To agree to a 3 year upfront payment to Pitney Bowes for intranet GIS at a cost of £24k and also renewal of Desktop GIS at £10k pa saving £42k over 3 years. This contract will include support and maintenance of the council’s geographic information system (GIS) that serves the web site and major applications across statutory functions such as planning, environmental health, emergency planning and others.

That:

(a)         a 3 year contract for provision, support and maintenance of geographic information systems be awarded to Pitney Bowes for a period of three years at a cost of £54k.

1.           To retender. A detailed soft market test and analysis was undertaken to establish options in the market. 3 separate quotes were obtained from Pitney Bowes, CDR and ESRI for the GIS desktop software, a similar investigation was undertaken for the web mapping solution. The analysis of both market tests established Pitney-Bowes as being the leading and preferred supplier based on price and functionality. This soft market test has resulted in a £42k saving if the 2 contracts with Pitney-Bowes are merged together into 1 overarching contract and prepaid over a 3 year period. The other potential suppliers tested provided quotations which were of  a higher annual cost, additionally there would be a cost of change estimated to be more than the original cost of the 2 contracts with Pitney-Bowes and would  result in moving things away from a centralised corporate solution for the council’s GIS application. This option of retender was therefore not recommended.

2.           Non-renewal of Pitney Bowes maintenance and support. This is not recommended as the council would be running without support and maintenance on a product that is used extensively across statutory service areas. The application suite is used extensively through the economy, communities and corporate directorate to deliver statutory functions which carry penalties if not delivered correctly or on time.

3.     Proceed with the current annual renewal. If the current renewal was progressed the application would be supported but Herefordshire Council would not benefit from a £14k saving a year which equates to £42k over the 3 year term