HMRC wishes to digitise as much incoming paper-based mail as possible and consolidate its scanning requirements under one outsourced service contract. Digitising incoming paper is part of HMRC’s Digital Strategy. The service eliminates a significant percentage of the department’s manual handling of paper, reducing the need for resource and storage. Currently HMRC has a service in place that scans structured and non-structured mail for downstream processing by a user, robot or automatic transactional processing. HMRC also has a separate service in place for the provision of evidential scanning to support its litigation work.

HMRC is looking to procure an outsourced digital mail room and scanning service. The procurement will consolidate HMRC’s scanning requirements under 1 service contract and leverage best value through economies of scale. The current scope of the new service includes but is not limited to:

— Structured and unstructured incoming paper-based mail. To receive, open, sort, log incoming paper-based mail and prepare documents for scanning. This is a core service,

— Evidential Scanning — Scanning and storage of evidential documents and material. This is a core service,

— Back Scanning — This would replace physical storage of paper records in local offices. This is an optional service,

— Microfiche and Microfilm Digitisation — The scanning and digitising of microfiche, currently held in a climate controlled facility. This is an optional service,

— Archive Scanning: The scanning of paper files currently held in the HMRC estate. This is an optional service.