The procurement contact named on the official notice.

The Stage 1 - PSQ Submissions will need to be submitted by email. Details are in the PSQ Documentation.

The submission route named on the official notice.

St Chad's Academies Trust is one of the Lichfield Diocesan Multi Academy Trust (MAT) a part of Lichfield Diocese, one of the 44 Dioceses which make up the Church of England.

The Diocese covers most of the County of Staffordshire, the northern part of the County of Shropshire and a substantial part of the former Metropolitan County of the West Midlands.

The Diocese envelops all or part of 7 Local Authorities and has 207 Church Schools and academies in its remit.

The Board works in partnership with the seven Local Authorities in the Diocese (Sandwell, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford & Wrekin, Walsall and Wolverhampton) and also with the Department for Education and Academy Trusts.

The Board also works alongside higher and further education providers.

The Board ensures that headteachers, teachers and governors have the intellectual and spiritual resources to promote the distinctive Christian character of our schools.

The Board also supports the collaboration between clergy, parishes, church and community schools.

The ICT Support at the trust is provided by 13 different supplier across the 19 sites and encompass scheduled onsite visits and remote support.

The same can be said for the communications & telephony which encapsulates a great number of different suppliers, technologies and specifications.

The Trust is taking the opportunity to go to the market to identify the best innovative and forward-looking partner to support them in the delivery and development of connectivity, security and VoIP services over the next five years.

This procurement encompasses the items noted below.

In essence, this procurement is all about identifying a single supplier to provide a fully outsourced communications, security & VoIP solution.

At the sole discretion of the Trust any future schools that the Trust may incorporate into the Trust will also be added to the ICT contract.

Further details regarding bid timescales are noted below but this is advertised as a 60 month contract with a maximum 5 year service: • A managed connectivity service to connect schools anywhere in England • A broadband service for each school based on synchronous connectivity • A 'failover' line • A firewalled service • Filtering and security solution compliant with latest KCSIE regulations • A managed VoIP telephony service for each school to an agreed number of handsets each • Support and maintenance service • Full end to end single SLA approach • Management of any 3rd parties required to provide the service • Relevant monitoring, management, and reporting • Full installation and transition service • Value added services Technical interface into the Trusts outsourced support provision Bidders should note the following: • The Trust will provide a standard contract as part of the ITT Pack • There is will not be a requirement for TUPE from existing suppliers.