Official UK procurement notice
Replacement of Alarm Receiving Centre Platform supporting Herts Careline Service
Authority: North Hertfordshire District Council (Local council)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionNorth Hertfordshire District Council (NHDC) is undertaking Preliminary Market Engagement to inform a future procurement for the replacement of its existing Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) platform supporting the Herts Careline service.
The ARC forms a critical component of the Council’s telecare infrastructure, providing 24/7 monitoring and response capability for vulnerable residents and partner organisations. The current platform is approaching technical and contractual end of life and requires replacement with a modern, secure and resilient solution capable of supporting both legacy analogue alarm traffic and the transition to digital telecare technologies.
The purpose of this Preliminary Market Engagement is to obtain market insight and supplier feedback to support the development of a proportionate, transparent and competition-friendly procurement strategy in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.
The engagement will explore supplier capability across a range of areas including:
- Availability of ARC platforms capable of supporting hybrid analogue and digital alarm protocols
- Migration approaches from a live operational ARC environment with minimal service disruption
- Alternative delivery models including on-premise, private cloud and fully managed platform solutions
- Integration capability with telephony, CRM, field service and related operational systems
- Platform resilience, disaster recovery and cybersecurity capability
- Commercial models, lifecycle cost drivers and approaches to managing supplier lock-in
- Scalability and interoperability to support future shared service arrangements and Local Government Reorganisation
- Opportunities for innovation, automation and operational efficiency improvements
- Sustainability and social value considerations within platform delivery and hosting models.
NHDC uses an E-Tendering system (In-Tend) for all procurement activities, including Preliminary Market Engagement (PME). Suppliers must submit their responses via the Supply Hertfordshire Portal at: Supply Hertfordshire Electronic Tendering Site in-tendhost.co.uk/supplyhertfordshire/… ↗
- You must be registered on the portal to submit a response.
- If already registered, use your existing username and password.
- A password reminder link is available on the homepage if required.
For technical difficulties, please contact the In-Tend Helpdesk at 0845 557 8079 or [email protected]
This engagement is strictly for information gathering purposes and does not constitute a call for competition or commitment to procure. Insights obtained will be used to refine the specification, procurement approach, contract structure and evaluation methodology while ensuring equal treatment of suppliers and avoidance of any unfair competitive advantage.
CPV: Alarm-monitoring services · Industry specific software package · Maintenance of information technology software · Systems support services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How North Hertfordshire District Council buys Security services (CPV 7971), and who usually turns up
North Hertfordshire District Council’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Security services (CPV 7971) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered. The market figure counts awards delivered in East of England.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 75 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid17%
2–38%
4–60%
7+75%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate29%
Within ±2%0%
Above estimate71%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 7225Estimate not published
This lot is listed as CPV 7225. The table above uses the notice category.
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 80 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid8%
2–325%
4–638%
7+30%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Goods
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 27 Feb 2026, 16:43 GMT
- Last source update
- 27 Feb 2026, 16:51 GMT
- Authority reference
NHDC01117855- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-018148- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-065ed5Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
27 Feb 2026 → 31 Aug 2026 · 4 dates- Planning notice published240 days ago27 Feb 2026, 16:43 GMT
- Market engagement195 days ago13 Apr 2026, 23:59 BST
As per procurement documents available at Supply Hertfordshire - in-tendhost.co.uk/supplyhertfordshire/… ↗
- Tender notice expected71 days ago15 Aug 2026, 23:59 BST
- Contract starts56 days ago31 Aug 2026, 00:00 BST
Notice history
2 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 27 Feb 2026- Preliminary market engagement notice published27 Feb 2026, 16:43 GMTUK2
- Preliminary market engagement notice published27 Feb 2026, 16:51 GMTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (2)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender