---
title: "BACS BUREAU SERVICE"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-04fac5"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-04fac5"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04fac5.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04fac5.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Planning"
buyer: "WEST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE COUNCIL"
published: "2025-04-02"
---

# BACS BUREAU SERVICE

Buyer: WEST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE COUNCIL  
Current stage: Planning  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-04fac5

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[Download OCDS JSON](https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04fac5.json)

## Summary

West Northamptonshire Council, along with North Northamptonshire Council, Milton Keynes City Council, and Cambridgeshire County Council, is in the planning stage of procuring a BACS Bureau Service. This service is within the financial and insurance services industry category and is intended to support the shared services arrangement of these councils. The procurement is currently at the engagement stage, with market responses due by Wednesday, 9th April 2025. The councils are exploring indicative costs and supplier capabilities to inform a business case, with the potential contract period spanning from 3rd November 2025 to 2nd November 2029.

This tender presents a significant opportunity for businesses specialising in BACS Bureau Services, particularly those that are BACS approved and have experience with high volumes of transactions. Companies capable of providing seamless BACS submission and processing, ensuring compliance with audit requirements, managing incidents, and offering detailed reporting and integration capabilities stand to benefit. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with relevant expertise are especially encouraged to participate in this preliminary market engagement phase. This could lead to future procurement opportunities should the business case proceed.

## Notice

NOTICE OF INTEREST: BACS BUREAU SERVICE Who we are We, as a shared services arrangement of four councils (West Northants, North Northants, Milton Keynes City and Cambridgeshire County), are seeking to gather insights from the BACS Bureau Service market. Please note that we are only assessing the market to gain indicative costs to inform the production of a Business Case. We are not undertaking a procurement exercise at this stage. What we are looking for We are currently seeking to understand indicative supplier pricing for a BACS Bureau Service, to potentially outsource our shared service bureau function currently managed in-house. A. Scope of BACS Bureau Number of clients: 12 Number of Service User Number (SUN): 65 Types of BACs transactions: Direct Debit (80% of total transactions) and Direct Credit (20% of total transactions) Indicative annual transactional volumes: 6 million transactions Indicative annual transactional value: 6 billion GBP B. High level BACS Bureau provision requirements 1. BACS Submission & Processing Act as a BACS Approved Bureau provider Ensure seamless, accurate processing of BACS files without manual intervention. Handle direct submission to BACS under provider's own BUN. 2. Compliance Ensure full compliance with Tier A BACS audit requirements. Provide documentation and support for regulatory inspections. Maintain a secure environment for BACS processing in line with industry standards. 3. Incident Management & Support Offer support for file submission failures and urgent incidents. Maintain SLAs for troubleshooting and resolution of processing issues. 4. Reporting Provide status reports, logs, and audit trails for each submission. Allow access to processing activity logs via API or dashboard. Send email alerts or notifications informing us of processing outcomes. Support BACS report downloads (ideally with advanced distribution capabilities, e.g. per SUN, per Org), unless users are required to retrieve them directly. 5. File Transfer & Integration Accept BACS files via secure transfer (i.e. SFTP, API/Web Services). Ensure seamless API or UI-based extraction of processing activity logs

### Planning Information

How responses should be sent
We invite you to provide information on your service offerings, price ranges, and experience in delivering BACS Bureau services for customers of similar size and sector. Insights into value-added services are also welcome.
Please submit your response via the Microsoft Form below by close of business Wednesday, April 9th, 2025: https://forms.office.com/e/JYSGNtqM3g
Please note that participation and responses to this advertisement does not guarantee inclusion in future procurement activities.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012412-2025 |
| Notice type | UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Not Specified |
| Procurement method details | Not specified |
| Tender suitability | SME |
| Awardee scale | Not specified |
| All stages | Planning |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 2 Apr 2025 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | 9 Apr 2025 |
| Award date | Not specified |
| Contract period | 3 Nov 2025 - 2 Nov 2029 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | Not specified |
| Contracts value | Not specified |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Planning |
| Lots status | Planning |
| Awards status | Not specified |
| Contracts status | Not specified |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | WEST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE COUNCIL |
| Additional buyers | CAMBRIDGE CITY COUNCIL; MILTON KEYNES CITY COUNCIL; NORTH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE COUNCIL |
| Locality | NORTHAMPTON |
| Post town | Northampton |
| Postcode | NN1 1ED |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLH East (England) |
| ITL 2 | TLH4 Cambridgeshire and Peterborough |
| ITL 3 | TLH42 Cambridgeshire CC |
| Local authority | Cambridge |
| Electoral ward | Market |
| Westminster constituency | Cambridge |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 66 - Financial and insurance services

### Codes

- 66000000 - Financial and insurance services

## Release History

- 2 Apr 2025 at 08:47 - PlanningUpdate - UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012412-2025
- 2 Apr 2025 at 08:44 - PlanningUpdate - UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012409-2025
- 2 Apr 2025 at 08:42 - PlanningUpdate - UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012408-2025
- 31 Mar 2025 at 14:30 - Planning - UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012053-2025

## Documents

- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012412-2025
  2nd April 2025 - Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012409-2025
  2nd April 2025 - Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012408-2025
  2nd April 2025 - Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/012053-2025
  31st March 2025 - Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender

## Notice URLs

- https://forms.office.com/e/JYSGNtqM3g
- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents

## 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-04fac5. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-04fac5.json.