WM Placement Portal Replacement - Soft Market Sounding Exercise

Birmingham City Council (BCC) is working with West Midlands Children's Services (a collaborative of 14 Local Authorities (LA's) and Children's Trusts (Trusts)) to undertake Soft Market testing exercise for a web-based IT solution that provides a single portal for use by all 14 LA's and Trusts that enables brokerage of services and placements searches across a number of frameworks.

The West Midlands Local Authorities & Trusts include Birmingham Children's Trust, Coventry City Council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, Herefordshire Council, Sandwell Children's Trust, Shropshire County Council, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-On-Trent City Council, Borough of Telford & Wrekin , Walsall Council, Warwickshire County Council, Wolverhampton City Council and Worcestershire Children First.

There are approx. 200 staff from commissioning and placements teams across the 14 LAs and Trusts that are registered users of the current system and around 800 providers. This is subject to change as new frameworks are added.

The Birmingham City Council (BCC) though this market testing exercise is looking for supplier(s) who can provide the council with a secure online portal for Child Care Placement service.

The purpose of this Soft Market Testing Exercise is to gain a better understanding of what solutions are available in the market that could provide a viable alternative or enhancement to the Council's current online portal and to support BCC in development a specification.

Birmingham City Council has also provided a few general high-level functional requirements that the existing online account solution provides, plus several high-level technical requirements. Suppliers are asked to rate their own offerings in relation to these.

The existing system is due to expire in 2022 and we are interested to learn about innovative ideas and potential future solutions for its replacement.

Birmingham City Council will be using its e-Tendering system, In-Tend, for the administration of this process and supplier must register with the system to be able to obtain the documents. The web address is: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/birminghamcc. Registration and use of In-Tend is free. All correspondence for this process must be via the In-Tend correspondence function. If you are unable to register with In-Tend, please either email:[email protected] or call +44 1214648000.

Your completed submission should be returned by noon on 26 March 2021 (5pm) using In-Tend.

Please note that this is not a call for competition.