CCS managed print case study: Leeds City Council

Leeds City Council becoming the best, with less

It is a vision that drives the council, from the quality of services it provides to the way they are delivered. In an era of austerity and cuts to public sector spending, it’s a challenging goal to achieve.

Objective

Tackle inefficiencies and unmanaged costs in print services to help safeguard vital community services.

The challenges

  • decentralised print system and a variety of devices that was hard to manage
  • ineffective control of costs due to lack of reliable data
  • inefficient and wasteful document workflows
  • fragmented print fleet impacted the environmental targets

The approach

Over the last few years, Leeds City Council has noticed a change in the way that citizens interact and access public services. Helena Phillips, Chief Officer of Shared Services at the council, explains:

People want greater flexibility when using public services. More and more communication is taking place on digital channels, and so the challenge we are faced with is to safeguard and evolve the services we offer within shrinking budgets.

At the same time as citizen expectations are changing, councils across the UK are also looking for ways to work smarter; to drive efficiencies, improve staff productivity and reduce their impact on the environment.

Driven by its “simplify, standardise and share” ethos, the council resolved to review internal processes and seek new ways to tackle inefficiencies. Kirsty McCarthy, Managed Print Services Manager, said:

My team were spending their days dealing with errors and trying to minimise disruption. The priority for us was to implement a smart solution that would save the council money and give us all back our time.

Canon instantly assumed the role of a strategic partner rather than a supplier.

Andrew Byrom, Service & Infrastructure Manager.

The solution

As a registered supplier with the Crown Commercial Service framework, Canon worked closely with the council to develop an organisation-wide printing strategy and solution, using the Multifunctional Devices and Services, Managed Print Services and Print Audit Services framework (RM1599). An ambitious goal was set to completely replace the old print solution in only 6 months.

Team members were completely dedicated and went above and beyond every day – especially during the challenging transition phase. The technology was so good and easy to use, people just embraced it.

Andrew Byrom, Service & Infrastructure Manager.

The results

Expert advice resulted in the creation of a bespoke print solution under one management service to increase efficiency and responsiveness of the workforce, as well as control and limit costs.

PrintSmart made an immediate financial impact, saving the council £400,000 to date. Approximately 30% was saved in the very first year.

  • the number of print devices was rationalised by 39%
  • this has resulted in an overall 25% reduction in print volume in the first year alone
  • saved 12,565,709 A4 sheets of paper, £61,570 in financial savings
  • electricity levels have been dramatically reduced, financial saving of £12,000

Key achievements

Small improvements have made big differences to workforce productivity, saving time for staff and technical support teams. The ability to scan and fax to email, for example, enables staff to be more responsive. The advanced scanning feature streamlines the process by scanning documents to the Sharepoint document management system. The system now operates with only two print drivers, replacing hundreds previously. This single change alone saved an enormous amount of time, as people can now work more flexibly from office to office without requiring IT to install and support a new driver each time.

Jo Miklo, Head of Business Administration, stated,

I need to access the print system every day and the improvement has been dramatic. Small changes like the visibility of print queues and individual PIN access make sure that documents don’t get lost and save you time when retrieving them. The easy scanning capabilities also allow us to respond more quickly to citizens’ requests.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Leeds are able to enjoy 65 newly-installed and easy-to-use multi-functional devicess in 23 public libraries, which have replaced the unreliable old machines. The comprehensive data drawn from PrintSmart contributes to fulfilling the green agenda within the council’s 2030 vision. With an estimated 1,007,318 kg of greenhouse gases and 18,139 trees saved in the first 12 months, Leeds is well on its way to becoming a lower carbon city. Security has also been enhanced across the system, crucial for teams handling extremely sensitive documents across the council.

A digital council

With Canon’s help, the council aims to continue to change behaviour and reduce its print volume by 5% year on year.

By using the system’s granular data reports, the team will target particular departments where they are seeing expensive printing behaviour and educate employees on ways to reduce paper and colour printing in the office. With accurate information visible right across the council sites, it means the teams can target other areas for improvements, efficiencies and generate further cost savings.

The success of PrintSmart at the council has built a platform for more innovative solutions in the future. It has been recognised internally as an exemplar of how major corporate projects should be implemented. Helena Phillips says:

PrintSmart has taken the pain out of printing for us and turned it into an essential tool for working in the digital age. By rethinking the way that we work, Canon has helped us to better serve the citizens of Leeds.

Further information

If you would like to find out more about any of the CCS managed print solutions and how we can support you please get in touch:

Visit the RM3781 agreement webpage – RM1599 has now been replaced by our 7-lot agreement RM3781

Tackling modern slavery – what CCS is doing

UK government statement of commitment

The government’s task force on modern slavery has endorsed a government-wide strategy to tackle this issue. The strategy has identified actions to ensure modern slavery is tackled in government supply chains through public procurement and has committed to publishing its own modern slavery statement in December 2019.

What has CCS been doing?

We have been working closely with the Home Office, Cabinet Office and NCQ to deliver an approach to managing modern slavery risk in public sector supply chains, which will inform the government’s statement.

As part of this activity, we have:

  • developed a Modern Slavery Assessment Tool (MSAT) to help suppliers identify and manage potential modern slavery risks in their supply chains
  • identified which contracts are in the sectors and categories where there is greater risk of modern slavery occurring
  • compiled a list of high and medium risk framework contracts
  • run a series of training sessions with NQC to familiarise our commercial agreement managers with the MSAT tool

What’s happening next?

We are inviting suppliers that are working under framework contracts in those sectors and categories where there is a greater risk of modern slavery to complete the MSAT assessment.

To reduce the burden on suppliers, government is adopting a ‘tell us once’ approach using the HMG Supplier Registration Service (SID4GOV). Suppliers will not have to provide the information again for other government departments, but will be asked to approve sharing the information with them.

Our commercial agreement managers will be reviewing suppliers’ assessment results and holding follow-up discussions with all of those suppliers returning a high or medium risk score.

They will then work in partnership with them to ensure that they are putting effective risk mitigation plans in place and addressing modern slavery in their supply chains.

We recognise that this is not a one-off exercise. As a result, our commercial agreement managers are also risk assessing their future framework contracts to ensure that modern slavery risk is effectively identified and addressed in CCS’ future procurement pipeline.

The modern slavery assessment is part of a learning process to help government understand how its suppliers are approaching this important issue. The results will not be used as part of any procurement competition.

Get in touch

If you have any queries please get in touch:

Help shape our upcoming Estates Management Services framework

As you may be aware the current Project Management and Full Design Team Services framework (PMFDTS) RM3741 and Estate Professional Services Framework (EPS) RM3816 will expire in May and August 2021 respectively.

While this may seem a while away, Crown Commercial Service are committed to full stakeholder engagement to support the delivery of its future commercial agreements.

Approval has been received to issue OJEU PINs to start the engagement on the development and define the solution of the future frameworks, which are expected to be called Construction Professional Services (CPS) RM6165 and Estate Management Services (EMS) RM6168.

The anticipated go live dates are April and June 2021 respectively.

CPS PIN

EPS PIN

The issue of two PINS gives CCS the opportunity to review market service delivery capabilities, services needed by customers and how we can improve the customer journey for departments using our frameworks.

As part of our joint engagement we will test which services best fit each commercial agreement and the basis of design for joint or separate CPS/EMS frameworks. At this stage we have no preferred options – your input will help us define these.

We would really like you to be involved with market engagement over the coming months so you can help us shape these agreements. To truly ensure they are fit for purpose and align with your strategy requirements and support a best in class route to market, we want your input.

If you would like to be involved, please complete this short survey, which will help us to capture your feedback about how you find the current process and how we can improve it.

If you want to register your interest or have any specific questions please email the buildings pillar team, and keep an eye out for more information in our CCS newsletters and social media platforms.

New security services solutions for the public sector

This framework has been designed in two sub lots to capture the needs of a resource intensive guarding service and the separate need for technical security elements. This includes electronic and physical security, which can be called off separately or bundled depending on your needs.

 Security services:

Manned guarding service passes Patrols (fixed or static guarding)
Control of access and security Management of visitors and passes
CCTV/Alarm monitoring Reactive guarding
Emergency response Alarm Response Centres (ARC)

 

Technical security:

Design, supply, installation and maintenance of electronic and physical systems Alarm signalling
Network video recorders (NVR) and digital video recorders (DVR) Security lighting
Automatic barriers, gates, rising bollards and blockers Electronic locking systems
IT equipment – operating base for security systems Perimeter fences (and gates)
Closed circuit television systems (CCTV) Security screening applications
Automatic access control system (AACS) Intruder detection systems (IDS)
Security management systems (SMS) Alarm response centres (ARC)

 

The solution offers:

  • access to specialist security suppliers providing compliant assessment of security risk, informing delivery of compliant design of security systems using registered members of various accreditation bodies
  • access to professionally managed, high quality security and guarding services using approved contractors accredited by the Security Industry Authority (SIA)
  • flexible and simplified access to specialist security SMEs
  • social value
  • time and resource savings in the procurement process
  • reduced consultancy and legal costs
  • flexibility for a security risk assessment, design, supply and install – customers choose the route to market either as staged or as a single project

Security services is designed specifically for customers who may not have the in-house ability to produce security risk assessments and rely on suppliers ‘designing’ security systems on their behalf. Our security lot has been designed to focus on customer requirements for design and security risk assessments (aligned with the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) guidance. Also including additional mandated entry point for industry recognised accreditation (SIA) for guarding services.

Benefits include:

Free, fast and simple to use

  • free to access: no customer fees or charges, all our fees are recovered from the supplier
  • access to a dedicated and experienced team providing assistance throughout the procurement process and advice from our category experts

Value for Money

  • maximum standard rates are fixed for the first two years of the framework – they can also be further reduced by suppliers during further competition
  • management information to help you track spend based on a common set of service codes allowing in depth analysis

Social value and sustainability

  • suppliers will help you achieve an efficient and sustainable public estate, supporting diversity and inclusion
  • suppliers can tailor their offer to match your social value priorities

Quality of service delivery

  • verified supply chain as all suppliers and subcontractors have completed a financial and professional compliance review
  • robust key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can tailor them to meet your specific requirements including social value
    • our standard call-off terms and conditions also allow you to define service credits

 

Visit the framework page to find out more about security services.

Got a question? Get in touch and one of our experts will be happy to help.

Digital Outcomes and Specialists 4 open for business

  • 3,475 technology companies now available to the public sector
  • £1.5 billion has been spent through the framework since its inception
  • Over £200 million of that spend has been with micro-sized firms

94% of awarded suppliers on Digital Outcomes and Specialists 4 are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). 

The new agreement helps public sector organisations find suppliers that can buy, design, build, test and deliver software, supporting the delivery of world-class public services that meet the needs of citizens. 

Public bodies have so far spent £1.5bn through the three previous Digital Outcomes and Specialists agreements, with 32% going directly to SMEs. More than £200m has been spent with micro-SMEs.

Niall Quinn, CCS Technology Director says: 

‘DOS 4 will continue to help facilitate digital transformation for our customers while creating opportunities for collaboration with a wide range of suppliers. For this new version we have been able to enhance the framework and make some improvements to the Digital Marketplace in line with customer and supplier feedback, to improve their experience.’

Andrew Tulley, Director of Monitor Intelligence Services Ltd says: 

‘The DOS framework provides us a highly effective mechanism for engaging with our public sector customers. Its streamlined and straightforward nature means we can remain focussed on our mission of providing value-for-money enterprise technology services without being tied up by over-complex tender processes.’ 

There are four solutions available to customers: digital outcomes, digital specialists, user research studios and user research participants.

DOS4 is accessed through the Digital Marketplace, created in 2014 by CCS and Government Digital Service (GDS) to make government procurement easier and more transparent.

Find out more about this agreement.

 

 

Our top 5 tips for running a further competition for Multifunctional Devices – Crown Commercial Service

You have determined your need for a Multifunctional Device (or a number of devices) for your organisation and have looked through the documents on the RM3781 agreement, but are still not sure how to run a further competition and what information to include.

A further competition simply means you run a competition, between a set of pre-qualified suppliers, to find the best option for you.

Top 5 tips for what to include:

Tip 1: Consider pre-engagement as part of the bid process

This can be beneficial as you can get a feel for how suppliers will respond to your competition and it allows for the opportunity to get information from suppliers that you may not have considered.

Tip 2: Have the most up to date information to hand, regarding your print infrastructure

This will help suppliers fully understand your current situation.

  • how is your organisation structured?
  • how many locations and buildings do you have?
  • is this likely to increase or decrease over the contract?

Get an audit report from your existing supplier – this will help you to review your requirements

  • how many devices do you have?
  • how are they being used?
  • how many users do they have by type?

Tip 3: Provide as much detail around your specific requirements as possible

  • number and type of assets in scope (for example photocopiers, MFDs, desktop printers)
  • network infrastructure (for example locations of servers, active directory, security standards)
  • include dimensions of print areas or devices
  • include print management licenses/certificates

Tip 4: Include a section on innovation

Bidders can list areas of their proposal which are innovative or differentiators.

Tip 5: Keep pricing appendices as simple as possible

Including this information upfront in your tender documents will hopefully reduce the number of clarification questions you may receive.  However, if you find you still receive some questions, answer these quickly and in as much detail as possible, this will help to meet the deadlines of the bid process.

Allow as much time as possible for bidders to return the completed tender.  As a general rule, we recommend you allow between 4 to 8 weeks for suppliers to prepare their responses, dependent upon complexity.

Learn more

To get started take a look at the Multifunctional Devices page.

Got a question?

Supply Teachers deal helps Academies Enterprise Trust secure quality candidates and achieve savings

The Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) has 62 academies. They spent £4.6 million on supply staff in 2017/18, making it the trust’s 6th highest area of spend. Academies in the trust were sourcing temporary staff from 95 agencies, with supply being managed by each academy. The terms of the contracts often favoured the supply agencies, rather than the academies. The approach also meant that AET was not compliant with the public contracts regulations, and struggled to manage their supplier relationships.

The challenge

AET had 3 main requirements when it began its procurement review:

  • source quality candidates
  • ensure safeguarding of pupils
  • make cost savings

How we helped

Using lot 1 of the Supply Teachers framework, AET began negotiations with the 16 agencies that their academies were using most often. These agencies accounted for £2.2 million of their annual spend. They used the rates they were paying the agencies versus the maximum framework rates to negotiate cost savings.

AET then approached the rest of the suppliers they were using, who were also accredited framework suppliers, to negotiate more value for money deals.

The 3rd stage was to have discussions with framework suppliers who have low mark-ups, but AET weren’t currently using.

The aim of these negotiations was to develop a preferred supplier list. Throughout the process the CCS Supply Teachers team fully supported AET. Clive Hammond, Head of Procurement commented:

The team was extremely helpful in resolving queries from the trust and suppliers for whom this was the first time that they had been through the process, especially for a large multi academy trust.

Results

AET launched their new preferred supplier list in January 2019. It includes 40 accredited framework suppliers who offer the trust the best value for money.

The suppliers on the list hold industry standard accreditation, giving assurance that candidates undergo thorough safeguarding checks.

In the first 5 months the academies have been happy with the standard of candidates that supply agencies are able to offer us.

AET predict that using the CCS deal has identified cashable savings of £119,000 in the first year, when compared to the rates paid in 2017/18. This is a saving of 6.55%.

By choosing to use the CCS Supply Teachers deal AET ensured that they were compliant with UK public contracts regulations. This removed the need to run their own procurement, which would have been time consuming and expensive.

What’s next for AET?

Confident that they are getting quality teachers, they are now working closely with their academies to help them reduce supply staff spend further. Meetings between academies and suppliers are creating direct relationships, making them the first point of contact for the academies, rather than them relying on historical relationships. This will further increase the savings opportunities for the trust, as the academies move away from suppliers charging higher mark-ups, to ones offering better value for money.

Longer term AET is looking to work closer with other multi-academy trusts as by combining resources they can make even more savings for their academies.

Learn more

Visit the supply teachers web page for more information about getting started.

Got a question?

HGS UK deliver real savings for the Money Advice Service through the Contact Centre Service framework

The requirement

The Money Advice Service (MAS) is an arm’s length body of the Department for Work and Pensions. The service provides free and impartial money guidance and debt advice online and by telephone across a wide range of money topics. Some of these topics include homes and mortgages, pensions, savings and investments, and key life events, such as starting a family, redundancy, bereavement, care and disability.

MAS offer their services through their website and contact centre across telephony, web chat, email and whitemail channels. This service handles over 100,000 calls and 50,000 web chats and has a very high satisfaction level, with 83% stating that they received the help they needed.

As the current supplier contract for the contact centre service was coming to an end MAS needed a new value-for-money provider quickly to make sure there was no gap in service for its many users.

MAS anticipated that the tender would be awarded to a provider able to deliver a solution that would show significant savings without impacting customer service. In addition, they should have a proven track record delivering a quality fully managed contact centre contract.

The solution

MAS used Contact Centre Services (RM3815) lot 1 to get its procurement documents in order as MAS could not do this on their own at the speed required. They then used lot 2 of the same agreement (RM3815) to choose a supplier. The procurement needed a very quick turnaround as there was only a short window before the previous contract expired. It typically takes 6 months for this size of requirement, however MAS was able to do this across 3 months with the support of the CCS framework team.

Ahead of the invitation to tender, Crown Commercial Service (CCS) set up sessions so that all suppliers had the opportunity to meet with MAS, understand their brand values and customer services requirements, while also hearing first-hand the challenges they anticipated during the contract term. This gave all potential suppliers time to develop their proposed solutions. MAS was very transparent about their requirements and the challenges which enabled CCS to support and inform proactively in their procurement.

As a CCS Contact Centre Services (RM3815) supplier, Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS UK) were the successful supplier for MAS’ requirements. MAS needed a tiered model to ensure customers with different types of enquiries would be given the right information first time, without the need to transfer between staff.

HGS recommended MAS use a phased implementation moving from an environment where every call was handled in exactly the same way, to a triage system of basic enquiries and more complex ones. The more complex (tier 2) would be dealt with by a team of call handlers who have been trained to a deeper, more detailed level on the money guidance topics.

The results

So far under the new contract (CCS RM3815) MAS have reduced their call handling times compared to their previous supplier, reducing hourly rate costs, which means that MAS can invest in more projects to improve access to financial tools and calculators for budgeting, pensions and debt advice.

Also, technology has been used to improve the customer experience. WhatsApp was launched as an additional channel to support all, but in particular for the younger demographic who prefer digital interactions. Since its launch over 5,000 messages have been exchanged on WhatsApp between MAS and their customers. The added benefits of WhatsApp for customers is that they have the whole conversation at their fingertips, they can pick up the conversation where they left off at any point and send across screenshots or images of communications they have received.

Overall it has enabled MAS to deliver more help to more people who want to manage their money better with 92%+ calibrated quality scores across all channels.

We’re pleased to be working with our partners HGS to provide free and impartial money guidance through our new Contact Centre in Selkirk. We have a great Customer Advisor Team ready to support the thousands of people who come to us each week seeking help on how to manage their money. Last year, our contact centre delivered money guidance to over two hundred thousand people and we’re delighted to be taking this work forward with our new partners.

John-Penberthy Smith, Customer Director at the Money Advice Service

For further information

To find out more about the framework and how it can help you, you can:

 

Get involved

If you want to find out more about how we can help you, why not ask one of our customer team to give you a call or sign up to our newsletter?

Update on third party bid management organisations

Over recent months CCS has become aware of the growth in third party organisations offering to write, submit and manage bids for CCS frameworks. Their target market appears to be predominantly SMEs.

CCS has been contacted by a number of suppliers concerned about the claims being made by some of these organisations in their sales approaches and marketing literature.

Therefore, for the avoidance of doubt, CCS can confirm the following:

– Nobody can guarantee bidders a place on a CCS framework

– CCS treats all bidders equally and in line with the published procurement procedures for each framework, the Public Procurement Regulations and Public Law

– CCS avoids engaging in framework discussions with either bidders or third parties outside the published processes

– CCS has introduced additional questions at qualification stage to identify those bidders using a third party to write, submit or manage their bid

– Submission of the bid and the content remain the sole responsibility of the original bidder. It is the responsibility of the original bidder to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to minimise the risk of commercial information being compromised, or anti-competitive practice taking place as a result of third parties managing multiple bids

– If CCS is approached by third parties, claiming to act as agents for (or representatives of) bidders for forthcoming frameworks, we will direct them to take part in the same pre-market engagement events as all other bidders, in order to ensure equal treatment

– Third parties wishing to attend pre-market engagement events, claiming to act as agents for (or representatives of) bidders for forthcoming frameworks, will be required to provide a letter of authority from the bidder concerned, prior to attending

If you would like more information please contact us by email or telephone:

Email: info@crowncommercial.gov.uk

Phone: 0345 410 2222

CCS customer services team is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

eSourcing Platform

IBM Emptoris is leaving the eSourcing application market and so the platform CCS uses will not be supported beyond May 2020.

Following the announcement CCS reviewed its strategy, a new lotted framework agreement was developed and awarded to Jaggaer (formerly BravoSolutions), and the DPS platform was awarded to NQC.

The agreement is available for central government departments and wider public sector customers to award call-off contracts for their own direct requirements.

CCS will continue to offer a service to customers who wish to use its platform to manage call-off activity from the CCS portfolio of commercial agreements and provide an assisted service to customers for call off activity.

Once the new platform has been implemented, current and potential customers of the “self-serve” facility will move from Emptoris to Jaggaer for new activity.

The Emptoris platform will not be available for new call-off activity after Sunday 1 September 2019, by which time Jaggaer will be operational. There will be no migration of call-off activity between the two platforms, any activity which starts on Emptoris before 1 September will be completed there.

Training materials and assistance with how the new service can be used are being developed, and further information will be provided to current and potential self-serve customers.

Separate discussions continue with the Home Office and UKSBS about their options for the future.

Any specific questions or clarifications should be directed to:

eenablement@crowncommercial.gov.uk