Soft Market Test for Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

A comprehensive overview of Cornwall Council's Geographic Information System (GIS) platform and detailed description of the Council's GIS contract requirements can be attained by emailing Alex Kirk (Alex.Kirk@cornwall.gov.uk) and Elaine Bennett (Elaine.Bennett@cornwall.gov.uk) to request copies of the Request for Information (RFI) and draft Statement of Requirements (SoR) documents. A brief overview is provided below.

Cornwall Council currently procure their Enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) platform from ESRIUK. The contract ends in mid February 2026, so we are coming to the market to ensure we have a single integrated platform in place to allow us to seamlessly continue supporting the business needs of the Council after that date. An overview of the environment in which the platform will need to operate and the GIS services we currently provide is given below for your information.

We are also focusing on the areas of development within this industry segment and how they will enable us to align the delivery of the GIS service with the wider technical and strategic aims of the Council over the next ten years on a 5 year plus 5 year basis. To that end, the solution must be a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that includes a professional GIS product or links to one client-side. The platform and migration methodology must enable us to seamlessly continue to support the business needs of the Council whilst removing the dependency on on-premises or Council cloud hosted server solutions by 2030 at the latest.

Any submission must clearly show that the offer will allow for both the continuation of services and migration to cloud hosted (SaaS) services for server-based functionality and data storage with no dependency on on-premise servers and no or minimal dependency on Cornwall Council’s Azure infrastructure.

We are aware that the current platform is large scale and complex meaning that the migration to a SaaS service will require extensive assessment and planning to ensure its success. Therefore, we are seeking a detailed and costed migration plan as part of this tender with the view to assessing the likely impacts and costs of migration, but the delivery of that migration will not be in scope.