it digital contracts

The contracting Authority (the "Authority") in relation to this notice is the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime ("MOPAC"), on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service ("MPS") and wider UK policing organisations. The Authority is undertaking a procurement for the managed services to support, operate, maintain and enhance an existing Digital Public Contact ("DPC") platform and associated services. The Unified Services Procurement ("USP") platform provides access to critical national public capability, through which members of the public access policing services digitally across England and Wales. The USP supports the delivery of public-facing digital services across participating policing organisations, and enables members of the public to report incidents, provide and receive information, and access policing services through secure and accessible digital channels. The USP enables each force to deliver a range of nationally consistent online services to the public, whilst maintaining their distinct own local identity. The Authority is not seeking to procure an end-to-end replacement platform. The procurement is focused on the effective operation, support and ongoing evolution of the existing capability, including the delivery of enhancements, new functionality and associated service improvements throughout the contract term. The Authority's priority for this procurement is to deliver (under a single contract) a run and maintain service in a more efficient manner for its stakeholders and end users. The procurement will consolidate and enhance existing delivered services, thereby streamlining delivery, modernising key components, and strategically positioning the USP platform to support significant policing reforms and future service evolution. The DPC programme is guided by the following key strategic imperatives: 1) Policing Reform: adapting to significant structural changes, including potential force consolidation and the formation of a National Police Service ("NPS"). For further details, please refer to the 'From local to national: a new model for policing' white paper. 2) Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence ("AI"): embracing AI to enhance public contact through AI-based reporting, AI analysis, conversational AI, and intelligent assistance. 3) Identity and Personalisation: moving towards authenticated, personalised, and context-aware services, leveraging user accounts (with user authentication via GOV.UK One Login) for tailored experiences. 4) Channel Convergence: achieving a consistent and unified experience across web, chat, and voice channels for "first contact" with policing. The core service delivery for the USP primarily involves the provision and maintenance of the DPC platform current capabilities, specifically the following core services: 1) Website Front End and Public Digital Channels: provision of the public-facing digital channels that support access to policing information and services, comprising the Single Online Home ("SOH"), Police.uk and the National My Police Portal ("NMPP"). SOH provides the primary digital front door for policing, enabling crime and incident reporting, access to advice and guidance, neighbourhood policing engagement, and performance information through a consistent, locally branded user experience. Police.uk provides the national policing website and aggregation layer, supporting consistent access to information and services across force boundaries. NMPP provides a secure, authenticated portal through which users can track cases, receive updates and communicate with officers, enabling ongoing two-way digital engagement between the public and policing. 2) Chat Services and AI-Assisted Engagement: offering chat services and developing AI-based solutions for natural language reporting, triage, and guidance. 3) Website Supporting Services: the operational and technical services that sit behind the public-facing website and forms experience, enabling transactions to be processed, monitored, secured and delivered to policing systems. 4) Integration and Data Exchange (iHub): facilitating data exchange between public-facing services and force/national systems, using a Standard Data Model. 5) StreetSafe and Analytics and Insights Services: providing various dashboards for demand, usage, and performance metrics. 6) Open Data: managing and publishing open data about crime and policing (data.police.uk) and local neighbourhood information. 7) Operator Assist and Management Assist: these services introduce AI-enabled capabilities to support policing operations. Operator Assist focuses on real-time support for contact centre staff, including analysis of live calls and provision of guidance. Management Assist focuses on post-event analysis, generating insights from recorded data. In addition to the core services outlined above, Bidders will be requested to provide separate pricing for a range of optional services which the Authority may choose to utilise during the contract term to support future enhancements and wider DPC transformation. Bidders will be required to show their capability in this area. The Bidder that submits the most advantageous tender will also have the potential to deliver project and change work, based on delivery of the Core Services, at the Authority's sole discretion. The existing DPC platform leverages a mix of technologies. Key tooling includes Optimizely Digital Experience Platform ("DXP") for website content management, a bespoke React-based forms engine for public data capture, and an AWS integration platform. The NMPP is built on AWS, utilising GOV.UK One Login for authentication and GOV.UK Notify for communications. Chat Services use Cisco Webex Engage or locally provisioned products. For analytics and monitoring, tools such as Power BI, Google Analytics 4, Splunk, and Azure Sentinel are in use. Development is supported by Azure DevOps, and Cloudflare provides essential security and edge services. While this landscape reflects our current environment and does not require re-platforming at this time, specific components may necessitate modernisation during the contract term. The Authority published a Preliminary Market Engagement ("PME") Notice for this opportunity on 12 May 2026 (updated 15 May 2026) reference: Notice identifier: 2026/S 000-045079. PME was subsequently conducted in the form of: • Market briefing event (with open question and answer session) on 9 June 2026; and • Market Sounding Questionnaire. The Authority's outputs from the PME are available in the PSQ data room and can be accessed following completion and signature of mandatory Non-Disclosure and Ethical Walls Agreements following your registration of interest in the procurement. Interested parties will also need to complete these documents to access a sequential Coupa event to enable them to submit a response to this Request to Participate. The procurement is being conducted using the Competitive Flexible Procedure in accordance with Section 20(1) and Section 20(2)(b) of the Procurement Act 2023. The anticipated procurement timetable for subsequent tender stages is included in the Request to Participate. The Authority anticipates that the single supplier delivery model will provide a robust foundation to support the Home Office reform agenda into the NPS following the end of the contract term, and any future procurement strategies or objectives at that point.

The London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) is undertaking a virtual market engagement exercise on Monday 29th June 2026 at 3PM, via MS Teams, to inform the commissioning of an Expert Partner for Youth Digital Safety in London. The London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), hosted within the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), pioneers a partnership-based public health approach to tackling violence rooted in prevention and early intervention. Since 2019, the VRU has invested in over 550,000 targeted interventions for young people across London. The VRU invests in interventions at critical moments to keep young people safe in and out of school and at the key touchpoints that influence a young person’s journey; early years and families, education, positive opportunities, youth work, and communities and place. In London, working in partnership, we bring together services at a local level to better coordinate delivery of prevention. We build and support effective partnerships with government, local authorities, the NHS, education services, and the police. Our strength is in connection to London’s diverse communities and young people. We’ve made embedding the voice of young people, practitioner and communities a critical part of our approach and decision-making. You can read the VRU's strategy on our website and view the VRU’s outcomes framework, which measures our impact. Background The VRU recognises that the rapid proliferation of online platforms and technologies has created new challenges and opportunities for young people. Online spaces can provide connection, creativity, learning and participation, but they can also expose children and young people to harmful content, exploitation, misogyny, harassment and coercion, and exacerbate conflict. The boundaries between online and offline life are increasingly blurred. There remains a significant gap between young people’s lived experiences of the online world and the systems, policies and services designed to support them. As digital risks evolve rapidly, evidence, insight and responses across the sector have struggled to keep pace. The Mayor's Violence Reduction Unit is seeking to engage with the market in advance of a forthcoming procurement opportunity to appoint an Expert Partner for Youth Digital Safety in London to support and develop the VRU’s strategic approach to youth digital safety in London. This commission will ensure evidence and insight, youth voice, policy, learning, co-design are translated into stronger programme design, delivery, practice and strategic influence. The Expert Partner will sit across the VRU’s wider youth digital safety programme. At the time of commissioning, this wider programme is expected to include: •Trusted Adult Training – specialist support for practitioners working with children and young people •Digital Youth Work Pilots – innovative approaches to digital youth work and digital engagement •Local Authority Test-and-Learn Pilots – local approaches to strengthen safeguarding and system responses to online harms. The VRU wants to build on its existing learning and develop a more mature regional model for coordinating learning, policy and practice on online harms. This creates an opportunity for London to appoint an expert partner that strengthens local systems and place-based approaches, supports frontline services and practitioners, supporting regional and metropolitan approaches and leads the way nationally in developing an evidence-led, youth-centred approach to preventing and tackling online harms. Description of the service The successful provider(s), which can be a partnership or consortium bid with a lead provider, will act as a strategic insight, learning partner, youth voice and practice translation function for the VRU's wider youth digital safety programme. They will be responsible for strengthening the VRU’s response to online harms and youth digital safety to become more coordinated, evidence-led and mature. They will provide cross-cutting expertise and a test-and-learn function that can monitor emerging issues, share best practice, and strengthen the connection between research, policy, safeguarding and delivery. Target Audience The commission will focus on online harms affecting children and young people aged 11–25, with relevance to the VRU's violence reduction, safeguarding and prevention agenda. Providers will need to demonstrate an understanding of how digital risks, behaviours and protective factors may present differently across adolescence and intersectionality - and draw on relevant specialist expertise where needed. The commission is expected to address a broad and evolving range of online harms that may intersect with peer conflict and harmful social media dynamics through to exploitation, VAWG and misogyny, technology-enabled abuse, and forms of online harm that can contribute to or escalate offline violence. This list is indicative rather than exhaustive; a core purpose of the commission is to help the VRU refine its understanding of which online harms are most relevant to its violence reduction agenda. Scope of Delivery The commission is structured into two complementary lots, each with core requirements and an optional draw-down provision that may be accessed subject to programme need, funding availability and internal governance approvals. Bids may be led by a single organisation, consortium or partnership. Lot 1: Research, Policy and Strategic Insight Provides strategic evidence, research, horizon-scanning, policy support, knowledge products and external influence relevant to youth digital safety and online harms - including emerging evidence and strategic insight, knowledge products and briefings, policy and legislative developments, consultation support, and evidence synthesis. Lot 2: Programme Development, Test-and-Learn and Learning Partner Supports programme design, co-design, implementation learning and continuous improvement across the VRU's wider youth digital safety portfolio - including support to test-and-learn activity, facilitate communities of practice, learning and evaluation, practice translation, and the development of frameworks, tools or guidance based on delivery learning. The Expert Partner will sit across the VRU's wider youth digital safety programme, which at the time of commissioning is expected to include Trusted Adult Training, Digital Youth Work Pilots, and Local Authority Test-and-Learn Pilots. Future work, which is not confirmed, may include Digital Bystander Intervention Training for young people and a support model for girls and young women experiencing online VAWG. The programme is expected to contribute to: •A stronger London-wide evidence base and clearer strategic understanding of online harms affecting children and young people. •Improved safeguarding understanding and practice in relation to digital risks across statutory and non-statutory partners. •Youth voice embedded across programme design, delivery, learning and policy development. •Stronger programme design, co-design, evaluation and continuous improvement across the wider youth digital safety portfolio. •Improved coordination, partnership-working and greater maturity in London's response to online harms. •Increased VRU influence, collaboration and credibility locally, regionally and nationally. Timeframe and Budget The maximum estimated fixed budget for this commission is up to £316,000 excl VAT over a 30-month contract period (2 years plus a 6-month extension), subject to confirmation of funding, internal governance and relevant approvals. This comprises up to £110,600 for Lot 1 and up to £205,400 for Lot 2. The contract may also include optional draw-down provision under both lots, subject to programme need, funding availability and relevant approvals. The maximum draw-down value is up to £82,000 for Lot 1 and up to £152,000 for Lot 2. Accordingly, the maximum total contract value is up to £550,000 excl VAT over 30 months. This includes both the fixed core budget and any optional draw-down provision. The VRU does not guarantee that the full maximum value will be utilised. Market Engagement / Response The VRU welcomes engagement from organisations with expertise in online harms across research, policy, and frontline practice. We also encourage organisations with strengths in learning and evaluation, knowledge and capacity-building, and supporting the embedding of improved safeguarding, organisational practice, and programme design. This will contribute to establishing a mature regional model to prevent and tackle online harms, encompassing youth participation, safeguarding, violence reduction, and VAWG. The Eventbrite link for the market warming session can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/expert-partner-for-youth-digital-safety-in-london-market-warming-session-tickets-1992053798536?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true The VRU welcomes partnership bids for this tender. If you are interested in sharing your details with other potential providers, please email [email protected] and you will be asked to fill in a short questionnaire. Please note that this exercise is in no way a call for competition and will not result in the award of a contract to any respondents to this notice.