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Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Cornwall Council

This public procurement record has 3 releases in its history.

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 is procuring a corporate Geographic Information System (GIS) platform to support statutory, regulatory and operational services across the council. The requirement covers GIS software licensing, cloud services, technical support, maintenance and associated geospatial capabilities, including the transition from an on-premise ArcGIS environment to ArcGIS Online. The platform supports planning, building control, land charges, highways, elections, waste management, emergency planning, property services, public health, customer services and public-facing mapping. It is integrated with corporate systems and partner organisations, and includes mobile working for activities such as highway surveys and tree management. The work supports Cornwall Council’s services across Cornwall and its wider digital transformation and cloud migration programmes.

This procurement has been awarded through a direct award to Esri (UK) Ltd under Schedule 5, paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Procurement Act 2023, on grounds including absence of competition for technical reasons and disproportionate difficulties in changing supplier. The award date is 3 August 2026. The initial contract runs from 18 August 2026 to 17 August 2031, with a single five-year extension option allowing a potential end date of 17 August 2036. The committed award value is £1,800,000 excluding VAT (£2,160,000 including VAT). The potential ten-year arrangement is anticipated at £1.7 million to £1.9 million excluding VAT, subject to future negotiation and approval. There is one completed lot, evaluated against mandatory technical, operational, security, integration and support requirements.

This award demonstrates sustained demand from Cornwall Council for an enterprise GIS platform supporting complex local-government services and a phased move to cloud hosting. Suppliers seeking to compete for comparable future requirements would need a mature, fully integrated GIS product rather than standalone consultancy, open-source components or partial functionality. Credibility would depend on proven delivery and support for large, complex public-sector GIS estates, enterprise integration, Microsoft Entra single sign-on, multi-factor authentication and TypeScript software development kits. Relevant capability also includes high-accuracy field data collection, integrated mobile working, secure licensing, maintenance and accountable technical support. Experience migrating legacy platforms while maintaining statutory services, business-critical datasets, existing workflows and extensive integrations would be particularly important, alongside capacity for user support, testing, retraining and phased coexistence during cloud transition.

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Notice Information

Notice Title

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Notice Description

Cornwall Council intends to award 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. Following completion of the procurement process and internal governance approvals, this Contract Award Notice commences the statutory standstill period, which will conclude on 13 August 2026. Subject to completion of the standstill period and the absence of any successful challenge, Cornwall Council intends to enter into the contract on 14 August 2026. 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. 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. The intended contract award 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. Subject to completion of the standstill period ending on 13 August 2026, the Council intends to enter into contract with Esri (UK) Ltd from 14 August 2026.

Procurement Information

This direct award is made under Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023, relying on the following clauses: * Clause 6: Due to an absence of competition for technical reasons, only a particular supplier can supply the required services, and there are no reasonable alternatives. * Clause 7: The contract concerns the supply of services by the existing supplier intended as an extension to existing services, where a change in supplier would result in incompatibility and disproportionate technical difficulties. Market Engagement Findings The Authority conducted a structured market engagement exercise to assess the availability of alternative suppliers capable of meeting its contract's GIS requirements. The incumbent's response demonstrated their ability to continue fulfilling all of the contract's mandatory and optional requirements. Responses from all the alternative suppliers revealed significant gaps in functionality, integration, and support capabilities. Key findings include: * No alternative supplier could meet all mandatory requirements under a single contract. * Several suppliers lacked integrated mobile working solutions, support for high-accuracy field data collection, and compatibility with existing workflows. * Many solutions lacked compatibility with key enterprise requirements, such as Microsoft Entra Single Sign-On (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), or support for TypeScript software development kits (SDKs). * Several suppliers proposed only partial offerings, such as advisory or consultation services, without delivering a deployable platform or the essential products and features required within the solution. * Implementation, migration and licencing costs were either significantly higher than the incumbent supplier's figures or they were based on an ambiguous scope of what was to be delivered. * The proposed solutions that relied on third-party open-source software lacked sufficient assurance that the supplier could meet all mandatory contractual requirements. Additionally, they introduced ambiguity regarding contractual accountability and commercial liability for ongoing software security, support, and maintenance. * Implementation and migration risks were elevated due to lack of familiarity, unclear licensing scopes, and absence of proven deployment experience. Strategic and Commercial Rationale The incumbent supplier is the market leader in GIS platforms with proven experience of deploying and supporting complex GIS systems across the UK public sector and in particular within larger/unitary local authorities. Their platform is already embedded within the Authority's operations and supports critical services such as: * Mapping and spatial intelligence for public and partner organisations, * Planning, building control, and land charges, * Waste contract management and * Customer services The Authority is also utilizing the incumbent's mobile working solutions to deliver services such as highway surveys and tree management. Mandatory contract requirements are either essential for continuity of statutory services, operational workflows or aligned with the Council's IT policies, including security and development standards. Alternative suppliers do not offer a fully integrated GIS platform with professional-grade capabilities or comprehensive technical support. The incumbent supplier remains the only provider capable of delivering a seamless, secure, and cost-effective solution without incurring disproportionate risk or resource expenditure. Additional Financial and Strategic Considerations The Council, like most UK public organisations, is subject to challenging budget constraints and must adopt a risk-averse approach to procurement decisions. This financial context significantly limits the feasibility of pursuing alternative supplier proposals, particularly where no commercial or technical gains have been demonstrated. The market engagement exercise revealed that alternative solutions would require substantial investment in development, implementation, migration, and retraining. These costs are not only prohibitive but also carry a high degree of uncertainty, with a risk that actual costs may exceed initial estimates. This poses a serious financial risk to the Authority, which may not have sufficient budgetary flexibility to accommodate such overruns or change control requirements. In contrast, the incumbent supplier offers a quantifiable and affordable solution that ensures continuity of statutory and critical services. The Authority is confident that best value for money can be achieved through direct negotiation with the incumbent, leveraging existing commercial arrangements and operational familiarity. Furthermore, the Authority's internal teams possess the necessary knowledge, experience, and skills to support and in some cases manage the transition from on-premise to cloud-hosted GIS services. This aligns with the Council's strategic objective to close its datacentres and fully adopt cloud infrastructure by 2030, ensuring long-term sustainability and compliance with IT policy. Conclusion Based on the outcomes of the market engagement and supplier assessments, the Authority concludes that a direct award is legally justified under Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023. This approach ensures continuity of service, cost-efficiency, and technical compatibility, while avoiding disproportionate risk and resource burdens.

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/074157-2026
Current Stage
Award
All Stages
Award

Procurement Classification

Notice Type
UK6 - Contract Award Notice
Procurement Type
Dynamic, Framework
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
Not specified

Notice Dates

Publication Date
5 Aug 20262 weeks ago
Submission Deadline
Not specified
Future Notice Date
Not specified
Award Date
14 Oct 202510 months ago
Contract Period
18 Aug 2026 - 17 Aug 2031 Over 5 years
Recurrence
Not specified

Notice Status

Tender Status
Complete
Lots Status
Complete
Awards Status
Pending
Contracts Status
Not Specified

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) LTD.

Further Information

Notice Documents

Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)

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The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is a framework designed to increase transparency and access to public procurement data in the public sector. It is widely used by governments and organisations worldwide to report on procurement processes and contracts.

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