--- title: "Business World Cloud, Support & Maintenance Contract 24" ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a" canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a" markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a.md" json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a.json" source: "Find A Tender Service" current_stage: "Award" buyer: "LONDON BOROUGH OF EALING COUNCIL" published: "2024-12-04" --- # Business World Cloud, Support & Maintenance Contract 24 Buyer: LONDON BOROUGH OF EALING COUNCIL Current stage: Award OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a [View canonical contract page](https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a) [Download OCDS JSON](https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a.json) ## Summary The London Borough of Ealing Council has awarded a contract titled "Business World Cloud, Support & Maintenance Contract 24" to Unit 4 Business Software Limited for financial systems software development services. This contract extension will run for a minimum of four years and involves migrating the Council's existing on-premise Unit 4 ERP and Financial Planning & Analysis applications to a cloud-based solution. The contract, awarded through a negotiated procedure without prior publication, aims to ensure continuous support and maintenance during this transitional period. The key dates include the decision to proceed made on 12 January 2024, with the contract formally signed on 02 December 2024. This essential IT infrastructure will be supported to align with London Borough of Ealing Council's financial management needs, located in London. This tender presents a significant opportunity for businesses specialising in IT services, particularly those experienced in the implementation and support of cloud-based ERP systems. Companies with expertise in financial systems software development may find this contract beneficial for long-term partnerships and showcasing capabilities in managing complex IT transitions. Unit 4 Business Software Limited's involvement underlines the critical nature of technical continuity and urgency, signalling potential for consultancy roles, software integration tasks, and long-term maintenance contracts. Businesses capable of navigating the intricacies of large-scale software migrations will be well-suited to compete in similar future reprocurements. ## Notice The Council of London Borough of Ealing intends to restate contract with Unit4 covering the services described below. The proposed contract term is a minimum of 4 Years., Unit 4 Business World Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP & A) applications is the system used by the Ccouncil for the management of its finances. The application is essential IT infrastructure, it provides accounting functionality which enables budget allocation and management across the whole council. The Council of London Borough of Ealing was forced to extend the contract term due to the decision of Unit 4 Business World Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP & A) the provider to migrate the existing on-premise application to the Cloud. The Council is planning to commence a new procurement process as soon as possible to reprocure the services. Because of the migration of the current service to the cloud, the time required for a new procurement process and the time to migrate to an alternative service provider the Council is estimates that it will need circa four years to install a new Service/||Provider. ### Lot Information Lot 1 This is an extension of the term of an existing contract/restatement of an existing contract pending its re-procurement. ### Procurement Information nit 4 Business World Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application is the system used by the Council for the management of its finances. The application is essential IT infrastructure as it provides accounting functionality which enables budget allocation and management across the whole Council. Originally, the Council purchased a core software site license for unlimited users in perpetuity. Subsequently in 2022 added Unit 4's FP&A under the current then contractual arrangements. It currently pays for annual support and maintenance of the software multiple applications, which the Council spent significant time and money to tailor to its requirements and make it fully inter-operational to meet its daily needs. In October 2023, Unit 4 informed the Council that it would provide only SaaS solutions, a cloud-based platform, going forward and that with effect from 31 December 2024, the on-premise solution of the software would no longer be supported or maintained. On 12 January 2024, the council's Finance Applications Strategy Board decided that it did not have the time to re-procure the service solution within the set time limits and in order to secure continuity of the services solution to proceed with migration to Unit 4 SaaS solution and to make a direct award to Unit 4, provided that this was compliant with the Public Contract Regulations 2015. The proposed award is for a term of circa - 4 years to enable the Council to go back to the market and re-procure a service solution. Legal advice confirms that the proposed award is lawful in accordance with the Public Contract Regulations 2015 (i) regulation 32(2)(b)(ii), because competition is absent for technical reasons. The following details the justification for the decision to award the contract without prior call for competition: Unit 4 timing of announcements regarding the hosting of software solution, coupled with a 12-month timeframe to switch solutions, created a lot of pressure on the Council leaving little choice to test the market and change solutions to an alternative provider. The system is an essential part of the councils IT infrastructure, any delay in procuring a new provider or in migrating to a new software solution will have a detrimental effect on the running of the council's services. Unit 4 have imposed the switch on the Council giving the council very short notice and aims to gradually withdrawn support for the on-premises solution. It will not be possible for the application and the data to be hosted on premise in the future due to the non-availability of support for third party hosting. The Council could not have foreseen these events, and no other economic provider would be able to provide this service within the timeframe required by the Council. At the present time it would be impossible for the Council to procure and implement an alternative economic operator to provide this service within the timeframe imposed on it by Unit 4. Migration to the new cloud-based platform will take up to 3 years, Unit 4 would support the existing infrastructure during the migration to the Cloud but would not provide support during a transition to a new supplier post December 2024, which would make the transfer of the system to a new provider difficult given the essential nature of the finance applications. This is because, Unit 4 Business World Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP & A) will no longer support the current on-premises software beyond December 2024 and the Council risks a non-supported financial system. The council has spent PS2m via external consultants to make bespoke changes to the Unit4 ERP application. There are over 100 bespoke processes/applications which would need to be addressed as part of the procurement of a new provider, which would need to be migrated to the new provider. . Therefore, the Council decided in light of the circumstances to accept the migration of the service to the Cloud and ## Key Details | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Publication source | Find A Tender Service | | Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/039033-2024 | | Notice type | Award Notice | | Procurement type | Standard | | Procurement category | Services | | Procurement method | Limited | | Procurement method details | Negotiated without publication of a contract notice | | Tender suitability | Not specified | | Awardee scale | Large | | All stages | Award | ## Dates | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Publication date | 4 Dec 2024 | | Submission deadline | Not specified | | Future notice date | Not specified | | Award date | 2 Dec 2024 | | Contract period | Not specified | | Recurrence | Not specified | ## Values | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Tender value | Not specified | | Lots value | Not specified | | Awards value | Not specified | | Contracts value | £1,071,148 | ## Status | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Tender status | Complete | | Lots status | Not specified | | Awards status | Active | | Contracts status | Active | ## Buyer | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Main buyer | LONDON BOROUGH OF EALING COUNCIL | | Locality | LONDON | | Post town | West London | | Postcode | W5 2HL | | Country | England | | ITL 1 | TLI London | | ITL 2 | TLI7 Outer London - West and North West | | ITL 3 | TLI73 Ealing | | Local authority | Ealing | | Electoral ward | Ealing Broadway | | Westminster constituency | Ealing Central and Acton | | Delivery location | TLI London | ## Supplier | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Number of suppliers | 1 | | Supplier names | UNIT 4 BUSINESS SOFTWARE | ## CPV Codes ### Divisions - 72 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support ### Codes - 72212442 - Financial systems software development services ## Release History - 4 Dec 2024 at 11:37 - Award - Award Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/039033-2024 ## Notice URLs - http://www.ealing.gov.uk - https://www.ealing.gov.uk ## Provenance This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04c21a.json.