Office and computing machinery, equipment and supplies except furniture and software packages

Tender description

The London Borough of Waltham Forest (LBWF) will shortly be seeking a provider who can design, build and run a modern technology infrastructure for the Council to achieve its vision which is to: ‘To create an ICT Infrastructure within Waltham Forest which allows the Council and its partners to exploit information and applications to their full potential, being agile and responsive to business change. Accommodating unknown future requirements and reducing the costs of ownership within Waltham Forest’. This ambitious programme is called ICT Infrastructure 2020 and is in the context of a Council that is changing how it delivers services in response to the massive budget reductions it is facing over the next few years. LBWF is doing this by focusing on: — Becoming an intelligent commissioner; — Moving to being a lean, agile and self-funding organisation; — Delivering services that are Digital by Default; — Increasing partnership working; and — Focusing much more on neighbourhood provision. Historically, the Council has evolved ICT Infrastructure using a blend of both internal and external services with underpinning contracts for hardware, software and services managed by in-house teams. The upcoming tender is to seek a partner to refresh the offering, own the transition and to manage the end to end infrastructure services on a day to day basis. This will enable the Council to focus on its information and technology priorities rather than managing infrastructure, increasing its ‘value add’ activity. The scope of the procurement will include networks, all infrastructure, end user computing and the transition from the current arrangements to the new ones. It is expected that the solution being procured will be available to other local public service organisations within Waltham Forest and other local authorities within London. It is anticipated that the tender will be issued in June following a period of market engagement which will help to refine the Council's requirements. It is expected that the chosen provider will start to transition to the new arrangements at the end of 2016. The Council will be issuing an Outcome Based Specification rather than a traditional input specification in order to give suppliers the maximum opportunity to suggest innovative solutions. The Council is genuinely open to suggestions on the best way to achieve the outcomes so it does not limit the market's thinking. If you are interested in taking part please submit a covering letter with your organisations contact details via www.londontenders.org no later than 17:00 on Friday 1.4.2016, and we shall be in touch shortly after with details of engagement.