Decision details

Exempt Paragraph 3

Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)

RESOLVED

That the Cabinet:

a)            approves that the Council to begin a tender process through the DAS Framework to engage with selected suppliers to provide a Document Management System to replace Civica W2 for Benefits and Council Tax for a period of 5 years from September 2022 (with option to extend for 2 years).

b)            approves that the Council to begin a tender process through the DAS Framework to engage with selected suppliers who are on the Crown Contract to provide an online Portal and forms package for self-service benefits. This will be for the period of 5 years from late 2022 (with option to extend for 2 years).

c)            delegates authority to the Leader of the Council in consultation with the relevant Cabinet Member, relevant Head of Service, and Head of Governance, People and Performance to approve the award of the contract following an appropriate procurement process, as identified in report FIN/571.

d)            delegates the negotiation, approval and completion of all relevant legal documentation, following the awarding of the contracts, to the relevant head of service, Head of Governance, People and Performance, and Head of Corporate Finance, in consultation with the appropriate Cabinet member, as identified in report FIN/571.

            (Generic Delegations 2 & 3 will be used to enact this recommendation)

Reasons for the Recommendations

The Benefits self-service Project was formed to look at moving benefits such as Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction online for customers and automating processes. It quickly became apparent that our current DMS, W2 which has been in place since 2004 used for storing the documents for Housing Benefits, Council Tax and Business Rates was out of date and would not support newer technologies.

The current document management system, version W2, is now being de-supported by the vendor Civica from August 2022 as they have moved to their new product version W3. To achieve the best value for money and meet our requirements Crawley Borough Council would then go out to the market and tender for a new DMS for Benefits and Council Tax. This would be a cloud-based solution, meeting the Council’s strategy for cloud first for software.

The Council will simultaneously go out to competitive tender from selected software providers who have experience in the Revenue and Benefits sphere to provide an online portal and forms builder, that will integrate with the current Northgate Revenue and Benefits system. This will create self-service where claimants can make claims, report changes, access information and respond to communications online, via a secure portal which will be available 24/7. 

This is part of the Council’s commitment to deliver channel shift by moving services online, as customers are guided through a process to claim benefits and ensure that the correct information is received to make a claim. This is expected to produce increases of processing speeds of up to 50%.