculator to "check everything was OK" - I think that cost about £400. He took early retirement when local authorities were reorganised in 1973. He predicted that the new large authorities would become an inefficient bureaucratic mess, so he grabbed the pension and left. When he left he was allowed to buy the ANITA for £5, and was still using it in 1991.
Of course they can.....
Even if the figure is lowballed because its not the up front cost that are important, its what the recurring costs will be. Its like the archtypical pusher -- once the victim is 'hooked' then they'll never get free and you can pretty much charge anything you want.
Cloud services are just a modern form of time sharing. You pay based on your usage and costs can escalate rapidly as you move from tier to tier. The vendors have every reason to push the advantages of the cloud -- and there are real advantages with regard to reliability and scalability (until there's an outage.....) -- but they rely on you not really appreciating the fine print until its too late.
After all, its said that Amazon doesn't make much money from its mail order business. The real money's in the infrastructure -- AWS. Same with Microsoft and their cloud based Office products -- never sell someone something that you can rent to them instead (a notion pioneered by Herman Hollerith).
Reaches for popcorn
Did they define the purpose?
Is all this money going to be spent on a defined system, with a useful purpose, within a defined schedule?
Is that asking too much?
Oh.
Crapita
Is 18m enough to attract the hyenas that are Crapita, or are they only after bigger fish? If so, it may be a lucky escape
Privatise
Sounds like they want everything done for them, therefore the best thing to do would be to sack the lot of them and just have a corporate entity come in and take over the Council. The taxpayers would probably come out ahead.
Then the Corporation could contract out the political jobs. At least it would be more transparent who was bossing who.
This bit of England didn't just emerge out of the sea last week, it has been around for a long time. Time enough for the disparate regions to have formed the relationships the new authority is looking for. IT solutions that have been working well in one area should obviously be contenders for the expanded regime.
What does look a little suspicious, is the daunting list of requirements, that would scare your average IT provider off of delivering a quote, and it seems it has been written with one IT provider in mind. A provider that has a proven track record in promising the Earth and delivering nothing other than dividends to its shareholders.
I recommend buying stocks in brown envelopes, as it looks like there might be a rush coming. Yeah, a bit cynical, but surely a company that fails that regularly and still wins contracts must have something going on.
Prediction
They will get multiple bids from the usual suspects who will promise to excel or exceed every requirement.
Then some requirement will change (price goes up, timeline extended). Some document they promised is late (price goes up, timeline extended). It rains (price goes up, timeline extended). Et cetera ad infinitum.
Then they find out what support costs.
Good luck with this.
£18m?
That's an arbitrary figure. Did they look in their accounts and that was the total cash-on-hand?