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Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Cornwall Council

This public procurement record has 4 releases in its history.

Award

15 Oct 2026 at 10:59

UK7 - Contract Details Notice
Award

05 Aug 2026 at 12:36

UK6 - Contract Award Notice
Award

04 Aug 2026 at 16:57

UK6 - Contract Award Notice
Award

14 Oct 2025 at 12:23

UK5 - Transparency Notice
Summary of the contracting process

Cornwall Council procured its corporate geographic information system (GIS) platform, including software licences, cloud services, technical support, maintenance and related GIS capabilities. The system supports council services including planning, building control, land charges, highways, elections, waste management, emergency planning, property, public health and customer services, as well as public-facing mapping. It is integrated with council systems and partner organisations and supports the move from on-premises infrastructure to a cloud-hosted platform. The work is for delivery across Cornwall. The requirement covers a connected, business-critical GIS environment rather than a standalone mapping tool, including continuity of existing services and a phased transition from the existing ArcGIS environment to ArcGIS Online.

The procurement is complete: Cornwall Council selected ESRI (UK) Ltd and signed an active contract. The award date was 3 August 2026; the contract was signed on 13 August 2026 and runs from 14 August 2026 to 13 August 2031. It includes one optional five-year extension, potentially taking the term to 13 August 2036; exercising it is subject to further commercial negotiation, affordability, business need and council approvals. The contract value is £1.8 million excluding VAT. The council used a direct award, relying on technical reasons and the lack of a reasonable alternative, following preliminary market engagement with five supplier responses. The single lot was evaluated as the lowest-risk, best-value way to maintain services and support cloud migration. The award went to ESRI (UK) Ltd.

This award shows demand for an enterprise GIS supplier able to sustain a complex, integrated council-wide platform while supporting a phased cloud migration. A credible competitor would need to meet demanding technical, operational, security, integration and support requirements through a coherent solution, including compatibility with established systems and workflows. Relevant capabilities include enterprise GIS licensing, cloud-hosted services, maintenance, updates, incident handling and dependable technical support, alongside migration planning for legacy services, datasets and integrations. Mobile working and accurate field data collection are also important to frontline functions such as highways and tree management. Suppliers should be able to demonstrate public-sector delivery at comparable scale and complexity, continuity of statutory services, clear licensing and commercial accountability, and a practical route to cloud adoption without costly redevelopment, retraining or disruption.

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Notice Information

Notice Title

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Notice Description

Cornwall Council has awarded a contract to Esri (UK) Ltd for the provision of its Corporate Geographic Information System (GIS) platform, including software licensing, cloud services, support, maintenance and associated GIS capabilities. The Corporate GIS platform is a critical enterprise system that underpins the delivery of a wide range of statutory, regulatory and operational services across the Council, including Planning, Building Control, Land Charges, Highways, Elections, Waste Management, Emergency Planning, Property Services, Public Health, Customer Services and public-facing mapping services. The platform is integrated with numerous corporate systems and partner organisations and plays a fundamental role in delivering the Council's digital transformation strategy, cloud migration programme and planned transition away from on-premise datacentre infrastructure. The awarded contract comprises a five-year core term commencing on 18 August 2026 and expiring on 17 August 2031, with a total committed contract value of PS754,420.51 excluding VAT. The contract also includes an option to extend for a further five-year period, providing for a potential maximum contract duration of ten years. The inclusion of the extension option forms part of this procurement and award decision and has been disclosed to the market accordingly. However, the pricing, licensing scope and commercial arrangements applicable to the extension period have not yet been negotiated or approved. Exercise of the extension option will therefore remain subject to future commercial negotiation with Esri (UK) Ltd, confirmation of affordability, review of ongoing business requirements and completion of Cornwall Council's internal governance and approval processes. Based on current assumptions and projected licensing requirements, the total value of the potential ten-year arrangement is anticipated to be in the region of PS1.7 million to PS1.9 million excluding VAT, although this remains indicative and subject to future negotiation and approval. The Council considers the proposed award to represent the lowest-risk and best-value solution available for maintaining its critical GIS capability, ensuring continuity of service across the organisation, supporting its cloud-first strategy and enabling the successful migration of corporate geospatial services to a modern cloud-hosted platform.

Procurement Information

To inform its procurement strategy, Cornwall Council undertook a comprehensive preliminary market engagement exercise through publication of a Preliminary Market Engagement Notice and accompanying Request for Information (RFI). Five supplier responses were received, including the incumbent supplier, Esri (UK) Ltd. Suppliers were invited to review the Council's detailed requirements and self-assess against mandatory technical, operational, security, integration and support requirements. Analysis of the responses demonstrated that no alternative supplier was capable of meeting all mandatory requirements through a single contractual solution. Whilst one respondent offered a mature and established GIS platform with notable market presence, it was unable to satisfy a number of mandatory requirements that were considered essential to maintaining existing statutory service provision, integration capabilities, security standards and the Council's future cloud migration objectives. Addressing these gaps would have required additional product development, bespoke configuration, third-party solutions and further implementation activity, creating additional cost, delivery risk and uncertainty around future capability. Other supplier proposals relied upon combinations of open-source technologies, consultancy services, third-party products or undeveloped solutions that would have introduced significant implementation risk, increased migration costs, technical incompatibilities and operational challenges. Furthermore, irrespective of individual supplier capability, any migration away from the incumbent ESRI platform would require substantial redevelopment of integrations, migration of business-critical datasets, extensive testing, user retraining and a prolonged transition period across a complex GIS estate supporting numerous statutory and operational services. The Council therefore concluded that alternative supplier solutions would introduce disproportionate technical, operational and commercial risk when compared with a direct award to Esri (UK) Ltd and would not represent a reasonable alternative given the Council's requirement to maintain service continuity whilst progressing its strategic migration to a cloud-hosted GIS environment. The Council considered multiple procurement options, including maintaining the existing arrangements, conducting a call-off through existing framework agreements and dynamic purchasing systems, undertaking a competitive procurement exercise and direct award negotiation with the incumbent supplier. Following consultation with Commercial Services and Legal Services, the Council concluded that a direct award represented the most appropriate procurement route. The Council relied upon Schedule 5, Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Procurement Act 2023, on the basis that competition was absent for technical reasons, no reasonable alternative solutions existed, and a change of supplier would result in disproportionate technical and operational difficulties arising from the complexity of the Council's existing GIS estate, integrations, operational processes and planned migration to a cloud-hosted architecture. In accordance with the Procurement Act 2023, Cornwall Council subsequently published a Transparency Notice on 14 October 2025 via the UK Central Digital Platform (Find a Tender Service) under notice reference 2025/S 000-065139, titled "Geographic Information Systems (GIS)". The notice set out the Council's intention to proceed with a direct award to Esri (UK) Ltd and detailed the legal and commercial rationale supporting reliance upon Schedule 5, Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Procurement Act 2023. The notice explained that no alternative supplier had demonstrated the ability to satisfy the Council's mandatory technical, operational, security and integration requirements through a single contractual solution, and that changing supplier would create disproportionate technical, commercial and operational difficulties. Following publication of the Transparency Notice, no challenge, objection or substantive representation was received from the market. The notice remains publicly available at: https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/065139-2025 Given the complexity of the Council's GIS estate and the strategic requirement to migrate from an on-premise environment to a cloud-hosted operating model, the Council implemented a six-month extension to the existing contract to allow sufficient time to complete technical discovery activities and commercial negotiations. During this period, an ArcGIS Well-Architected Solution Design Review was undertaken to assess the Council's current architecture, integrations, licensing model and migration requirements. The review concluded that migration would require a phased transition and a period of coexistence between legacy and cloud services, as a simple lift-and-shift approach was not viable due to the extensive dependencies and integrations across the Council's GIS environment. The outcomes of the discovery exercise informed detailed commercial negotiations with Esri (UK) Ltd. These negotiations resulted in a bespoke phased licensing and migration model specifically designed to support the Council's cloud migration roadmap. The proposed arrangement allows the Council to transition progressively from its existing on-premise ArcGIS environment to ArcGIS Online whilst maintaining continuity of business-critical and statutory services. The negotiated solution provides licensing flexibility throughout the migration period, reduces the requirement for future contract variations and avoids significant costs that would otherwise arise through platform replacement, service disruption, redevelopment of integrations, retraining of users, migration activities and dual-running of competing GIS environments.

Notice Details

Publication & Lifecycle

Open Contracting ID
ocds-h6vhtk-05cc35
Publication Source
Find A Tender Service
Latest Notice
https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/097353-2026
Current Stage
Award
All Stages
Award

Procurement Classification

Notice Type
UK7 - Contract Details Notice
Procurement Type
Standard
Procurement Category
Goods
Procurement Method
Direct
Procurement Method Details
Direct award
Tender Suitability
Not specified
Awardee Scale
Large

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

CPV Divisions

38 - Laboratory, optical and precision equipments (excl. glasses)

CPV Codes

38221000 - Geographic information systems (GIS or equivalent)

Notice Value(s)

Tender Value
Not specified
Lots Value
Not specified
Awards Value
£1,800,000 £1M-£10M
Contracts Value
£1,800,000 £1M-£10M

Notice Dates

Publication Date
15 Oct 20261 weeks ago
Submission Deadline
Not specified
Future Notice Date
Not specified
Award Date
3 Aug 20262 months ago
Contract Period
14 Aug 2026 - 13 Aug 2031 Over 5 years
Recurrence
Not specified

Notice Status

Tender Status
Complete
Lots Status
Complete
Awards Status
Active
Contracts Status
Active

Buyer & Supplier

Contracting Authority (Buyer)

Main Buyer
Cornwall Council
Contact Name
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Email
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Phone
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →

Buyer Location

Locality
TRURO
Postcode
TR1 3AY
Postcode Area
Truro
Country
England
Major Region (ITL 1)
TLK South West (England)
Basic Region (ITL 2)
TLK3 Cornwall and Isles of Scilly
Small Region (ITL 3)
TLK30 Cornwall and Isles of Scilly
Delivery Location
Not specified
Local Authority
Cornwall
Electoral Ward
Truro Boscawen & Redannick
Westminster Constituency
Truro and Falmouth

Supplier Information

Number of Suppliers
1
Supplier Name

ESRI (UK)

Further Information

Notice Documents

Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)

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