Lot 1 – Part A Revenues and Benefits Service, Part B One Stop Shop and Customer Service;

Lot 2 – Northgate Revenues and Benefits, Information at Work EDMS SAAS and Northgate Customer Access;

Lot 3 – Emergency Out of Hours Contact Centre.

Lot 1 Parts A and B

The Services shall enable the delivery of a prompt, accurate, effective and secure Revenues and Benefits Service that meets wider strategic objectives of RBC, DWP and relevant government agencies.

The Service provider shall provide and maintain:

— Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rate Applications including,

— Collection of Council Tax and Non Domestic Rates, including enforcement activity,

— Handling all related correspondence,

— Maintenance of valuation and rating lists,

— Maintenance of accurate records on liability and ownership,

— Recovery of Arrears,

— Cash Control,

— Billing,

— Prevent fraud and error entering the records,

— The Service provider shall deliver the Services in partnership with relevant stakeholders including but not limited to, such as local benchmarking groups, software providers, Auditors, Valuation Tribunals, HM Courts, and Enforcement Agents.

Valuation Office Agency, Social and private sector landlords and internal Council departments

The Service provider shall ensure that the administration of benefits is committed to the principle of paying the right benefit, to the right person, every time and is carried out in accordance with minimum standards in prevailing (DWP guidance, information and best practice.

— Claim Creation, Alteration and Maintenance for Housing Benefit (HB) and Council Tax Rebate (CTR),

— Accurate Assessment and Calculation of HB/CTR, including all relevant amendments and recalculations,

— Liaison / administration with DWP to facilitate the successful rollout of Universal Credit,

— Review and development of the local CTR scheme,

— integrity and security of benefit processes,

— Notices of Decision and all correspondence relevant to benefit claims,

— Identification of system or process weaknesses,

— Provision and Distribution of Claim Forms,

— Claim Verification and Intervention,

— Overpayment Calculation and Recovery,

— Liaison with the DWP for all reviews and prepare and provide all documentation required by the DWP,

— Benefit and CTR Appeals,

— Discretionary Housing Payments,

— Maintain appropriate safeguards and review system relating to Landlord Direct Payments,

— Provision of appropriate systems to enable Payment of Benefit Rent Allowance Payments,

— The Service provider shall deliver the Services in partnership with relevant stakeholders including but not limited to, such as DWP, local benchmarking groups, software providers, Auditors, Tribunals and Courts, Collection Agents, VOA, Social and private sector landlords and internal Council departments.

The Service provider shall ensure that the administration of revenues and benefits is complies with all prevailing legislation, is committed to best practice and culture of service improvement. It will handle:

— Service Improvement, Income Generation and Cost reduction,

— Training and Development,

— quality of work reviews and improvements,

— Complaints and Enquiries,

— Management Reporting.

The Service Provider will provide the following system support services.

Review all Northgate patches / releases and determine the business impact and consult with RBC, produce and agree deployment plan with RBC.

Any patches that have failed or contain errors, raise with Northgate or the software supplier, re-run and re-test.

Ensure all

— batch and system jobs are performed on a nightly basis check to see they have ran correctly and rectify any errors,

— Perform audit function with regard to all users of the Northgate systems, attend audit meetings, produce exception lists,

— Maintain security and authorisation functions within the Northgate system, including, but not limited to, user access, job roles, action groups, account, claim and property restrictions, login profiles, authorisation of functions, and job role security,

— Ensure all data is removed per RBC GDPR policies for all Systems,

— Perform all UAT / System Testing for any patches, upgrades for all Northgate systems,

— Business Continuity Management.

Lot 2

The system shall enable the retention and viewing of all current and historical information in respect of all Revenues and Benefit records and the system must fulfil the following core functions;

— administration, collection and recovery of Council Tax,

— administration, collection and recovery of National Non-Domestic Rates,

— administration of Housing Benefits and Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs),

— assessment and administration of a Council Tax Support Scheme,

— processing of Free School meal claims,

— collection and recovery of Housing Benefits overpayments.

The system must provide:

— a module or the facility for the monthly submission to the DWP of mandatory required information in respect of the Single Housing Benefit Extract (SHBE),

— the facility for AUDDIS and ADDACS,

— for the creation and management of interventions in respect Housing Benefit & Council Tax Support,

— (and) the implementation plan should provide for the copying of all existing Business Objects reports and any relevant universe access needs and make them available for future production environment. The contracting authority estimate there is approximately 3-400 bespoke reports,

— full and accurate reports of all management information required by Government

— an archiving facility for historic records,

— for the transfer of all documents contained in the current Information @ Work document management system and replicate existing users, file structure, trays, and workflow,

— the ability to allocate documents and retrieve documents from groups of users, or individual users,

— ability to monitor the time spent working on a document by any user, or group of users, at a given point in the workflow,

— different priorities and time-scales linked to different document types, from a minimum of one to a user configurable maximum number of working days,

— must have a variable pre-set time in which to be dealt with in line with service standards,

— for the search and retrieval of all documents stored. The system shall ensure the secure scanning and indexing of all documents and other scanned images and enable full, flexible access to authorised users.

The application and EDMS should integrate into the Councils Digital Application which is Citizens Access Benefits, Benefits Notifications, Revenues and Landlords product.

The system must allow for a fully integrated customer self-serve solution, designed to be postmarked via a link on the Councils website. The self-service provision should allow for the secure authentication for customers to view their bills, access account information including band, discount, exemption, and balance, payment information for current and previous years.

The system should also allow customers to check their benefit award, including period of entitlement, next payment details, and overpayment if applicable. The system must also provide for Landlords to check their tenant’s details via a Landlord Portal.

The system must provide for the registering and issuing of ebills to Council Tax and Business Rates.

Lot 3

The Service provider shall provide an out of hour’s telephony service, which only deals with emergency situations via the telephone. Utilising IVR to provide a message facility that updates customers on the state of particular emergency issues such as bad weather.

The facility will also provide an out of hours Homelessness service for Rossendale.

If the same operator is awarded the contract for Lot 1 as per Lot 3, the contracting authority intends to place a contract for 120 months and reserves the right to unilaterally extend the duration of the contract by three number separate three year extensions (maximum total 16 years)but if the operator is successful for just Lot 3 the contracting authority intends to place a contract with an initial duration of 48 months and reserves the right to unilaterally extend the duration of the contract by three number separate three year extensions (maximum total 13 years).