Back Office Software and Support Services

Concepts

• data services
• police digital service
• support services
• software support
• new police officers
• related support services
• digital service
• back office software
• software licences
• oracle

Location

United Kingdom:

Description

The Police Digital Service (PDS) is procuring additional Oracle licences and support services on behalf of UK Policing, in order to deliver the additional licences required to support the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers.

Total Quantity or Scope

Procurement of additional Oracle licences and related support services to ensure that police forces have sufficient Oracle licences to support the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers. Specifically, the police forces of Leicestershire, Durham, North Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Essex, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk will or may utilise the software licences and related support services being procured from Oracle.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 72300000 - Data services
• 72261000 - Software support services

Legal Justification

PDS relies on the ground set out within Regulation 32(2)(b)(ii) (Use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. For technical reasons, the services can be provided only by a particular tenderer, namely Oracle Corporation UK Limited. The software licences and related support services being procured are for business critical back office systems which have already been implemented by police forces. However, as a result of the Government's commitment to recruit 20,000 new police officers, forces require additional licences to ensure that they do not breach the terms of their existing contracts with Oracle. PDS (which is owned by UK police forces and exists to support forces in their technology procurement and delivery, and is the delivery vehicle for the National Policing Digital Strategy) is procuring the additional licences centrally, for the sake of efficiency and in order to ensure that the best value for money is obtained, by aggregating the forces' collective requirements and spending power to negotiate the best possible price from Oracle. The list of forces who will or may utilise the software licences and related support services being procured from Oracle is set out above. Competition is absent for technical reasons on this occasion because: (a) each of the forces which is benefiting from the licences being procured is already under contract with Oracle for the delivery of the same software; (b) the only reason for this procurement is to ensure that the forces have sufficient licences to cover the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers; and (c) the back office software being licensed has to be the same across the force - it is not possible or practicable to implement alternative back office software for the benefit of the new 20,000 officers whilst running a different back office environment for the rest of the force's requirements. As such, only Oracle (as the owner of the software and its intellectual property rights) can provide the back office software which is required in this instance to meet the increase in demand. All other options would cause significant inconvenience, substantial duplication of cost and from a technical perspective would not be possible due to the interoperability requirements. No reasonable alternative exists for procuring the additional licences which are required, and the absence of competition is not the result of an artificial narrowing down of the parameters of the procurement. Each force will reprocure its full back office system requirements as and when required, at which point alternative software providers will be able to participate and propose an alternative solution.

Other Information

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