Framework Agreement for Hybrid Mail and Annual Billing

Cannock Chase District and Stafford Borough Councils are shire districts within the County of Staffordshire.

The Councils have shared a number of services since 2011, including Revenues and Benefits, Finance; ICT, Building Control, Legal Services and Human Resources. From April 2023, the two Councils now share a Chief Executive, Leadership Team and all services excluding those funded by the Housing Revenue Account.

The Councils operate a Hybrid Working Model, whereby most staff split their working time between home and office bases. Some remote work is undertaken by visiting officers from customers' homes or places of work.

Having trialled a Hybrid Mail solution within the shared Revenues and Benefits service, the Councils now seek a long-term provider of this service and so provides this opportunity for suitable providers to tender for either or both of the two Lots.

Includes the printing and distribution of the annual Council Tax Bills, Benefit Notifications and Discount Review letters on behalf of both Councils. Data will be provided partly as data files to be interpreted and partly in print-ready format. Merging of multiple documents to a single customer will be needed and some non-personalised enclosures will be required for some documents. All paper documents will be issued in envelopes marked "Private and Confidential - Addressee Only". No alternative, electronic distribution of annual bills is needed from the provider.

The Councils will provide a 4-year Framework Agreement for the printing and distribution of outgoing Annual Council Tax and Business Rates bills and accompanying literature, each March.

The Councils offer no guarantee of exclusivity to the selected providers and cannot guarantee a minimum number of documents that will require distribution. The Councils' continuing priority is to encourage communication by electronic means in order to reduce the amount of hard-copy post. Wherever possible the Councils require multiple documents, relating to the same customer, to be included in a single envelope.

The provider shall provide a method for secure transfer of mail data between the Councils and the provider. This method must include 256bit RSA encryption. This data will then be transformed by the provider into a physical mail item for delivery to a customer address.

The Councils will provide Council Tax bill data in a flat file produced from the Civica OpenRevenues system, mapping documentation will be provided.