Defence Online

The current contract for Software package and information systems – Framework Lead is projected to end on 14-MAY-20 and may be available for retender.
Description:
Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority:: Contact Management Programme – Speech and text analytics solution framework.

Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance: Services
Service category No 7: Computer and related services
Main site or location of works, place of delivery or of performance: Throughout the UK.
NUTS code UKZ

Information on framework agreement: Framework agreement with a single operator
Duration of the framework agreement
Duration in years: 5
Justification for a framework agreement, the duration of which exceeds four years: The implementation of the required software, its development and the capital outlay it represents will need to be over a longer period of time to ensure a return on investment can be achieved.
Estimated total value of purchases for the entire duration of the framework agreement
Estimated value excluding VAT: 10 000 000 GBP

Short description of the contract or purchase(s): The Chief Officer Teams of both Hampshire Contabulary (HC) and Thames Valley Police (TVP) have agreed a shared ‘Vision for the future of Contact Management’ which if delivered will change the way the public engages with the Forces. This has been realised in the instigation of the ‘Contact Management Programme’ within the 2 forces.
One of the sub-layers within the Contact Management Programme is the delivery of a new speech and text analytics capabilities for use within the police contact centres. This will be used as a tool for demand management, and risk assessment at the high level, and is intended to improve inbound customer support via traditional and innovative forms of digital capture.
There is a limited amount of analytics already operational within TVP and HC, which are currently used for performance monitoring; monitoring of social media; monitoring of corporate communication and government intelligence sites; and also which provide a limited scanning of emails to mention a few. These tools are largely retrospective in their measurements, and so do not provide the ‘real-time’ level of information that is required within the rapidly evolving modern world.
As such, the intention of this exercise is to provide TVP and HC with a much more innovative solution to ensure they can keep up with the rapidly changing face of modern communication methods. The high level needs of this system have been identified as:
– Analytics monitoring of Core Voice and Text Communications – to aid in providing early sight of risk assessments and give automated decisions;
– Monitoring of Customer Contact – which will provide ‘near or real-time’ voice and text analytics, giving the tools to monitor risk within voice and text data from both structured and unstructured content and associated integration with our telephony platform;
– Response and Resolution solutions – which will enable different layers of information to be brought together to enable contact centre operators to deal with contact in a more efficient and informed way;
– Predictive assessment – which will be used to bring together different layers of information to alert operators to certain threats and aid them in managing the response;
– Retrospective Insight – which will be for use in modelling and monitoring, and for identification of where service has been sub-optimal to allow continuous improvements to take place and coaching of contact centre staff to be delivered.
Apart from these requirements, it is the intention of the advertising organisation to appoint a partner that will provide support and assistance in the implementation of such a system and also that will provide ongoing support for it across both forces. The chosen system will also require a certain level of resilience to ensure business continuity of service. Also, the rapid technological developments in this field means that for the contact centres of each force to keep pace, the chosen system will need to be flexible in its deployment and work alongside TVP and HC (and other forces) to develop and bespoke the system, ensuring the future proofing of the contact centres operational performance.
Finally, as the Contact Management Programme has been developed as part of a Home Office drive to modernise the way the public contact the police, there may well be a requirement to replicate such a service across other national police forces if successful. As such any award made under this exercise may be done so as a framework agreement allowing the services as defined to be delivered to any other interested force, so this should be considered from a resource perspective before any application is made to be included in this process.

Information about variants: Variants will be accepted: no

Post written by: Andrew Perry