Scope
Description
NOTICE OF INTEREST: BACS BUREAU SERVICE
Who we are
We, as a shared services arrangement of four councils (West Northants, North Northants, Milton Keynes City and Cambridgeshire County), are seeking to gather insights from the BACS Bureau Service market.
Please note that we are only assessing the market to gain indicative costs to inform the production of a Business Case. We are not undertaking a procurement exercise at this stage.
What we are looking for
We are currently seeking to understand indicative supplier pricing for a BACS Bureau Service, to potentially outsource our shared service bureau function currently managed in-house.
A. Scope of BACS Bureau
Number of clients: 12
Number of Service User Number (SUN): 65
Types of BACs transactions: Direct Debit (80% of total transactions) and Direct Credit (20% of total transactions)
Indicative annual transactional volumes: 6 million transactions
Indicative annual transactional value: 6 billion GBP
B. High level BACS Bureau provision requirements
1. BACS Submission & Processing
Act as a BACS Approved Bureau provider
Ensure seamless, accurate processing of BACS files without manual intervention.
Handle direct submission to BACS under provider's own BUN.
2. Compliance
Ensure full compliance with Tier A BACS audit requirements.
Provide documentation and support for regulatory inspections.
Maintain a secure environment for BACS processing in line with industry standards.
3. Incident Management & Support
Offer support for file submission failures and urgent incidents.
Maintain SLAs for troubleshooting and resolution of processing issues.
4. Reporting
Provide status reports, logs, and audit trails for each submission.
Allow access to processing activity logs via API or dashboard.
Send email alerts or notifications informing us of processing outcomes.
Support BACS report downloads (ideally with advanced distribution capabilities, e.g. per SUN, per Org), unless users are required to retrieve them directly.
5. File Transfer & Integration
Accept BACS files via secure transfer (i.e. SFTP, API/Web Services).
Ensure seamless API or UI-based extraction of processing activity logs
Contract dates (estimated)
- 3 November 2025 to 2 November 2029
- 4 years
Main procurement category
Services
CPV classifications
- 66000000 - Financial and insurance services
Engagement
Engagement deadline
9 April 2025
Engagement process description
How responses should be sent
We invite you to provide information on your service offerings, price ranges, and experience in delivering BACS Bureau services for customers of similar size and sector. Insights into value-added services are also welcome.
Please submit your response via the Microsoft Form below by close of business Wednesday, April 9th, 2025: https://forms.office.com/e/JYSGNtqM3g
Please note that participation and responses to this advertisement does not guarantee inclusion in future procurement activities.
Contracting authority
West Northamptonshire Council
- Public Procurement Organisation Number: PGDV-8944-CMBP
Angel Street
Northampton
NN1 1ED
United Kingdom
Region: UKF24 - West Northamptonshire
Organisation type: Public authority - sub-central government