You asked
I would be most grateful if you would provide me, under the Freedom of Information Act, details in respect to the point below.
Forms/Surveys provided by the ONS
The details I request are:
- Quantity of paper forms/surveys sent to organisations/individuals?
- Current existing supplier for digital surveys/forms on your website?
- Current existing supplier for your CRM?
- Whether the organisation uses any 3rd party contractors to assist with this?
- Start date of contracts with Technology suppliers?
- End date of contracts with Technology suppliers?
- Is there an extension clause in the contract(s) with digital suppliers and, if so, the duration of the extension?
- Has a decision been made yet on whether the contract(s) are being either extended or renewed?
- Who is the senior officer (outside of procurement) responsible for this contract?
We said
Thank you for your request. Please see the following answers to your questions.
1. Quantity of paper forms/surveys sent to organisations/individuals?
The ONS website contains information on its website, an extract of interest is as follows:
"We conduct around 82 different surveys of businesses, organisations and local authorities in the UK, issuing around 1.4 million questionnaires to about 325,000 businesses out of a total of around 3 million."
The website can be found here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/surveys/informationforbusinesses/aboutonsbusinesssurveys
ONS currently holds data formed up until the end of 2020. Specifically, 1,805,315 paper forms/surveys were sent in the calendar year 2020, of which 678,343 were reminders and 27,737 were duplicates requested by businesses/individuals.
2. Current existing supplier for digital surveys/forms on your website?
We have built our own survey capability through Electronic Questionnaire (EQ). Where the survey is outsourced, the suppliers can use their own systems to facilitate the provision.
3. Current existing supplier for your CRM?
The Commercial Team uses Service Now for its Customer Relationship Management system. Licenses are purchased through a reseller, 'Softcat'.
4. Whether the organisation uses any 3rd party contractors to assist with this?
'Softcat' are used to procure software licenses.
5. Start date of contracts with Technology suppliers?
The start date of the Softcat contract is 01/01/2020. Details of additional contracts can be found here: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/ons/aspx/Contracts/Current
6. End date of contracts with Technology suppliers?
The end date of the Softcat contract is 31/12/2022
7. Is there an extension clause in the contract(s) with digital suppliers and, if so, the duration of the extension?
There is no extension option in the aforementioned Softcat contract.
8. Has a decision been made yet on whether the contract(s) are being either extended or renewed?
No decision has been made at the time of writing.
9. Who is the senior officer (outside of procurement) responsible for this contract?
Contact details of members of staff are considered personal data and are therefore exempt from disclosure Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.