Purpose

I am seeking agreement to an exemption to LCCs
Contract and Procurement Procedure Rules (CPPR) under section 4 of
the CPPR “Chief Officers have the authority, under the
Contract Regulations, to approve an alternative procurement route
where the contract has an Estimated Total Contract Value between
£10,000 and £249,999, subject to the Chief Officer
consulting with their Executive Councillor on all exceptions where
the contract value exceeds £75,000. In this instance the
Procuring Officer must provide a written report to the Chief
Officer detailing the circumstances as to the exception, and
recommending an alternative approach to secure a contract. The
Chief Officer shall keep a register of contracts that they have
approved as exceptions.”
The value the work requires this level of decision making. The cost
of this full time resource for the period of 1 year is 237 days @
£450 per day. Total £106,650.

The work will consist of providing technical expertise where this
currently very limited in the areas of:
• development of our data architecture to ensure that we are
configuring our technical environment in a way that is fit for
purpose and information assurance compliant. This will enable the
effective storage, manipulation and presentation of core data sets
across LCC that is fit for purpose for the next 5+ years.
• to ensure the effective use of data storage across the
Council’s cloud environment to enable cost savings to be
leveraged.
• to support the new BI technical team manager who is taking
up their post in CPT on 1st September. The consultant will support
them and the new team of BI Engineers to work to common processes
and practice with a view to the consultant exiting end March 2026
when handover is complete.
• work with IT and our IT partners to give advice on CPT data
sets, their underlying data structure and how these need to be
considered in the transition to a unified data platform.
• delivery of use cases where machine learning can be trailed
to evaluate the effectiveness of data modelling and predictive
analytics.

provide technical expertise in the use of Power BI and associated
advanced functions such as Power Platform to ensure the effective
delivery of reporting across LCC and provide expertise in Power BI
across our Community of Practice.

Decision

To agree the engagement of a BI Consultant
through an external company InfoJam for the period 1st April 2025
– 31st March 2026. This is an external consultant who is
already engaged in the delivery of our BI Strategy. This will be
funded through underspend on staffing budgets in Corporate
Performance.
There is the option for both parties to terminate the arrangement
with 30 days notice period.

Alternative options considered

We have engaged with consultants with this
expertise previously who have a significantly higher day rate
(approx. £800 - £950 per day). InfoJam have been
working with LCC for some time and are familiar with both the BI
Strategy and the technical infrastructure. They are therefore able
to progress the work needed to deliver the BI Strategy more quickly
than engaging a different third party on a higher charging rate. We
are also confident of the quality of work having previously worked
with InfoJam. By procuring directly with InfoJam we have negotiated
a very competitive day rate of £450.