Issue - meetings

To receive and consider the report of the Director of Customer and Digital.

1.    To agree a direct award to GOSS through a compliant procurement framework, only if favourable commercial terms can be agreed including transparency on future costs for a period of up to 5 years from July 2024, for a joint GOSS iCM platform with South Ribble Council.

2.    In the absence of the above i.e., not obtaining favourable commercial terms directly with GOSS, the council will undertake a full market procurement exercise which will include open-source software currently being explored.

3.    To approve the delegation of the outcome and final sign off for either recommendation (a) or (b) to the Leader of the Council and Executive Member (Resources).

Councillor Peter Wilson, Executive Member for Resources presented the report of the Director of Customer and Digital which seeks agreement on the future for Chorley Council’s Content Management System (CMS).

Members noted that GOSS is the CMS system that is used to manage and modify content on several council owned websites. The current contract with GOSS is a shared contract with South Ribble Council, using separate instances to manage each councils’ different websites.

Discussions with GOSS have highlighted that the council should expect a significant cost increase upon contract renewal in July 2023. However, GOSS have suggested that more attractive pricing would be available if the councils had a shared iCM administrator and production environment.

A one-year contract extension until July 2024 with GOSS has been agreed via Executive Member Decision whilst further negotiations take place. Members welcomed this approach to achieve the best value and supported that the council will undertake a full market procurement exercise if favourable commercial terms cannot be achieved.

Decision:

1.    To agree a direct award to GOSS through a compliant procurement framework, only if favourable commercial terms can be agreed including transparency on future costs for a period of up to 5 years from July 2024, for a joint GOSS iCM platform with South Ribble Council.

2.    In the absence of the above i.e., not obtaining favourable commercial terms directly with GOSS, the council will undertake a full market procurement exercise which will include open-source software currently being explored.

3.    To approve the delegation of the outcome and final sign off for either recommendation (a) or (b) to the Leader of the Council and Executive Member (Resources).

Reasons for recommendations:

To ensure that the council maintains and develops its online presence and delivery of online services to residents.

Other options considered and rejected:

Other options to be considered are detailed within the report.