Financial Planning & Analysis Solution

Location

Sheffield

Description

To procure a Financial Planning & Analysis Platform which will enable long-term resilience, improved financial management and effective prioritisation of finite resources

Award Detail

Award Criteria

CPV Codes

• 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Indicators

• Award on basis of price.

Legal Justification

A proportionate market review was undertaken to identify a Financial Planning & Analysis solution capable of meeting the Council’s current and future requirements. This included structured searches of the CCS G Cloud 14 framework using relevant functional and non functional criteria (including enterprise performance management, budgeting, forecasting, reporting and analytical capability), alongside professional insight from officers with experience of comparable implementations in the local government sector. A range of suppliers were reviewed at a high level against the Council’s requirements. This process identified that several alternative solutions did not fully meet the Council’s needs, particularly in relation to integrated multiyear financial planning, governed single version of the truth reporting, public sectors specific controls, and scalability without reliance on complex spreadsheet workarounds. Mercur Solutions (UK) Ltd was identified as the preferred solution as it demonstrably meets the Council’s functional, technical and governance requirements within a single, cloud hosted FP&A platform. The solution provides integrated budgeting, planning, forecasting, reporting, dashboarding and analytical capability, and is specifically designed for use across large enterprises and public sector organisations, including local government and the NHS. In addition to the framework review, officers engaged in informal reference checking with a comparable local authority that has recently implemented Mercur. This discussion provided assurance on the suitability of the solution in a local government context, including implementation approach, usability for finance and service users, and the robustness of governance, data ownership and data portability arrangements. Feedback from the reference authority was positive and reinforced the conclusion that Mercur represents a low risk and well aligned solution for the Council.

Other Information

Direct Award via G-Cloud 14