The purpose of the report is to approve the budget and procurement for the site hosting and maintenance of the WISH website at a maximum value of £105k over a four year contract period. In addition approval is sought to procure specific website enhancements and development time at an additional cost of £7500.

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That:

(a)        The council utilises the Crown Commercial Framework RM3821 to procure a web hosting, maintenance, higher level customer support, development, design and update functions for the WISH website up to a maximum value of £105k over a period of up to four years.

(b)        The council procures further development time under the same procurement for the site to deliver the enhanced 'my booklet' function at a value of £3k in year one and a further £4.5k of site development works over the contract period.

(c)        The Assistant Director of all age commissioning will take the operational decision to award the contract subject to a satisfactory and compliant tender and evaluation process.

1.          Not procure the web hosting and maintenance service. This option is not recommended as the contract cannot be extended further and the service and facilities are essential for the continuation of WISH. The site would no longer be available and Care Act 2014 requirements would not be met.

2.          Undertake full open procurement. This is not recommended as it would be significantly more expensive to build a new website and there would be major disruption of the online presence and on service continuity.  Phase three of the website’s development has very recently been launched, and as this signifies an investment of £22.5k, it would not be an appropriate time to reprocure without realising that investment.

3.          Procure site hosting and maintenance functions only, plus some enhanced features including minor site changes and customer service support. This option is not recommended as analysis has shown that if the highest level of support was in place over the previous contact, then the costs would have been lower overall.

4.          Do not undertake the additional developments and just procure the web hosting and maintenance. This option is not recommended as the proposed procurement framework does not allow additional work to be added to the contract subsequently. Therefore procurement has to be undertaken each time a new element of the site needs to be commissioned. It would not be time or cost effective to undertake governance decisions and procurement exercises for each new minor development.