Bramble Hub is pleased to announce that we have successfully bid on a new Crown Commercial Service (CCS) framework, Digital Outcomes 6 (DOS6). The new framework has three lots, of which we have successfully bid on Lot 1 – “Digital Outcomes”.
The new framework, which opened for supplier applications in January 2022, forms part of a framework overhaul by CCS. The expiring framework, Digital Outcomes and Specialists 5, is being revised and split across two new frameworks: DOS6 and Digital Specialists and Programmes (DSP), each of which gets new lots in addition to the original lots in DOS5. Note that DOS5 is still open until 19th April 2023, so will run concurrently with DOS6 until then.
The changes made to the frameworks are as follows.
DOS5 (expiring framework)
Lot 1: Digital Outcomes* – moves into DOS6
Lot 2: Digital Specialists* – moves into the new DSP framework
Lot 3: User Research Studios – moves into DOS6
Lot 4: User Research Participants – moves into DOS6
DOS6 (new framework)
Lot 1: Digital Outcomes* – moved forward from DOS5
Lot 2: User Research Studios (was Lot 3, DOS5)
Lot 3: User Research Participants (was Lot 4, DOS5)
*Denotes lots on which Bramble Hub has/had successfully bid.
For a project to qualify for DOS6, Lot 1, Crown Commercial Service states that it must have “clearly defined deliverables and outcomes” and that it may be “serviced by a team of 1 or many”. The lot covers a number of digital services, including security, software development, support and testing.
Bramble Hub has been named as a supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS’s) G-Cloud 13 Lot 4 framework. Although this framework was due to open on 5th December 2022, its launch was unexpectedly delayed by CCS, which stated in an email to suppliers:
“Following careful consideration, CCS has taken the difficult decision to delay the launch of this agreement.
CCS is working to make our agreements easier to use, to provide a better experience for our customers and suppliers on the new digital service.
We are focused on ensuring that we deliver a quality service to our customers and suppliers through rigorous testing, and this process has produced insight that we need to consider in more depth before we can roll this out.
We appreciate that this will be disappointing for you and many of our customers, but we are confident that delaying the launch is the right thing to do and will allow us to go live with an improved digital experience for our customers.”
The new framework is a break from G-Cloud tradition: until now, G-Cloud has taken a catalogue approach, through which customers can directly select simple cloud-related products and services. Lot 4, however, is a competitive framework aimed at larger and more complex projects that go beyond a catalogue-based purchase. The traditional catalogue approach continues with G-Cloud 13 Lots 1-3, which (as we reported) launched recently.
Crown Commercial Service is an Executive Agency of the Cabinet Office, supporting the public sector to achieve maximum commercial value when procuring common goods and services.
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) supports the public sector to achieve maximum commercial value when procuring common goods and services. In 2021/22, CCS helped the public sector to achieve commercial benefits equal to £2.8 billion – supporting world-class public services that offer best value for taxpayers.
CloudSource is a London-headquartered Microsoft Solutions Partner that specialises in providing Digital Transformation, Strategy, and Delivery services to Public Sector organisations. CloudSource’s technology excellence with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Azure Services, coupled with the knowledge of Regulatory, Compliance, and Transparency business processes, make them a powerful partner for UK Public Sector organisations who need to meet today’s digital expectations.
The company was formed in 2010, with their business heavily based on providing Microsoft expertise to their customers. As it grew, CloudSource brought a wealth of key expertise on board, including (in 2015) CTO Ashish Kapoor, and – the following year – project delivery specialist Ed Pearce. In 2017, CloudSource became a Bramble Hub partner, which brought the company’s expertise within easier reach of public sector buyers.
As a partnership, we have won a series of significant projects over the past five years. So we recently sat down with CloudSource’s Managing Director, Mark Williams, to discuss half a dozen of our successful project deliveries. These projects were delivered via a range of Crown Commercial Service frameworks, including Data and Application Solutions, Corporate Software Solutions (now closed), G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists.
HS2 – Health Exposure Monitoring Solution (HEMS)
Among our early joint projects was an Internet of Things (IoT) project for HS2, the huge project intended to bring Britain’s railways into the 21st Century. CloudSource was tasked with creating a solution that monitored environmental quality at HS2 building sites via a plethora of IoT devices that collected on-site data. The data was collected and put into Microsoft Azure. CloudSource then built a dashboard that allowed thresholds and alerts to be managed, so that HS2 could maintain acceptable levels of pollutants, noise and vibration. Mark says: “No such solution existed off the shelf: we had to do the R&D, and build it from scratch”.
Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) – Modernisation of Technology Service (MOTS)
The MOTS project has been a great success for the CloudSource / Bramble Hub partnership. From the start, the scope of the project was ambitious: “Lots of line-of-business systems, lots of data, hundreds of users”, says Mark.
> “We were replatforming all of their business responsibilities onto Dynamics 365, Azure and Power Platform. Our knowledge of those technologies, coupled with our knowledge of the regulation industry won this for us.””
Since that first win two years ago, the NMC has awarded us a number of further project extensions, the most recent phase having been awarded in recent weeks.
The Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat)
Ofwat has been another repeat customer, and another demonstration of CloudSource’s vertical strength in regulation. The initial project, awarded in 2019 was to migrate an on-premises Microsoft system into Dynamics 365 and the cloud. “What we did was about replatforming business processes into the cloud, retiring on-prem systems in the process. As with all of our projects, we took an Agile/Scrum approach, using MS Project and Azure DevOps,” explains Mark.
Defra – One Stop Shop for Regulators
Although a relatively small project, the Defra-funded creation of a one stop shop for government regulators helped put CloudSource on the map. The project created a centralized portal for customers that intelligently transferred each request to the right organization.
> “The significant aspect of that project was the cross-department aspect. We showed that we could work with multiple government departments, which aren’t always great at working together. The project really boosted our profile as a regulator specialist – at the moment, a hundred percent of our pipeline is regulatory”
Pensions regulator
CloudSource advised the Pensions Regulator on migrating to a cloud platform. “That was about assessing their technology to be migrated to Microsoft cloud and advising on their roadmap, pointing out the pitfalls, so they could do it themselves,” Mark says. “It was a pre-project phase, where we asked ‘Are these the right systems, are we barking up the right tree?’ We bridged a skills shortage, and supplied skills they didn’t have internally in order to get the project off the ground.”
The Pension Protection Fund (PPF)
The PPF’s role is to take control of pension schemes for organisations that go into liquidation. In 2021, CloudSource worked on a project to modernise the PPF’s pension scheme assessment process.
The power of partnership
For Mark Williams, CloudSource’s track record is testament to the strength of their specialisms in Microsoft technologies, coupled with their ongoing accumulation of knowledge about the business of regulation. Without Bramble Hub, and our thin-prime model, it would be hard for public sector buyers to access the skills of small and medium expert businesses like CloudSource.
He concludes that “… working with Bramble Hub has been key to building our business by providing a path to access many high-profile public sector clients, guided by Bramble Hub’s invaluable experience and sector expertise.”
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We are pleased to announce that we have been named as a supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS’s) G-Cloud 13 Lots 1-3 framework, which opened for business on 9th November 2022, and will run for a year. This framework supersedes G-Cloud 12, which closed on 27th November.
We have a number of entries in the catalogue, which offer products and services from ten of our partners.
For more information, please see our G-Cloud 13 Lots 1-3 page. Please note that G-Cloud 13 Lot 4 is a separate CCS framework; watch this space for more announcements on that framework in the next few days.
About Crown Commercial Service
Crown Commercial Service is an Executive Agency of the Cabinet Office, supporting the public sector to achieve maximum commercial value when procuring common goods and services.
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) supports the public sector to achieve maximum commercial value when procuring common goods and services. In 2021/22, CCS helped the public sector to achieve commercial benefits equal to £2.8 billion – supporting world-class public services that offer best value for taxpayers.
Julie Mercer, a Principal at Nous Group, has always sought to contribute to positive social outcomes; so, when the company’s founder, Tim Orton, tapped her on the shoulder, joining Nous’ growing UK team was a natural next step. Founded 23 years ago in Australia, Nous Group – a Bramble Hub partner – remains true to its original purpose: delivering positive influence and improving people’s lives through its management consulting services. This ethos, and the company’s service offering, are fuelling its expanding influence in the UK public sector.
Julie joined the team a year ago and now works alongside Tim (Managing Principal and CEO) and highly experienced Principals including Katharine Purser, Peter Horne and Simon Lancaster in its thriving public policy practice.
Like that of her Nous colleagues, Julie’s career trajectory has been impressive. Julie has always considered her work choices alongside her contribution to social wellbeing.
With this ambition in mind, Julie began her working life monitoring the use of public finances and tracking value for money at the National Audit Office (NAO), before joining Arthur Andersen and then Deloitte.
Bramble Hub partner Nautilus Consulting is to provide a Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) to Great Western Hospitals Foundation Trust (GWH).
The system will be used within GWH by Core Radiology, Breast and Cardiology departments, and will replace an existing PACS from a US provider: GWH is the only remaining NHS Trust using this solution.
The Great Western Hospitals NHS Trust provides acute hospital services at the Great Western Hospital. The Trust employs approximately 5,000 staff and has around 1.2 million patient contacts a year.
The Trust also provides community services to support people to manage long-term conditions. Services are provided in local community facilities and in people’s own homes across Swindon. Services include inpatient rehabilitation and community nursing and therapy services. Since November 2019, the Trust has provided primary care services at two main practices in Swindon – Moredon and Abbey Meads, which together serve around 30,000 people.
Crown Commercial Service has alerted suppliers that the Digital Outcomes and Specialists framework 5 (DOS5 – RM1043.7) will be extended by three months. The framework, which was due to close to new business in January, will now run until 19th April 2023.
Bramble Hub is a supplier on Lot 1 (Digital Outcomes) and Lot 2 (Digital Specialists. Please see the DOS5 page for more information.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has extended its Modernisation of Technology Services (MOTS) programme, and awarded the next phase of the project (phase 3a) to a partnership of Bramble Hub and our partner CloudSource.
This marks the fourth phase of MOTS; we have been working on the project since its inception almost two years ago.
The NMC is the largest healthcare regulatory body in the world, with over 685,000 nurses and midwives, and played a key role in in the emergency recruitment of medical staff during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Oxford Brookes University has awarded Bramble Hub, and our partner Nous Group, a project to create a new digital strategy for the University.
The strategy will cover the next three years and consist of a fully costed programme of activities and projects to be carried out during that period. It will include the following areas:
“Shared vision, shared strategy” – including operational efficiency, agility and staff development
“Student Success as University Success” – including digital skills for students, and lessons from the pandemic
“Research outcomes” – enabling the research community
“Sustainable operating model” – including shift to the cloud, IT governance, data and analytics, use of AI, as well as other issues
This project is the first that Bramble Hub and Nous Group have won together. Nous Group is a specialist in public sector strategy, with very strong experience in the education sector in particular.
Oxford Brookes University was founded in 1865 as Oxford School of Art, before becoming the Oxford City Technical School, the Oxford College of Technology, Oxford Polytechnic and eventually (in 1992) Oxford Brookes University. It is listed among the top 50 universities in the UK.
More About Bramble Hub
Bramble Hub has been successfully connecting IT private sector companies and the public sector since 2006….. Find out more ..
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
Our regular newsletter keeps you up to date with developments at Bramble Hub and our partners and customers…
Contact Us
If you are a best of type business looking to work with the public sector via frameworks do get in touch with our team.
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has announced the extension of the Back Office Software framework (RM6194).
The framework, which opened for business on 6th April 2021, was originally due to end on 6th October 2023, but has been extended by 18 months. Suppliers on the framework (including Bramble Hub) will now be able to offer services until 5th April 2025.
The framework’s maximum call-off length (the maximum length of contracts that can be signed within the framework) has been extended to 10 years.
