The project issues
Following a review of its in-house ICT service by PWC, the Authority proposed to invite tenders for outsourcing the requirement, which was split into four lots, and also to consider an in-house option as a baseline.  As the in-house team had no experience of bidding they agreed to engage consultants to support them.

Socitm Consulting submitted a proposal for this work which was selected in preference to others including PWC.

The Socitm Consulting solution
A project specification was agreed with the internal project sponsor and project leader. We agreed to support them in key areas of drafting the response, benchmarking the current services against Socitm KPIs and providing input on various topics such as ITIL, Disaster Recovery etc.

The Socitm team drove the structuring of the response to tender and facilitated its production. Key elements in this included challenging assumptions (both those in the tender document and those of the in-house team) and emphasising the need for and encouraging staff ‘ownership’ of the tender. The issue of final staff numbers was naturally highly sensitive and the Socitm team worked hard alongside HR and union representatives to ensure realistic figures were set. Socitm consultants were also able to assist with building cost and capacity models for use in the proposal.

Socitm consultants used their experience of procurement and tendering to coach the in-house team so the tender was positive, innovative and clearly based on the ITN rather than prior knowledge. They also ensured that the client-side evaluation panel gave the in-house team sight of other tenderers’ clarification queries and answers on a reciprocal basis, and this led to several key points being clarified to the benefit of the whole process.

The benefits to the client
Faced with the critical decision as to whether or not to outsource its ICT function, Inverclyde Council was able to evaluate all bids on a fair and accurate basis. By making available to the in-house team the expertise of Socitm Consulting in ICT strategy and governance, procurement, tendering and project management, Inverclyde ensured that the in-house bid was professionally produced and could be fairly judged against tenders from commercial suppliers. Whatever final decision is made, the option of keeping ICT in-house has been given a proper hearing and the Council, its staff and customers can have greater confidence that the decision was made with all relevant factors being considered.

Project identification
Client organisation: Inverclyde Council
Client contact: Ian Robinson, interim HoIT, 01475 712786, 07717 313504, ian.robinson@inverclyde.gov.uk; client sponsor: Carolyn Williamson, Corporate Services Director, 01475 712201, carolyn.williamson@inverclyde.gov.uk
Lead consultant: terry.street@socitm.gov.uk
Project no: 4988