Award of contract to PSL Print Management Limited for postage and printing of council correspondence with delegated approval to award the contract to Deputy Chief Executive, Citizen & City Services.

Our incumbent suppliers contract comes to an end on 31^st March 2026 and as such it is necessary to secure a new contract with a supplier that can meet all of Oxford City Councils hybrid print and postage needs whilst also providing enhanced digital services that will allow us to make savings throughout the life of the contract by using less paper and reducing postage costs

If this decision is not taken then Oxford City Council does not have an existing mechanism to manage approximately 400,000 items of post that need to be sent out each year and would have to invest heavily in machinery to manage in house. PSL Print Management Limited were the highest scoring bidder, competitive on both price and quality. See risk register for further information: Hybrid Print and Post RISK Register.xlsx

1.    We could extend the existing contract but there would be a risk in terms of procurement and significant delay in implementing a new contract when the outcome may very well be the same

2.    We could bring the service “In House” but this has proved not to be a viable option as it would require investment in both new resources and machinery infrastructure to service and deliver the required volumes of post on a daily, quarterly, and annual basis

3.    If we do nothing then Oxford City Council will be unable to operate a print and postage service and therefore be unable to meet our financial and statutory obligations for revs/bens correspondence causing resident dissatisfaction and reputational damage.

4.    We received 8 bids from suppliers which were all evaluated in terms of how they met our requirements on quality, social value and price. PSL Print Management Limited scored the highest.