Certified Secure Solutions for the Public Sector

Recently, The Data Company completed its submission to Crown Commercial Service to obtain our services for G-Cloud 13.  

 

What is G-Cloud 13?

An online catalogue where public sector customers can buy cloud-based computing services such as hosting, software and cloud support. Includes many off-the-shelf, pay-as-you-go cloud solutions.

What are the Benefits?

• access to over 40,000 services and over 5,000 suppliers
• scalable services: pay for what you use, and increase or reduce what you need easily
• quick and easy route to market
• reduced costs and reduced total cost of ownership compared to running your own service in house
• access to the latest technology and innovation with every refresh of the G-Cloud agreement
• change service providers easily

Framework Agreements minimise the work and risk for any Public Sector organisation looking to purchase goods or services from the Private Sector. The foundational work that any client would have to (or should undertake) up front is provided by a framework agreement, guaranteeing that suppliers are reliable and able to deliver as part of the first approvals process. Therefore, for (nearly) every request, Public Sector consumers are left with a selection of pre-approved vendors.

Customers can then expedite the procurement process by choosing from a list of pre-screened vendors, from which they can either award services directly or compete in a subsequent round (mini-tender), depending on their preference (depending on the specific rules of the Framework Agreement).

The customer only needs to pay attention to their unique requirements, disclose them, and examine the supplier’s responses.

Doing this will drastically reduce the timeframes for procurement, with many additional contests completed by vendors in 7–14 days.

There are significant time and expense savings for the client compared to the alternative, a tender process in the format of the OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union).

• The Framework Agreement approval process replaces the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) stage of procurement. The Framework Agreement eliminates the administrative process that requires a customer to review a sizeable volume of responses from a wide range of potential suppliers and complete financial vetting processes to shortlist a variety of “capable suppliers,” which typically takes 20 to 30 days for most direct tenders.
• It does not require the customer to prepare, distribute, or engage in protracted talks with suppliers regarding the contract. All of this is covered by the Framework Agreement “Call off contract,” which has been pre-agreed upon by approved suppliers.
• The clients’ procurement team can focus on gathering the needs of internal stakeholders before asking vendors to comply. The client then evaluates these answer components and decides on a reward.
• The customer is not required to accept a response that falls short of their expectations because there is no obligation to award on any Framework Agreement. If they do not receive a satisfactory outcome, they can always re-run the requirement on another Framework Agreement or decide to switch back to an open tender.

It’s important to note that most capable suppliers will be represented on one or more Framework Agreements, making it unlikely that a failed competition will occur on a Framework.

Although these Agreements are beneficial for the consumer, there are also advantages for the supplier, which allows for better customer pricing.

• Suppliers save time and money because they don’t have to fill out a PQQ form, provide financial information, or read a contract for every opportunity.
• Since the Further Competition process is shorter, suppliers may be able to start providing goods or services much more promptly, which reduces the “time to value.”
• Even though suppliers might have to pay a fee to the PBO managing the Framework Agreement, this is typically significantly less expensive than them having to review a contract.

Together with the economies of scale brought about by easy access to opportunities in the public sector, ensure that suppliers can provide very competitive pricing to clients who want to purchase in this manner.