To renew the existing support and maintenance agreement with Servelec to provide the Synergy application for a period of up to two years from 1 April 2018, at an annual cost of no more than £70k.The application supports three the statutory services of admissions, family information service and special educational needs and disabilities.

That:

the existing support and maintenance agreement with Servelec, to provide the Synergy application for a period of up to two years, is agreed from 1 April 2018 at an annual cost of no more that £70k.

1.              To retender. A preliminary soft market test was undertaken (over the last 12 months) in order to compare the viability of similar systems in the market place. The first part of this was undertaken through a request for information (RFI) via ProContract (the council’s e-tendering portal) and Contracts Finder, which resulted in receiving only one response from a supplier who confirmed that they could deliver within budget and specified timescales. The second part of the information gathering was from regional meetings and networking with other councils. The result of this indicated that there are only really three options, with Servelec Synergy being one option. It’s the market leader in key areas, such as the statutory admissions management, therefore reassuringly Herefordshire Council is well equipped. The other two options would introduce significant cost of change (likely to be more than the original contract cost of 200k), not only in data migration, retraining, de-coupling existing integrations, project management, infrastructure design and staff user acceptance testing, but also solution re-procurement and higher annual running costs. Strategically, the council already has Mosaic (the social care case management application), which is also from Servelec and there is likely to be closer links in this business area and potential for further integrations and data sharing. Therefore, the option to retender is not recommended.

2.              Non-renewal of Servelec maintenance and support. This is not recommended as the council would have to cease using the software applications to remain compliant with the licence agreement.  The application suite is used extensively through the children’s wellbeing directorate to deliver statutory functions, which carry penalties if not delivered correctly, such as school admissions.