Provision of Contact Centre Technologies for Flintshire County Council

Procurement description

Flintshire County Council is looking to engage with the market for a bilingual (Welsh and English)* Contact Centre solution to the improve customer experience when contacting the Council, increase agent productivity, reduce operational costs, and enable smarter decision-making through enhanced data and insights.

The Council’s corporate Contact Centre is under increasing pressure due to rising customer demand, higher service expectations, seasonal peaks, recruitment and retention and the need to manage multiple communication channels, including voice, email, video and administrative processing.

To improve service quality, resilience, and workflow efficiency, the Council is exploring how technology, particularly the introduction of Artificial Intelligence can support and transform Contact Centre operations.

Whilst the Council is initially focusing on modernising its corporate Contact Centre, which receives the highest level of demand (e.g. circa 182,000 calls annually), the same technology is also used across other Council services. As such, the Council is seeking to work with a supplier that can demonstrate flexibility in its licensing options, recognising that different services may have varying business needs and requirements.

The Council has a contract with a third-party supplier until 31 March 2027.

The intention is to upgrade the existing technology and underlying infrastructure to support this transformation. In doing so, the Council is keen to explore and consider both on-premise and hosted telephony solutions, while maximising its existing investment in Microsoft technologies.

*Note - the Council is required to comply with the Welsh Language Standards and is therefore seeking a solution that will support it in meeting the requirements of those Standards. As a result, the Council wishes to engage with suppliers who have solutions readily available to deliver services equally in both Welsh and English.

Main category

Services

Delivery regions

• UKL23 - Flintshire and Wrexham

Total value (estimated)

1.00 GBP Excluding VAT

1.20 GBP Including VAT

Contract dates (estimated)

01 April 2027, 00:00AM to 31 March 2032, 23:59PM

Extension end date (if all the extensions are used): 31 March 2038

Flintshire County Council

Is the total value above threshold?

Above threshold

CPV classifications

• 48000000 - Software package and information systems
• 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Delivery regions

• UKL23 - Flintshire and Wrexham

Sustainability

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)

Contract start date (estimated)

01 April 2027, 00:00AM

Contract end date (estimated)

31 March 2032, 23:59PM

Extension end date (estimated)

31 March 2038, 23:59PM

Can the contract be extended?

Yes

Engagement process description

The Council are intent on providing high quality, modern telephony services and as such will be contacting several suppliers and Contracting Authorities for overviews / demonstrations of potential solutions to assist in developing a specification and procurement documentation.

In addition to this, we are seeking expressions of interest from the open market. If you can deliver a solution(s) that meets the requirements of this Preliminary Market Engagement Notice, please email a brief summary of your organisation and the solution you can provide to

procurement@denbighshire.gov.uk by 31st March 2026.

Following the receipt of expressions of interest and summaries of solutions, the Council may invite suppliers to engage at a later date.

Note – the Council is not looking to establish a development relationship with suppliers.

Due date

30 June 2026, 23:59PM

Has the engagement period already ended?

No

Publication date of tender notice (estimated)

01 September 2026