Purpose

The report recommends approving
the procurement strategy for the procurement of the Council’s
Microsoft Enterprise Licencing Agreement, Microsoft Azure Cloud
Services and Microsoft Unified Support contract.
 
The contract with the incumbent
supplier ends in June 2025 and does not allow any further
extensions.
 
The provision of a Microsoft
Enterprise Subscription will allow the Council to obtain licences
for the use of Microsoft software which will enable it to continue
to benefit from the Office 365 suite of productivity, collaboration
and communication tools such as Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, etc. It is also vital to the council as it enables the
Council to administer back-office functions and the licences are required to transform
the ICT estate enabling efficiencies from the application of new
technology.
 
The provision of Microsoft
Azure Cloud Services will provide continuity for cloud computing.
Majority of the council systems sit on and rely on Microsoft Azure
therefore, if there is a risk of the subscription being terminated
or paused preventing access to council IT systems, this will result
in an inability for the council to function effectively if this is
not retendered.
 
Failure to renew these
agreements will result in critical software and systems becoming
inoperable. With the current climate of working from home, this
could result in more support requirements from our outsourced IT
support provider, involving additional costs.
 

Content

2.1 Approve the procurement strategy which will lead to
3 related contracts as follows:
 
a)   
Microsoft Enterprise Licencing
Agreement for a duration of 3-years from 1 July 2025 until
30 June 2028 with an estimated total value of
£3,300,000.
b)   
Microsoft Azure Cloud Services
for a duration of 3-years from 1 July 2025 until 30 June 2028 with
an estimated total value of £2,500,000.
c)   
Microsoft Unified Support
contract for a duration of 3-years from 1 June 2026 until 31 May
2029 with an estimated total value of £200,000.