Decision details
Authority to Award a Contract for Appliances for Load Balancing and Firewall Services (Officer Recordable Decision)
Decision Maker: Strategic Director - Customer and Digital Services
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Purpose:
This decision concerns the procurement of appliances for load balancing and firewall services for the Shared Technology Services boroughs of Brent, Lewisham and Southwark and seeks authority to award a contract as required by Contract Standing Order 88.
Decision:
To approve the award of a contract for the provision of load balancing and firewall services to Computacenter (UK) Limited.
Reasons for the decision:
The Shared Service boroughs use F5 appliances to provide key Load Balancing and Web Application Firewall (WAF) services to the STS Infrastructure. The appliances sit within the STS datacentres in Brent and Croydon and their services add resilience and fault tolerance to, and enhance the security of, key line of business applications. Council officers have undertaken a procurement exercise and identified Computacenter (UK) Limited as the contractor providing the most economically advantageous offer in accordance with agreed evaluation criteria and therefore recommend award to this contractor.
Alternative options considered:
Officers have considered whether the load balancing and firewall services can be provided by the council itself but have concluded that the load balancing and firewall services are best provided by a contractor.
Officers reviewed a range of procurement options including the use of a tender process but consider that awarding following a further competition from a framework is the most appropriate means of procuring a contractor.
Interests and Nature of Interests Declared:
None
Wards Affected: (All Wards);
Cabinet/Committee Decision or Scheme of Delegation: Officer Scheme of Delegation (Part 3 - Constitution) & Contract Standing Orders
Parties Consulted: The relevant Shared Service Borough stakeholders have been consulted in relation to this procurement.
Contact: Philippa Brewin, Senior Category Manager, Procurement Email: philippa.brewin@brent.gov.uk Tel: 020 8937 1733.
Publication date: 02/09/2021
Date of decision: 23/08/2021