Information-processing equipment

Tender description

Hertfordshire County Council ('the Council') is carrying out pre-procurement market engagement ('PPME') in relation to major incident notification system. The Council will consider the feedback received to help inform the Council’s options and further decision making. For the avoidance of doubt, this stage of the project is not part of a formal procurement process and the Council is not committing, at this stage, to carrying out such a process. Participation or non-participation in the PPME shall not prevent any supplier participating in a potential future procurement, nor is it intended that any information supplied as part of the PPME shall place any supplier at an advantage in a potential procurement process. Participation in the PPME will be at each organisation’s own cost. No expense in responding to this PPME will be reimbursed by the Council. Hertfordshire County Council (the ‘Council’) is a large shire county in the south-east of England with a population of 1 200 000. Hertfordshire is a 2-tier authority with 10 district and borough Councils providing complementary local services to residents. Hertfordshire The Council provides social care for adults and children, schools and education, public libraries, public health (since April 2013), highway and road maintenance, environmental services, trading standards and household waste sites as well as a fire and rescue service. Project background — the Council’s children’s services department has operated a service for schools to use as a closure notification system since 2007. The current system is used primarily by 540 Hertfordshire Schools, to notify parents/key personnel in the event of the premises needing to close due to bad weather or an unexpected emergency. In addition to schools, other key end users include the general public, local radio stations and Council staff. Children’s services and public health departments use the system to send out key service specific messages and the technology department use it to contact staff in the event of a major I.T incident. More recently community protection has signed up with a view to using the system for Resilience purposes across the Council. Current project brief — the selected provider will work collaboratively with the Council to continually monitor the quality of service provided and update the system with any relevant changes. In addition, the provider will be required to ensure the system is available for use at all times throughout the year, with 24/7 support provided as required, along with being able to report competently around agreed KPI’s.