NFRS 2023 58 - Telephone maintenance

You asked for

Dear FOI Officer, I would like to request information under the Freedom of Information Act. The information that I require relates to a specific telephone maintenance contract. The contract information sent by the organisation previously has now expired please can you provide me with a new update of the telephone maintenance contract.

Please can you send me the following contract information with regards to the organisation’s telephone system maintenance contract (VOIP or PBX, other) for hardware and Software maintenance and support.

If all the information is still the same besides the contract’s dates, please send just the new contract dates. It would be much appreciated.

Contract Type: Maintenance, Managed, shared (If so, please state orgs).
Existing Supplier: If there is more than one supplier, please split each contractup individually.
Annual Average Spend: The annual average spends for this contract and pleaseprovide the average spend over the past 3 years for each provider.
Hardware Brand: The primary hardware brand of the organisation’s telephonesystem.
Number of telephone users.
Contract Duration: Please include any extension periods.
Contract Expiry Date: Please provide me with the day/month/year.
Contract Review Date: Please provide me with the day/month/year.
Application(s) running on PBX/VOIP systems: Applications that run on theactual PBX or VOIP system. E.g., Contact Centre, Communication Manager.
Telephone System Type: PBX, VOIP, Lync etc.
Contract Description: Please provide me with a brief description of the overallservice provided under this contract.
Go to Market: How where these services procured, please provide me with eitherthe tender notice or the framework reference number. Please specify if procuredthrough other routes.
Contact Detail: Of the person from within the organisation responsible for eachcontract full Contact details including full name, job title, direct contact numberand direct email address.

If the service support area has more than one provider for telephone maintenance, then can you please split each contract up individually for each provider. If the contract is a managed service or is a contract that provides more than just telephone maintenance, please can you send me all the information specified above including the person from within the organisation responsible for that particular contract. If the maintenance for telephone systems is maintained in-house, please can you provide me with:

Number of telephone Users.
Hardware Brand: The primary hardware brand of the organisation’s telephonesystem.
Application(s) running on PBX/VOIP systems: Applications that run on theactual PBX or VOIP system. E.g., Contact Centre, Communication Manager.
Contact Detail: Of the person from with the organisation responsible fortelephone maintenance full Contact details including full name, job title, directcontact number and direct email address.

Also, if the contract is due to expire, please provide me with the likely outcome of the expiring contract. If this is a new contract or a new supplier, please can you provide me with a short list of suppliers that bid on this service/support contract? I’m happy to receive this information in an email.

Our Response

If all the information is still the same besides the contract’s dates, please send just the new contract dates. It would be much appreciated.

Contract Type: Maintenance, Managed, shared (If so, please state orgs). Answer: -

Supplier	Renewal	Contract Duraction	No of Lines	Line Types
BT Plc	31-Mar-2024	12 Months + Rolling 12 months	2	ISDN
BT Plc	31-Mar-2024	12 Months + Rolling 12 months	6	PSTN
Bytes Software Services Ltd	31-Mar-2024	36 Months + Rolling 12 months	-	Direct Routing/VOIP
Daisy Communications Ltd	25-Jun-2024	Rolling 12 months	20	ISDN
Daisy Communications Ltd	25-Jun-2024	Rolling 12 months	70	PSTN
Risual Ltd	31-Mar-2024	36 Months + Rolling 12 months	30 x 30	SIP

Existing Supplier: If there is more than one supplier, please split each contractup individually.
Answer: - Refer to question 1
Annual Average Spend: The annual average spends for this contract and pleaseprovide the average spend over the past 3 years for each provider.
Answer: - The information requested has been deemed exempt by virtue of section 21(1) Information reasonably accessible by other means, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Hardware Brand: The primary hardware brand of the organisation’s telephonesystem.
Answer: - Microsoft Teams
Number of telephone users.
Answer: - All NFRS personnel, this data can be viewed at Fire statistics data tables - GOV.UK
Contract Duration: Please include any extension periods.
Answer: - Refer to question 1
Contract Expiry Date: Please provide me with the day/month/year.
Answer: - Refer to question 1
Contract Review Date: Please provide me with the day/month/year.
Answer: - No Information Held, we aim to review 30 days prior to the renewal date.
Application(s) running on PBX/VOIP systems: Applications that run on theactual PBX or VOIP system. E.g., Contact Centre, Communication Manager.
Answer: - Microsoft Teams Direct Routing / VOIP
Telephone System Type: PBX, VOIP, Lync etc.
Answer: - Refer to question 1

Contract Description: Please provide me with a brief description of the overallservice provided under this contract. Answer: -

Supplier	Description
BT Plc	Private Circuits - landlines and calls
Bytes Software Services Ltd	Microsoft Enterprise Subscription Agreement with additional products
Daisy Communications Ltd	Provision of voice calls and telephony lines
Risual Ltd	Gamma SIP Trunks, DDIs, Analogue Line and Call Charges

Go to Market: How where these services procured, please provide me with eitherthe tender notice or the framework reference number. Please specify if procuredthrough other routes. Answer: -

Supplier	Procurement Method
BT Plc	Government Procurement Services framework
Bytes Software Services Ltd	Gramework Y17038
Daisy Communications Ltd	Government Procurement Services framework
Risual Ltd	Tender - G-Cloud

Contact Detail: Of the person from within the organisation responsible for eachcontract full Contact details including full name, job title, direct contact numberand direct email address.
Answer: -

Name & Role: Tony Monaghan - IT Manager
Email: enquiries@notts-fire.gov.uk
Tel: 0115 838 8100

21. Information accessible to applicant by other means.

Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1is exempt information.
For the purposes of subsection (1)—
1. Information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessibleonly on payment, and
2. Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is informationwhich the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment tocommunicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) tomembers of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.
For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a public authority and doesnot fall within subsection (2)(b) is not to be regarded as reasonably accessible to theapplicant merely because the information is available from the public authority itself onrequest, unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’spublication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined in accordancewith, the scheme.

Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is categorised as an Absolute and Class Based type exemption and therefore does not require a public interest test to be carried nor must Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service articulate the harm in disclosure.

The information requested can be accessed at the following location.

Procurement and Resources