Software package and information systems

Tender description

This is a VEAT notice of Birmingham City Councils intention to enter into a contract variation of the ANPR network and back office system with the incumbent supplier following a period of 10 days from the date of publication of this notice. The contract variation provides for additional case management functionality within the back office system. The Clean Air Zone (CAZ) programme requires an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) network and back office system to enforce the zone’s vehicle emissions standards. The system will interface with a national CAZ framework known as the Central Clean Air Zone Service (the Central Service) which is produced by the Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU). The Council and its contractors have been developing the CAZ camera network and back office solution since early 2019, during which time a change in the scope of the IT solution they are required to deliver has been identified. Without delivery of this additional scope the CAZ will not properly function and the enforcement team’s ability to enforce penalty charge notices (PCNs) would be severely undermined. The change in scope is caused by a change to the overall end to end system for all CAZs in the UK and the Council is therefore not alone in being impacted. The Council had a long standing contractual arrangement with Capita Birmingham Ltd through which it sourced its IT solutions, including those for the CAZ. This agreement was partially terminated in 2019 and as a result a number of the contracts procured by Capita were novated across to the Council. This included the contract with Siemens for a CAZ ANPR network and back IT office system. This proposed change request to introduce Case management and Direct Debit functionality builds on and utilises, the bespoke infrastructure and security model/user management functionality that has already been commissioned and is currently under development by Siemens. In addition, the vehicle passage data and matching of a vehicle registration to a payment reference that needs to be checked and searched in order to answer motorist queries is held within the Siemens AWS-hosted solution, meaning that if any other party were asked to deliver this functionality it would have to integrate with the Siemens solution in some way. Involving another party at this stage would add significant risk to the CAZ programme including integration and interoperability risks. It would also incur significant inconvenience and delay to the schedule and [would likely result in duplication of costs.