Northamptonshire County Council Technical and Commercial Consultancy Services for Superfast Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire County Council has an ambitious target to see countywide coverage of superfast broadband by the end of 2017. The approach to achieve this is outlined in the Northamptonshire’s Next Generation Strategy.

The consultancy services required will focus on support for the delivery, monitoring and assurance of Stage 3, including processes to determine the award of contracts for the Stage 3 procurement and mobilisation, and the assessment of proposals for the potential extension of plans with BT. It will provide for technical and commercial advice and assistance across all three Stage 3 channels and any other initiatives that may be brought forward by the authority to support these three work streams and the achievement of the County Council’s full coverage target. This may involve European funding PA2 initiatives and/or community based initiatives beyond the mainstream deployed services in due course. Consultancy services will support in life contract management including data maintenance, analysis, and mapping, Milestone to Cash if required, technical assurance and reporting requirements. Services will also require the hosting, maintenance and management of the When and Where interactive map.

SERVICES REQUIRED

1. Stage 3 Procurement – ITT Evaluation and Award, and Contract/Deployment Mobilisation (up to end June 2017)

One of the main focuses of this tender is to secure expert skills to support the evaluation of bids submitted in response to the Stage 3 procurement including technical assessment of technology proposals, solution components, and compliance with open access, NGA technology guidelines and other requirements of the National Broadband Scheme, as well as commercial advice and guidance to inform the authority’s decisions on contract award with one or more NGA telecoms providers.

2. Other Aspects of Support Services - Quarterly Work Programming from January 2017 to December 2017 (or until such time as the value of the tender has been utilised)

Alongside the Stage 3 OJEU procurement the Superfast Northamptonshire project will require on-going technical assistance during deployment as required and subject to work streams at any time, the capacity and requirements of the in-house team and need for external technical support. It is envisaged that requirements will be agreed on a forward quarterly work programme, including any significant requirements to enable the consultancy to manage resources.

3. Hosting and Management of the Interactive When and Where map

The When and Where map is an important tool to help the County Council communicate NGA coverage plans to residents and businesses in the county. The map involves a representation of all known data (the consolidated baseline data set) concerning NGA commercial and subsidised broadband plans in the county from a number of sources, and consolidating and interpreting data precedence to inform postcode level mapping. It is not accurate at a premise level.

Additional information: Please contact Ross Griffin for further information and to access the RFQ documentation.