Services and Support for Grosvenor Systems Propman Property Management System

Description

This is a voluntary ex ante transparency (VEAT) notice. Crown Estate Scotland recently awarded a contract to Grosvenor Systems to supply software support to their existing Propman Property Management System which was transferred to Crown Estate Scotland and is used by our Property Management Agents when acting on our behalf. To ensure continuous operation and deployment across our new network of property management agents (who have been appointed following conclusion of the separate tender exercise) we require to procure additional licenses and implementation services. The managing agents are provisioned with a minimum number of licences but can request additional licenses which are procured and owned by Crown Estate Scotland and provisioned to the Managing Agents. The recent procurement has resulted in changes to responsibilities of all managing agents, an increase in number of managing agents provisioned with the minimum number of licenses and several managing agents requesting additional licences and making a substantial contribution to the cost. Associated training and configuration services for new managing agents to use the system and the increase beyond the number of licenses originally anticipated has resulted in an increase in the expected contract value and required a variation to the contract. This is a business critical system and licenses and associated services are only available from the stated supplier. This is a voluntary ex ante transparency (VEAT) notice. Crown Estate Scotland has a contract in place with Grosvenor Systems to supply software licenses and support to the existing Propman Property Management System used by Crown Estate Scotland and our Managing Agents. Crown Estate Scotland operates an outsourced business model for a significant part of its property management functions across its rural, coastal, urban/built development, minerals and mines royal, fishing rights and some of its marine, energy and infrastructure activities. Managing Agents maintain Property Management data on our behalf on Grosvenor Systems Propman. Crown Estate Scotland has brought control and responsibility for the property management system and our property data assets in-house. As part of a separate procurement exercise we now have six contracts in place with five firms of Managing Agents (MA’s) with specialist property management skills, capacity and experience which commenced 1 April 2021. This procurement has introduced new agents and increased the overall number of agents from three. As a result this has had a material impact on the use of our Property Management System and the value of the contract. In order to accommodate the increased number of managing agents, processes, workflows and system integrations it is proposed purchase additional licences (at the same unit pricing as the original contract) and consultancy up to an additional cost of 211,655 GBP giving a total amended contract cost of 423,276 GBP. This is a business-critical system available only from the stated supplier. Grosvenor Systems own the IPR and licensing rights in the software. The required licenses and support to operate the system can only be provided by Grosvenor Systems for technical reasons. During the term of the contract and any extensions, Crown Estate Scotland will investigate alternative systems to support the Property Management requirements. Migration to a new system at this point involves significant time and resource and requires alignment with longer-term property management system development planning and funding during a period of uncertainty specific to other ongoing procurements.