Procuring the Future Barnet Councils Infrastructure Transformation Project We are committed to modernising the council and this

means investing in technology so that we can release money for frontline ervices and move forward with many of our key strategies
Cllr. Mike Freer Deputy Leader Barnet Council

Name of Category being entered: Procurement Achievement Name of Achievement or Project: Procuring the Future - Barnet Councils Infrastructure Transformation Name of Council and Department: Resources Address: North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South Postcode: N11 1NP Telephone: 0208 359 7007 Email: nick.walkley@barnet.gov.uk Contact Name: Head of Communications First Name: Emer Surname: Coleman Address: North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South Postcode: N11 1NP Name of Chief Executive and Head of Service Leo Boland (Chief Executive) Nick Walkley Director of Resources Entry Team: Nick Walkley, Mahesh Patel

Executive Summary Procuring the future

The work of all of those involved in the procurement process (to deliver Barnet Councils Infrastructure Transformation Project - ITP) has resulted in significant steps forward for the Council and the people we serve. Every day, frontline services are integrating the opportunities offered by the infrastructure upgrades, to provide first class services for our residents. Procurement offers particular challenges to any council but none more so than when decisions taken now will have such profound effects in the future. Designing, negotiating and delivering a project valued at 6 million requires the most rigorous of procedures and provides the opportunity to create a model of best practice that can be applied not only at local levels but nationally. The building blocks of our successful procurement strategy in relation to ITP in Barnet included an absolute commitment to innovation, a flexible and progressive approach and a determination to provide a transparent and compliant framework which would enable us to deliver best value services to our community in the most efficient way possible. The journey forward will see the delivery of high-speed reliable access to our corporate systems and application servers, our delivery of e-government targets, enable third party networking (between ourselves, the health authorities and the Police) as well as a future where wholescale, flexible and home working can become a reality for all. The ITP procurement model in Barnet has moved us from an authority with a weak and failing ICT structure to one now empowered to deliver first class services to our customers. Introduction and organisational context Transforming the way we work The history of our innovation in procurement is rooted in Barnet Councils Corporate Plan. This plan sets out a strategy to achieve five key priorities in order to deliver a first class suburb of London for our residents. Critical to achieving our ambitions was the need to significantly invest in ICT to improve access, provide the option for electronic service delivery and minimise bureaucracy. None of this can be delivered without a robust and modern ICT platform something which had been identified through CPA as far back as November 2002: The ICT system is not strong enough to supply the integrated and financial activity data analysis that would better support effective and pro-active financial management. The challenge was complex since historically Barnet Councils infrastructure had grown organically on an ad hoc basis without any

strategic focus in mind. Without radical and farreaching changes, the implementation of any e-government initiatives or applications would be at risk of failure most crucially in delivering essential services to our customers. In early 2003 we began a comprehensive programme of work to critically assess the end-toend delivery of our ICT services within the council. We needed to make sure that before moving forward we completely understood our network so that existing performance and resilience could be measured. We needed to be able to accurately predict results when we integrated new technology and services. From this detailed, extensive and comprehensive research, The Infrastructure Transformation Project was born. Procuring a first class IT system for Barnet Council The Procurement Model and its relationship to overall objectives Our vision for procurement in Barnet Council was set out in the London Borough of Barnet Procurement Strategy (2003) and states that our objective is: To provide a framework which enables innovative, flexible, efficient, effective, transparent and legal procurement that supports the authority in delivering best value services to the community on a timely basis. This was the guiding principle which governed our approach to procuring a first-class IT So how did our procurement approach achieve our corporate ICT objectives? Innovative We established a dedicated project manager to oversee all aspects of delivery utilising the Government approved PRINCE2 methodology. Our project manager was supported by a specifically appointed board made up from existing IS managers as well as business representatives. We carried over the membership of this board in the postprocurement phase to ensure continuity of governance and we ensured Member buy-in to the projects by providing regular reports throughout the process to the Cabinet ICT and Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Flexible We adopted a negotiated procedure as we recognised that we were not able to specify or quantify the exact nature of our requirements. The negotiated route enabled the bidders to define how they intended to help us reach our vision and at what cost. As we moved towards the closing stage of the project when there were two potential strong bidders, we continually kept possibilities open for maximum flexibility and to ensure we were getting best value for money. Efficient We learned from the experiences of the previous procurement process for the 10 million MCS (SAP) procurement process. We built on strengths and learned from weaknesses. The negotiated procedure route offered us flexibility in shaping the design and scope of the solution and the period between Invitation To Negotiate and Best and Final Offer led to very useful and efficient negotiation sessions with both suppliers. This period also allowed us to gauge our potential suppliers approaches to problem solving and their likely style of engaging with us as their future client. Effective We were very well prepared for this procurement process. We designed project documentation templates which facilitated risk management and we provided training to our evaluators prior to any assessment of tenders to make sure they were fully equipped for the challenges ahead. The high level of evaluation which we applied to the Pre-Qualification Questionnaires meant that our project team were able to identify the top 2 bidders to enter the Negotiated Procedure Stage of the procurement process. Key to the success of Prime (who were the successful bidders) was their commitment to knowledge transfer within Barnet Council. This approach to capacity-building means that we have engaged in an effective and true partnering arrangement over the period of the contract. This also means that skills and capacity for the future are now being in-sourced vital to ensuring Barnet Councils ability to deliver first-class service provision in the future.

Transparent Our Strategic Procurement Team advised on Barnet and European tendering rules, managed Barnets Gateway Review Process, disseminated new regulatory requirements and good practice and updated our procurement framework on a regular basis. The decision to go to Best And Final Offer stage with two keen competitive suppliers allowed us to develop better solutions and keener pricing arrangements. Barnet Councils Internal Audit team also gave guidance on project assurance and risk management, ensuring the whole process was completely transparent paying particular attention to the bid evaluation process. On a technical level we secured extra assurance through the engagement of Hytec Consultancy. Hytec was given a clear brief to evaluate tenders from a technical point of view and delivered this to the council as they were asked. Our method of evaluating scoring using our preagreed categories and weightings gave us a truly equitable basis for comparing bids and allowed us to rank our suppliers on the basis of their total solution. We were not bound to accept the lowest tender and we reserved the right to accept any bid in part or its totality. The bid was, however, evaluated on the basis of the most economically advantageous one to the council. Added Value Legal Free Test Lab Fixed Price Services Up-front Investment in Assessment Flexible over Solution Make-Up Bespoke Managed Service Executive Level Sponsorship The price is within the provisioned Council budget Fixed cost on the entire project with a cap following the assessment phase Reductions in Primes consultancy and engineering rates An open book pricing policy for hard ware and software will ensure that cost transparency is achieved. Local government discounts on Cisco equipment Retention percentage on each of the work package payments will be held for 6 months.

With the continuous input of Internal Audit, the Strategic Procurement Team, Project Manager, Project Management Board and Borough Solicitor throughout the process we were confident that all legal requirements were met every step of the way. Not just an off-the-shelf solution - the work of procuring partnership The Information Transformation Project in Barnet Council means that the council can deliver cost-effective solutions, making it a better council to do business with. Great technology is only a part of the answer. We must also make sure that we deliver an infrastructure that users will accept. Teamwork is crucial to this and Barnet Council and Prime have carefully considered how an effective partnership between our two organisations can be enabled. We are delighted to have been selected to partner with the London Borough of Barnet on this highly visible and important project (Nathan Marke, Prime Business Solutions Sales and Marketing Director). We are committed to modernising the council and this means investing in technology, so that we can release money for frontline services and move forward with many of our key strategies (Cllr Mike Freer, Deputy Leader, Barnet Council) Barnet Council and its new partner Prime Business Solutions signed the 5-year initial contract valued at 6 million in July 2005 bringing the Infrastructure Transformation Project to life. The Infrastructure Transformation Project (ITP) spans all 60 Barnet Council sites and 4,500 users and comprises a new WAN, LAN, IP Telephony, security and remote access solution, a resilient Storage Area Network (SAN) and back office enhancements including the completion of an Active Directory project. This new infrastructure will provide the technical foundation that will support Barnets Customer Access Strategy, further improving the way the we deal with enquiries from the public whether by phone, at new contact centres, or face-to-face in new reception areas.

The Secure Infrastructure will allow for the development of further online transactional systems, helping residents pay for council services from their personal computers at home or work. Our staff now have the ability to access IT systems remotely and away from their offices which means that our frontline staff can spend less time at their desk and more time working with members of the public. Knowledge sharing and capacity-building is a core element of true partnership and our approach to working with Prime Business Solutions going forward is fundamentally different to what has happened in the past. We have built a seamless team made up of both internal staff and external partners and our overall approach has secured a huge amount of buy in, both internally and externally. An example of this trust in partnership approach was the willingness Prime Business Solution showed to assist Barnet Council in the run up to the go-live of our MCS SAP systems. Prime completed building surveys and network upgrades based purely on goodwill in the knowledge that Barnet Council was a strong ally that could be trusted, despite the lack of a formal contract at that stage. Without this timely support our SAP go live could not have been achieved on time across the London Borough of Barnet estate. Reaping the rewards Barnet Council now has a tried and tested innovative procurement model that can be rolled out council wide and the real rewards are being reaped on a daily basis by both Barnet Council staff and Barnet residents. The Children and Families service is a good example where Infrastructural Transformation is having a direct impact on the vulnerable in our community. Over 200 staff and managers in the service have been equipped with hand-held computers by 02, supported by the network solutions provided by our partnership with Prime Business Solutions. This means they can now access and update their diaries and e-mails while on the move, spending more time seeing clients and supporting more children and their families. The staff have embraced this new technology with enthusiasm, recognising the added value that the ICT transformation has brought to their daily work.

The handhelds are a great way of staying in touch with the office in a job that requires us to spend large amounts of time in the community. They also have enormous potential for ensuring our safety and enabling us to work more efficiently. (Naomi Ruben, a trainee social worker) Currently, Barnet Council is developing a web-based interface added to the hand-helds, plus a remote panic button (linked to technology) which will allow us to locate our social workers and get help to them in the event of a dangerous situation arising. This is a cutting edge project being developed in parternship with companies Handheld PCs and Trackaphone. All of these initiatives reflect back to our staff our stated commitment of helping the council achieve its objective of investing more resources in frontline services. The win-win factor in our approach to procurement has meant delivery across key areas including technical solutions, pricing, managed service, knowledge share and value added service. The overall cost of the project was significantly lower than the other bidder and Prime Business Solutions have agreed an open book pricing policy for the entire Infrastructure Transformation Project. This offers extremely good value for money and adheres to our principles of best value in all aspects of our work. We have acquired at 9 to 5 on-site managed service with four full time employees and a roundthe-clock remote monitoring service. As a value added service, Prime Business Solutions will deliver a full working test laboratory within Barnet. This will be used for training, research and development and to test hardware and software prior to releasing into the live environment which means further benefit for both Prime and Barnet Council. The design of our technical solution has been specific and customised exactly to our requirements. This customised approach means we have much greater flexibility in our systems which is exactly what is required for modern and progressive service delivery.