Over the Christmas break, applications for our Digital Specialists opportunity for the project were closed. In our rush to get the opportunity out we ran straight into Christmas holidays with the shortlisting process, so a lesson learned there.

On a positive note we had 44 submissions from a great range of suppliers. Clearly we can’t name names at this stage, but it’s fair to say our worries about not attracting a good calibre of supplier were unfounded.

Unfortunately, the combination of the Christmas holidays and the volume of applications means we’re running behind schedule in completing this first phase.

Research areas

All the participating councils have now made their decisions about which research area they want to progress as part of the project;

• Waste and Recycling – Rotherham, Doncaster, Bolsover/North East Derbyshire
• Highways – Surrey
• Revs and Bens – Redditch & Bromsgrove, Preston, Adur & Worthing
• Planning – Oxford, Hertsmere, Cheltenham

While we progress through the rest of the procurement phase we’ll be starting to discuss with our research partners what information we already have on these services in preparation for the user research phase.