Scanning and Transcription Services

Further to a Prior Information Notice (PIN) ref: CF-0268300D58000000L5A4EAK1 issued on 31 August 2022, the Secretary of State for the Home Department (hereafter referred to as the Authority) is undertaking this tender exercise to appoint suitably capable and experienced provider of Scanning and Transcription services for HMPO General Register Office (GRO) of England and Wales. The GRO delivers a range of civil registration services. Since 2008, the GRO has been part of what is now HMPO, itself a directorate of the Authority. The Director General of HMPO is also the Registrar General for England and Wales.

The records held by GRO constitute the national record of births, deaths, marriages, civil partnerships and other registration events (Records), since civil registration started in 1837. The Records are held in a variety of formats, including paper certificates, bound paper books, microfiche, microfilm, whilst some are already digitised. However, these digital Records are not searchable. GRO has a statutory obligation to hold, maintain and provide public access to these Records. However, there is a current reliance on equipment that is disappearing from the commercial market altogether, with Records in their current format degrading, which brings significant risk to GRO being able to meet its statutory functions.

This opportunity will be operated in line with the Restricted Procedure, a multi-stage procurement process that is intended to short list qualified bidders, who will in turn be invited to tender for the contract opportunity.

The objective of the Selection Stage is to assess the responses to the Standard Selection Questionnaire (SQ) and select Bidders to proceed to the ITT Stage of this procurement. The evaluation panel shall evaluate the SQ responses using the selection criteria detailed in the SQ document, which is provided on the Authority’s e-sourcing portal. Bidders who pass this SQ assessment will then be invited to tender.