Annex B

Revenues & Benefits System Reprocurement

 

 

Introduction / Background:

 

The council’s contract through NEC provides its Revenue and Benefits software for administering Council Tax, Council Tax Support, Business Rates and Housing Benefits.  This helps collect over £220m of income through several hundred thousand transactions from annual billing to reminders, summons and change of circumstances.

 

The system also manages historic council tax debts that are still being collected from prior years.

 

The council also have a contract with Govtech Solutions Limited that provides the online digital access to residents and landlords to report changes of address and other amendments into our NEC system.  This solution provides the digital automation of the Revenue and Benefits service. 

 

The NEC contract is due for renewal on 1st April 2023 and Govtech contract on 1st May 2023. 

 

The council wishes to reprocure its contract with NEC through the Crown Commercial Service’s DAS framework.  The benefits of doing this are that it is a pre-tendered contract framework that will allow the council to secure continuity and resilience of a critical council service.  The framework also delivers a saving against the current revenue budget.

 

This procurement includes replacing the current Govtech online technology with NEC’s Citizen Access (SaaS).  The technology is similar to Govtech’s however as it runs on the NEC system it will allow more capability including online billing for Council Tax.

 

The current annual budget for both contracts is £230k.  The cost of the new 5 year contract is set out in Table A below:

 

Table A

 

        

 

 

Table A shows that 5 year costs which will provide a saving of nearly £100k across the contract period after taking into account the year one set up costs.

 

The key points to consider in approving the procurement are:

 

·        The Director of Governance and Chief Finance Officer have confirmed that this is a routine procurement.

·        The contract is being procured through an approved framework (Crown Commercial Service’s DAS framework).

·        The contract will deliver better access for residents including e-billing.

·        The 5 year contact delivers nearly £100k of savings against the existing revenue budget.

·        There is no risk to the integrity and resilience of the council’s core revenue and benefits systems

·        There are no further hidden inflationary costs.