Crown Commercial Service led the procurement activity in partnership with Pro5, the London ICT Programme and the Local Government Association.

Crown Commercial Service as the Contracting Authority put in place a Pan Government Collaborative Framework Agreement for use by UK public sector bodies identified at VI.3 (and any future successors to these organisations), which include Central Government Departments and their Arm's Length Bodies and Agencies, Non Departmental Public Bodies, NHS bodies and Local Authorities.

The above Public Sector Bodies have a need for software and related services that enable primarily Local Authorities within the UK to deliver services to their citizens these include:

a) Revenue and Benefits systems;

b) Payment Processing and Cash Receipting systems;

c) Environmental, Planning, Building Control, Trading Standards and Licensing systems;

d) Libraries systems;

e) Housing and Property systems;

f) Social Care systems;

g) Public Health systems;

h) Civil Enforcement systems;

i) Open Government Systems, Interoperability and Integration Services;

j) Democratic and Citizen Engagement systems;

k) Other Local Authority business systems including Waste Management, Registrar, Sports, Recreation and GIS.

Under the resultant framework suppliers will be required to provide software and related services, to include design, development, installation and commissioning of systems, ongoing support and maintenance and some related business process services, all in respect of public sector bodies' core line of business functions and these ensuring systems stay up to date with technical and business standards.

A key part of the resultant Framework Agreement will be to further accelerate the development of open systems, data sharing and the interoperability of IT systems in government so that services can be delivered efficiently and respond more flexibly to the needs of citizens and businesses.

Such flexibility may apply within a Lot, for example different suppliers integrating their systems to provide the User Interface (UI) or workflow and/or including functionality to enable different supplier systems to connect to enable data sharing and digital service delivery.

As part of this Framework Agreement, Suppliers are expected to set out clear plans for sharing developments with Contracting Bodies to accelerate innovation and reduce development costs for their customers.

The scope of this procurement is not intended for the supply of common or commodity software such as office suite or security software or enterprise back office software applications that are used across the public sector such as ERP systems or CRM. These systems can or will be procured via other existing or proposed arrangements.

Crown Commercial Service reserves the right for an electronic auction to be held by Public Sector bodies during further competition among the parties to these Framework Agreements.