Local authority issues contract notice for tech refresh to support better use of data

Credit: Lewis Clarke/CC BY-SA 2.0

Devon County Council (DCC) is to undertake a £1m spruce-up of its IT processes and tools in a bid to become a “data-driven organisation”. 

In a contract notice for a “business data and intelligence programme”, the authority said it wants policy and decisions to be guided by “timely and accurate” data. 

“To support this ambition, DCC wish to engage a partner to advise and work with us to provide an architecture that will fulfil the needs of the council and the people of Devon,” it said. 

The council added that it has 4,500 staff working to deliver 800 services – and a mixed bag of technologies currently in use.

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“There are currently a wide variety of systems designed for individual business areas, with some departments making good use of analytical tools for business intelligence and providing leadership to national bodies,” it said. “DCC would like to improve the consistency, cross-referencing and quality of this data across the whole of the organisation. DCC anticipate implementing tools and processes to monitor accuracy from the point of data creation and to implement an architecture that supports data being made available to the whole of the council, business partners and to the general public, whilst complying with data protection and other standards.”

In helping the council deliver this ambition, the chosen supplier will be expected to work within an incumbent Microsoft environment in which the authority has “invested considerable resources”. This includes implementations of “the full Office 365 suite, Power BI and Azure Cloud”.

“Any solution would be expected to utilise this existing technology investment,” Devon said. “The data and intelligence initiative must [also] support the aims of the Devon Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) which addresses the increasing health and care needs of the Devon population.”

The Devon STP is one of 44 such initiatives introduced across England in 2016. The partnerships are designed to improve the delivery of regional care services from the NHS and other care organisations over the course of a five-year period.

To support its data and intelligence programme, Devon is seeking to appoint a supplier to a two-year contract worth an estimated £1.1m and beginning in early 2020. The authority will also have the option of signing the chosen firm for two 12-month extensions.

Bids are open until 11 November.