Section one: Contracting entity
one.1) Name and addresses
YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LIMITED
Western House,Western Way, Buttershaw
BRADFORD
BD62SZ
Telephone
+44 1234
Country
United Kingdom
Region code
UKE41 - Bradford
Companies House
02366682
Internet address(es)
Main address
https://www.yorkshirewater.com/
one.6) Main activity
Water
Section two: Object
two.1) Scope of the procurement
two.1.1) Title
Online Community
two.1.2) Main CPV code
- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
two.1.3) Type of contract
Services
two.1.4) Short description
Yorkshire Water (YW) provide water and sewerage services to over 5 million people and
140,000 businesses in Yorkshire. We collect and treat over 1 billion litres of water every day.
We operate over 670 water and treatment works and manage 100,000 kilometres of pipes.
Every 5 years, YW, alongside other water companies, submit a business plan to the industry
regulator Ofwat, outlining the investment we plan to make in the next 5 years and the impact
this will have on customer's bills. In the sector, this planning process is called a price review,
we are currently amidst of price review 2024 or PR24. The most recent business plan was
submitted on October 2nd, 2023.
The water industry faces increased scrutiny at the moment from customers and regulators
due to negative press media regarding storm overflows. This means that expectations
regarding business plans are higher than ever, and due to the cost-of-living crisis, bill
increases are a huge concern to many people.
Therefore, the PR24 business plan required considerable customer research to be
undertaken to ensure that our business plan was formed with customer needs at its heart.
Several of these customer research projects were carried out on our online community 'Your
Water'. Originally launched in 2017 to support the previous business planning process, our
online community has since grown to become an integral part of our customer insight
programme.
The online community has a sample of approximately 3,800 customers. Our members take
part in a wide range of projects on a regular basis that are then used to inform key business
decisions. For one PR24 project, we tested the acceptability and affordability of our
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business plan with customers. This allowed us to determine how supportive customers were
of our business plan, and how they felt about the projected bill impact. In addition to the
PR24 projects, we have also carried out projects to inform the development of our
communication campaigns and helped YW make important industry and policy decisions.
The online community was also an indispensable source of customer insight during the covid
pandemic, allowing us to continue engaging with customers during lockdowns, and
understand the impact that the lockdowns were having on them.
The time has come to retender our online community. Going forward, we would like to
develop the online community further, we would like to increase its potential, make it even
more engaging for our customers and continue to ensure it will meet the needs of the
business.
two.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots: No
two.2) Description
two.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS codes
- UKE - Yorkshire and the Humber
two.2.4) Description of the procurement
There are many things the tendering agencies need to consider when developing their
proposal:
• The online community has been used to carry out multiple types of research projects, both
qualitative and quantitative in nature. Typical methodologies include questionnaire-based
surveys, focus groups, polls, photo competitions, in-depth interviews, vox pops, virtual
discussion forums, and ethnographic studies. Our new platform needs to be able to deliver a
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similarly varied range of methodologies to provide the most appropriate solution for our
projects.
• Tendering companies will need to:
o Work alongside the YW Insights team to design the research projects and ensure the needs
of the business are met.
o Conduct recruitment for the online community on a regular basis to ensure there's a
consistent sample of customers which aims to be as representative of our customer base as
possible.
o Moderate the online community to ensure any queries or complaints by members are
addressed and shared to YW in a timely manner.
o Provide output in the form specified by the Insights team. Reports need to be engaging and
must provide feedback in the form of insight-led recommendations.
In addition to regular tasks, the community also does the following engagement work:
• Engages with customers through the 'Lounge', which is a discussion room where customers
can post questions and start conversations with each other.
• Occasional 'engagement' tasks where customers can share pictures or details about
themselves and receive rewards.
• We also have monthly newsletters outlining all the work that was done on the community
that month
• 'Close the Loop' posts every 6 months where we provide updates on the projects that were
conducted and the impact they had. We also take that chance to reward the most active
members as a way of thanking them for their support.
Requirements
Objectives for the community include:
• To build and maintain an online community platform branded to Yorkshire Water (YW).
• To design and conduct high-quality research projects in conjunction with YW and provide
robust insight for the business.
• To provide customer insight to support our business planning processes in addition to
regular and ad hoc research requests from the business.
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• To provide an engaging and fun place for customers to engage with YW and allow them to
share their opinions about decisions that will affect them.
• To deliver reports in an engaging format to allow internal stakeholders to improve
understanding of our customers and make decisions based on customer insight. Data tables
and transcripts should also be provided where applicable.
• To ensure vulnerable and hard to reach customers are included in the community including
markers for customers on our Priority Services Register and financial support services (e.g.
WaterSupport).
• Continue to engage with customers in a wide variety of ways to ensure engagement and
satisfaction with the community remains high and allows for a high response rate to our
projects.
• Provide innovative solutions to address sampling issues to ensure sufficient representation
of all groups. Note: young people have always been underrepresented on the online
community. Proposals should therefore consider ways to improve representation of this
group or provide alternative methods of engaging with this group on a consistent basis (e.g.
external boosts for specific projects where representation is important).
• Ability to deliver to different timelines for surveys, discussion rooms, focus groups, polls,
video diaries, and other task types - some of our work is very fast turnaround, the agency
must have the capacity to meet the needs of fast turnaround pieces of work.
Note: Community sample must be broadly representative of the Yorkshire region, taking into
account age, gender, location in the region (North, South, West, East), SEG group. However,
we understand that responses will vary, so sample per project may be different to the desired
proportions
two.2.11) Information about options
Options: No
Section four. Procedure
four.1) Description
four.1.1) Type of procedure
Negotiated procedure with prior call for competition
four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes
four.2) Administrative information
four.2.1) Previous publication concerning this procedure
Notice number: 2024/S 000-015232
Section five. Award of contract
A contract/lot is awarded: Yes
five.2) Award of contract
five.2.1) Date of conclusion of the contract
20 January 2025
Section six. Complementary information
six.4) Procedures for review
six.4.1) Review body
Yorkshire Water
Bradford
Country
United Kingdom