That a 3-year contract be awarded to the preferred supplier as set out in Exempt Appendix 2 to the submitted report.

If the Council does not purchase the E5 licences from one of the 7 resellers offering the Government Enterprise Agreement, the Council will not receive the annual discounts of 45%, 39% and 32% respectively for the 3-year contract period. Awarding the contract to the preferred supplier also enables the Council to take advantage of the additional benefits offered. Owing to Microsoft’s lead time to process the order, the order needs to be raised before the end of November 2023. 

An alternative option was not to award to the preferred supplier. The main disadvantage with this option was that if the Council does not purchase the E5 licences from one of the 6 other Microsoft resellers offering the Government Enterprise Agreement, the costs will be significantly higher. The Council will also be at risk of not being able to raise the order by the end of November. Although not so critical, the Council would also lose the additional benefits that the preferred supplier can provide us with. 

This decision will come into force and may be implemented on 2 October 2023 unless the call-in procedure is triggered (as set out in the Standing Orders in relation to Overview and Scrutiny).

The current contract for E3 M365 licences ends on 31 December 2023.  As well as E3 licences, we have licences for a number of other Microsoft products, including Power BI Pro, E5 Security, Project, Visio and PowerApps.  The purchase of E5 M365, will cover licences for E5 M365 and the other MS products, apart from Power BI Pro and E5 Security, which form part of E5.

At the meeting Councillor Tyerman proposed and Councillor Chris Lewis seconded a motion that was agreed unanimously by the Cabinet, as set out above.

None.