Networks

Tender description

The City of York Council (‘CYC’), a unitary local municipal authority, seeks expressions of interest from suppliers capable of operating and managing its city-wide network infrastructure, and in time developing such future-proofed services to benefit the council, city and citizens. The supplier will be the City of York’s Strategic Technology Delivery Partner. CYC has already established itself as a ‘Fibre City’ and is providing some unified services (CCTV, UTMC, Education, Corporate, and Public Access) via the gigabit fibre infrastructure in the City. This has been possible because the City chose a joint approach to delivering connectivity for its corporate, education and UTMC networks via a single managed service delivery partner, for services that includes but is not restricted to the design, management and support of the corporate (and some local and regional partners’) voice, data and wireless estate. The scope of the MSA includes the fibre backbone connectivity within the City. CYC anticipates that a strategic technology delivery partner is as a minimum: (a) responsible in partnership with the council’s own technical authority for technical design and finding technical solutions to strategic developments or council priorities that require technology to help deliver them; (b) responsible for bringing innovations in technology to the attention of the council so that if they are relevant and can help achieve an improvement to existing arrangements or to bring about a strategic priority for the Council they are deployed appropriately; (c) a partner that can help ensure the council’s Business as Usual operates more effectively and demonstrates best value for money; (d) an organisation that works with other innovators within the council to integrate technologies by providing as a minimum the delivery platform (e.g. connectivity) for that innovation to be deployed upon; (e) an organisation with the appropriate standing in the technology world to be able to work with other organisations to find technical solutions for the council; (f) an organisation that responds pro-actively as well as reactively to change; (g) helps the council make smarter use of data to improve services for its citizens and companies. A previous PIN was issued in December 2017. Following a review of the scope of the contract, CYC now seeks further pre-tender market engagement ahead of a procurement process starting in December 2019. It is expected that the contract will be let using the competitive procedure with negotiation. CYC has already established itself as a ‘Fibre City’ and is providing some unified services (CCTV, UTMC, Education, Corporate, and Public Access) via the gigabit fibre infrastructure in the City. This has been possible because the City chose a joint approach to delivering connectivity for its corporate, education and UTMC networks via a single managed service delivery partner. CYC are currently in contract with this managed service provider, for services that includes but is not restricted to the design, management and support of the corporate (and some local and regional partners’) voice, data and wireless estate. This is supported and managed by an on-site team with back up from their engineering and consultancy teams as required. The scope of the MSA includes the fibre backbone connectivity within the City. The MSA contract is due to expire on the 31.8.2020. In the light of the expiry of this contract and the current socio-economic, political and environmental challenges faced by all cities, CYC wishes to procure a partner that will not only work with CYC to maintain and operate the current systems and infrastructure, but do so by developing smarter and more citizen-centric services from development to the city delivery channels and thereby transform the local quality of life by improving: (a) the economic opportunity; (b) community engagement; (c) integration, environmental management and reduction in environmental foot print. CYC is actively investigating a number of funding streams for infrastructure and/or technology platform builds with a number of bodies. Any successful funding streams and their potential usage will be discussed at the information day. CYC anticipates letting the contract for 10 to 15 years (subject to negotiation), with the intention to also use the city fibre network for the full period of the contract.