Organisational IT hardware and software review for Wrexham-based charity

Tender description

Conducting a review of CPP's PCs, servers, network and software – Spring 2021 Outline specification of services required: Introduction Caia Park Partnership (CPP) is a community development charity based in Wrexham. It delivers a range of community services across the county borough including youthwork, education, childcare, older persons’ support, tenancy support, a community café and meeting space, volunteering and community learning. CPP has approximately 65 staff of whom 45 are regular PC users. CPP has staff spread across 7 physical locations as well as an increasing number who work regularly from home. CPP was formed more than 20 years ago and has taken an ad-hoc approach to expanding its use of IT, often driven by the start of delivering a new service, adding an additional member of staff, or acquiring new premises. Our systems are therefore a patchwork of solutions and they are starting to hinder rather than help us to deliver our work. Consequently, CPP is looking to engage an IT advisor who can review our current systems, make recommendations about how to make improvements, and produce an action plan to see the agree improvements being made. Budget and timescale CPP has a maximum budget available for this review and plan of £3,000 including VAT. We are aiming to start the review during week commencing 26th April, and anticipate it running for approximately 6 weeks to allow it to be concluded in mid June. Scope The scope of the review is: A. Our user hardware base – a mix of windows desktop and laptop PCs, a small number of MAC OS devices, and a small number of android tablets. B. Our centralised network infrastructure – a dedicated windows server with portable hard-drive backup, ethernet and wifi network access points. C. Our email system – MS Exchange-driven, with some staff using MS 365. D. Our file sharing system – currently server based with some staff using cloud-based solutions. E. The appropriateness and adequacy of our contracted-out IT support arrangements. Anticipated tasks The tasks perceived as being necessary to conduct the review and produce the plan include: 1. An inception meeting with CPP’s management team 2. 2 initial site visits to see the systems being used (Cover-19 secure) 3. 6-8 phone/video interviews with staff who use the current systems 4. The holding of 2-3 video focus group sessions with teams who use the current systems 5. The production of an interim report drawing together the strengths and weaknesses of our current arrangements 6. The development of packages of options for an anticipated implementation investment in phases of £5k by October 2021 and a further £10k by October 2022. 7. The facilitation of decisions by the management team about priorities within this planned £15k total spend. 8. The production of a final report including an action plan to support the phased implementation. Providing a quote Written quotations are invited that address the scope and tasks above within the £3k budget and within the timeframe specified. Interested respondents should include a brief summary of similar commissions they have undertaken in the last 3 years and provide a reference that relates to one of these commissions. Quotations should be provided via email to gary.brown@caiapark.org by Friday 16th April 2021. Selection will be based on quality.