Issue details

Doncaster Council are currently approaching the end of a 3 year contract with Microsoft for the licensing of the Desktop Software and Productivity Products. A new contract must be in place by the 1st of June 2019.
The council’s ICT desktop estate runs on Microsoft Desktop Operating Systems (Microsoft Windows) and productivity products (Microsoft Office).
An Enterprise Agreement is the most efficient way to meet the council’s requirements for Microsoft software. Microsoft software underpins the majority of the council’s day to day working, line of business applications and customer interactions.
Licensing the organisation this way will secure unit pricing for 3 years to allow predictable cost management and flexibility.
In February 2018 Microsoft made a major announcement how the UK Public Sector would receive price support from May 1st 2018.
As part of the UK government’s Cloud-First policy, the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has signed a new, non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Microsoft that will help the government’s ongoing digital transformation agenda and the UK governments Cloud-First policy. This arrangement is called Digital Transformation Arrangement (DTA).
The products chosen on this recommended option leverage Microsoft 365 technologies that are heavily discounted in the Digital Transformation Arrangement.
The new technologies that are deployed with Microsoft 365 better serve our workforce, customers, residents and partners by offering enhanced security, collaboration, information protection, new online services and a modern workplace environment.
This option will allow the council to stay current with software versions to protect against vulnerabilities.
Future savings will be made by utilising the included cloud services which will drastically reduce the requirement for on premise hardware, support and 3rd party products that are currently in situ.
In January 2019 procurement tested the market, sending our requirements to all suppliers on Lot 1. From the responses, it was discovered that our incumbent supplier still offered best value.