Find a TenderPlanned procurementPreliminary market engagement notice
Published 24 Nov 2025, 09:36 GMT

Official UK procurement notice

Pre-Market Engagement for Public Protection Regulatory Services Service Management Database

Authority: Halton Borough Council (Local council)

Goods
Planned pipeline valueValue not publishedpipeline notice, not a live tender
Tender notice expected Date not publishedfrom the planned procurement notice
Contract term 5 yrsends 31 Mar 2031 · starts 1 Apr 2026

What is being bought

Published requirement description

Halton is a unitary authority with a population of approximately 130,000. The Public Protection Regulatory Services Division carries out a range of regulatory, enforcement and public protection services. These include;

  • Environmental Health
  • Trading Standards
  • Private Sector Housing, including licensing
  • Animal Welfare including licensing
  • Pest Control

We are exploring options to replace our current service delivery database. The database is required to perform a number of tasks. These include;

o Record of premises subject to regulation

o Record of service requests received

o Record of actions undertaken in relation to each request

o Record of License applications

o Production of service management and statutory reports

o Generation of mail merge letters and correspondence

o Interface with council's customer facing request handling system and Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline

o Document indexing

There are approximately 30 unique users of the system.

Ideally we want a bespoke system purposely designed for local government regulatory services.

We are open at this stage to consideration of either cloud or on premises options.

CPV: Software package and information systems

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published
Lot #1Planned 5 yrs

Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published

How Halton Borough Council buys Software package and information systems (CPV 48), and who usually turns up

Halton Borough 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: Software package and information systems (CPV 48) →

1

How the contest usually goes

Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.

Question for the bid
This buyerHalton Borough Council · division 48
What to do with it
How often do SMEs win?
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.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 8 of 24 known-size awards · market: division 48 · North West England, n=457
33%33%

Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.

How often do local suppliers win?
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 North West England.

A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 3 of 38 known-location awards · market: division 48 · North West England, n=600
8%11%

Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.

How long to a decision?
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.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: no decision dates published · market: division 48 · North West England, n=44
—56 days

Half of these awards have an award date within 56 days of the bid deadline.

How often single-bid or direct?
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.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: at least 38 of 40 procurements with awards had no recorded rival · market: division 48 · North West England, n=704
95%67%

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.

Last 36 months.

This buyer19 lots with bid counts · all categories
5% had one bid
The market61 lots with bid counts · division 48 · North West England
13% had one bid
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
1 bid5% / 13%
Buyer: 1 of 19 lots with published bid counts. Market: 8 of 61 lots with published bid counts.
2–332% / 26%
Buyer: 6 of 19 lots with published bid counts. Market: 16 of 61 lots with published bid counts.
4–621% / 36%
Buyer: 4 of 19 lots with published bid counts. Market: 22 of 61 lots with published bid counts.
7+42% / 25%
Buyer: 8 of 19 lots with published bid counts. Market: 15 of 61 lots with published bid counts.

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.

Last 36 months.

This buyer19 lots with estimate and award · all categories
32% below estimate
The market36 lots with estimate and award · division 48 · North West England
56% below estimate
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
Below estimate32% / 56%
Buyer: 6 of 19 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 20 of 36 lots with an estimate and award.
Within ±2%53% / 22%
Buyer: 10 of 19 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 8 of 36 lots with an estimate and award.
Above estimate16% / 22%
Buyer: 3 of 19 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 8 of 36 lots with an estimate and award.
2

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.

Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list

Lot #1CPV 4860 monthsEstimate not published

This lot lists more than one class in CPV 48. The comparison uses that group.

Expected competition
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 61 past lots.

A forecast, not a list of bidders.

—No model forecast yet13% chance of a single bid
Past bids on 61 similar lots
1 bid13%
8 of 61 similar past lots received 1 bid (13%).
2–326%
16 of 61 similar past lots received 2–3 (26%).
4–636%
22 of 61 similar past lots received 4–6 (36%).
7+25%
15 of 61 similar past lots received 7+ (25%).
Comparable past lots usually drew 4 bids.
Commercial price forecast
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.

—Estimate not published
The buyer published no estimate for this lot, so there is nothing to forecast against. A price prediction here would be a number about a number we do not have.

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.

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.

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
24 Nov 2025, 09:36 GMT
Last source update
24 Nov 2025, 09:36 GMT
Authority reference
DN798413
FTS notice number
2025/S 000-076289
Latest notice
Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
Classification (CPV)
Software package and information systems
Delivery area
North West (UKD71)
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-05e6ec Find a Tender

How it was run

Official notice
Submission deadline
—

Timeline

24 Nov 2025 → 1 Apr 2026 · 3 dates
  1. Planning notice published339 days ago
    24 Nov 2025, 09:36 GMT
  2. Market engagement320 days ago
    12 Dec 2025, 23:59 GMT

    All Information will be available via The Chest e-procurement portal (www.the-chest.org.uk ↗) search for the project reference DN798413.

    All queries should be submitted via the message facility available and only submissions via the portal will be accepted to keep this fair and transparent.

  3. Contract starts211 days ago
    1 Apr 2026, 00:00 BST

Notice history

1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender
  1. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    24 Nov 2025, 09:36 GMT
    UK2

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

Halton Borough Council

Contracting authorityPublic authority - sub-central government GB-PPON: PLTJ-1788-CBLR Municipal Building, Widnes, North West, WA8 7QFContact email

Official documents & specifications (1)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure