Purpose

The Shared Revenues Partnership have a
perpetual licence to use Victoria Forms Software which provides a
suite of electronic forms and a Benefit Calculator. These services
together allow customers to determine their likely entitlement to
benefit, make an informed claim, undergo a localised verification
process, receive a documented list of evidence required and upload
that evidence to support their claim. This service has provided
significant efficiencies to the Shared Revenues Partnership whilst
providing customers with an improved 24/7 claim/advice service.
 
The comprehensive process is externally
hosted, has been developed and refined over a period of years and
support and maintenance would not be available from any other
supplier.
 
The provision of support and maintenance for
the e-form suite, the server, the Benefit Calculator, the XML
export and provision of the Local Verification Framework for the
three partner authorities is undertaken for an annual support and
maintenance fee of £19,342+VAT.
 
There would be an impact to performance if SRP
were to not continue with this service. The products have been
developed over time and allow for service area efficiencies in post
opening, scanning and indexing, claim handling, information
gathering and significantly reduce demand upon Customer
Services.

Decision

To exempt the contract from the market testing
requirement of Contract Standing Orders for the financial year
2024/25. The award is to Victoria Forms for £19,342+VAT.
 
Reason:
This bespoke form is available only as
proprietary or patented articles from one supplier, and for which
there is no reasonable satisfactory alternative.