Official UK procurement notice
Provision of Revenue & Benefits Solution
Authority: Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (Local council)
Sectors: IT Services & Software (72) Delivery: Yorkshire & Humber (UKE)
Awarded value£1,608,646published contract · exc. VAT
Awarded 12 Mar 2026no call for competition
Awarded to MRI Software Limited2 awards
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionRevenues and Benefits solution, including hosting, maintenance, upgrades and ongoing support. These services are already embedded within the Council’s existing infrastructure and form a critical component of its delivery and supporting of statutory revenues, benefits administration and income collection services.
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedProcedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Direct award
- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Notice status
- Awarded without competition
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Direct award (no call for competition)
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 12 Mar 2026, 10:29 GMT
- Last source update
- 23 Apr 2026, 11:06 BST
- Authority reference
C1002- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-036969- Latest notice
- Contract details notice (UK7)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-066815Find a Tender
- Why no open competition
- Additional Repeat Extension Partial Replacement; Single Suppliers Technical Reasons
- Published justification
- a change in supplier would result in the contracting authority receiving goods, services or works that are different from, or incompatible with, the existing goods, services or works, and - the difference or incompatibility would result in disproportionate technical difficulties in operation or maintenance. The contract is being awarded directly under Section 41 and Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023. - The existing Revenues and Benefits solution is an established, business critical system that underpins the Council’s statutory delivery of taxation, benefits administration and income collection. The solution is embedded within the Council’s digital ecosystem and is linked to multiple internal systems and datasets. - A change of supplier would result in goods or services that are incompatible with the Council’s existing systems, data models and integrations. Transitioning to an alternative supplier would require extensive system replacement, complex data migration and significant re engineering of dependent systems, increasing the likelihood of disproportionate technical, operational and service delivery risks. - Such incompatibility would present a risk to service continuity and create unacceptable operational risk in the delivery of statutory services. The Council therefore considers that the conditions for a direct award under Section 41 and Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023 are fully satisfied. - The Council considered whether a wider market exercise would be proportionate but concluded that, given the scale of transition required and statutory risk involved, this would not represent an efficient or responsible use of public resources. Operational Continuity - Current solution supports critical services with proven reliability. It has been in long term operational use and has demonstrated reliability and stability within the Council’s digital environment. Maintaining continuity of this proven solution reduces operational risk and supports consistent service delivery to residents. - A change of supplier would require significant retraining for operational, technical and finance staff, alongside the redesign of established business processes that have been embedded over many years. This would place additional resource demands on services, increase the risk of user error during transition, and divert staff capacity away from frontline statutory duties. - Transitioning to an alternative solution would introduce a risk of disruption during system migration, including delays to benefit payments, billing and income collection. Any interruption to these functions could impact the Council’s ability to meet its statutory obligations and could have adverse consequences for service users who rely on timely payments and accurate financial processing. Financial Impact - Integrations with other systems across the Council would require detailed requirements gathering, implementation work, thorough testing, and ongoing support through third party/ external support. - The Council explicitly compared the cost of procuring the solution through a compliant reseller framework against a direct award to the software provider. These findings showed that a direct award would result in a lower total contract cost over the proposed term, delivering demonstrable cost avoidance of approx. £23,000 per annum compared to the reseller option. Selecting the lower cost option ensures that public funds are spent efficiently and economically. - The cost comparison focused on available compliant procurement routes for the incumbent solution, as alternative solutions would require full system replacement and transition costs materially exceeding the scope of this renewal.
Review and risk notes
- Risks
The contract involves supplier dependency due to the solution being deeply embedded within the Council’s systems. This risk is mitigated by the supplier’s long standing provision of the service, the stability of the SaaS model, and the system already being operational.
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
25 Mar 2026 → 23 Apr 2026 · 2 dates- Standstill ends214 days ago25 Mar 2026, 23:59 GMT
- Notice published185 days ago23 Apr 2026, 11:06 BST
Notice history
4 events · 3 releases on Find a Tender · since 12 Mar 2026- Transparency notice published12 Mar 2026, 10:29 GMTUK5
- Contract award notice published13 Mar 2026, 00:00 GMTUK6
- Contract signature expected30 Mar 2026, 23:59 BSTscheduled
- Contract details notice published23 Apr 2026, 11:06 BSTUK7
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecastAwards 2
Awarded value £1,608,6461 contract exc. VAT · 1 repeated publication of the same award counted once
Contracts signed 1latest 31 Mar 2026
| Awarded to | Value | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| MRI Software Limited1 Apr 2026 – 31 Mar 2033 | £1,608,646same award published again · counted once | 12 Mar 2026standstill to 25 Mar 2026 | Standstill |
| MRI Software Limited | £1,608,646 † | — | Awarded |
Contracts
Provision of Revenue & Benefits Solution · MRI Software Limited
- Signed
- 31 Mar 2026
- Value
- £1,608,646
- Period
- 1 Apr 2026 – 31 Mar 2033
- Status
- active
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Bidders & participating suppliers
1 commercial party on the notice- MRI SOFTWARE LIMITEDAwarded supplier
Official documents & specifications (3)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Contract details notice Contract details notice on Find a Tender
- Contract award notice Contract award notice on Find a Tender
- Transparency notice Transparency notice on Find a Tender