To award a contract for the delivery of mobile phone services.

THAT:

(a)        a contract be awarded to EE under the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) framework RM1045 for up to four years at an annual value of £63k and additional mobile service as used.

The council’s contract with EE included the following:

a.         Mobile tariff  £108k pa:- inclusive voice and data allowances

b.         Additional usage/ services £23k pa:

i.          £13k pa - minimum spend commitment for services outside of the inclusive allowance (such as additional data, premium rate calls and international roaming)

ii.         £10k pa -call routing service for reduced rates on council landline calls to council mobiles.

The above takes a view of average charges over the period January 2016 to December 2016

The voice and data tariff in the agreement with EE are not competitive with the market rates available and the additional services committed to were underutilised and redundant in the case of the call routing service.

In light of the above and the below key considerations, awarding a new contract will ensure the services required are maintained at a reduced and competitive price.

Option 1 – Do nothing: The council is currently in an agreement with EE for the provision of mobile services for which the initial term ended on 30 November 2016. Recent market testing shows that there are better tariff rates available. This option is therefore not recommended.

Option 2 – Join an aggregated procurement through CCS: This was explored in October- November 2016. Whilst it presented an opportunity to leverage the marketplace with joint buying power, this option was seeking to award based on price alone. The tender made no provision for the council to specify requirements associated to network quality. With the understanding that the quality of network coverage is vastly different across providers in this region and to avoid a reduction of network quality to the existing service, this option was not progressed.