Welfare and Benefits Data Analytics Service

Tender description

Reading Borough Council is aiming to procure an online tool that combines analytics with local authority data to drive strategic and operational decisions in the provision of a range of welfare services. The Council wishes to gauge the potential interest of experienced suppliers for this work. The software needs to be fully interactive and enable the Council to: • understand the cumulative impact of welfare reform on each low-income household • track the changing circumstances of low-income households to check the effectiveness of interventions, policy changes and socio-economic factors. • understand variations of income relative to household's needs and identify struggling, just managing, and in crisis households based on analysis combining household's incomes, expenditure and arrears. • identify households that are in poverty with respect to national relative and absolute poverty lines. • bring together disparate datasets to have a single view of low-income households. Our key supplier requirements are recent experience (within the last three years) of supplying a product that can fulfil all the following criteria: 1. Can utilise data already being extracted by officers from Council systems without the need for SQL reports, add on modules or extra software 2. Can interrogate the data to show households in Reading which have been impacted by recent welfare reform as well as any future welfare reforms and the cumulative effect for individuals 3. Can reflect arrears data for council tax, rents and housing benefit overpayments so that a complete picture can be built for each household. In addition it should be adaptable enough to accept further data sets as deemed necessary in the future 4. Can highlight potential vulnerabilities and/or barriers to work with the ability to export data on those cases to support proactive support work 5. Can provide results that are easy to understand, shown in a variety of formats and be able to be interrogated down to ward, street and individual household level, ae well as easy to share with a variety of stakeholders The Council anticipates an initial contract period of 12 months with the potential for a further extension subject to operational need and value for money considerations Organisations who believe they fulfil the experience requirements and who would anticipate responding to an invitation to tender for the services are asked to notify the Council of their interest with a brief summary (no more than four sides of A4), of their organisational experience and capability , the functionality of the product and indicative costings. Reading Borough Council intends to use the information supplied to assess whether suitable specialist products exist to meet our requirements. If the Council decides that there is sufficient interest from capable suppliers we may decide to proceed with a procurement exercise via further advertisement which will formally invite tenders.