Norway - Software programming and consultancy services - Intention notice - municipal engineering trade system

Fredrikstad municipality and Hvaler municipality, hereafter called the contracting authority, intend to enter into agreement with Norkart for a comprehensive and integrated municipal engineering system (delivered as a cloud service) that supports central disciplines such as fees, sanitation, water meters, sludge, fire prevention, property taxes, land register synchronisation and digital self-service. The system shall be built on one joint property and contract register per municipality, which will be used consistent across all modules. Furthermore, the system shall be fully integrated with Norwegian public registers, including Matrikkelen and Folkeregisteret, as well as other central municipal systems, including the municipality ́s finance system, case and archive systems as well as digital distribution and dialogue channels. In addition, the system must support automated processes for calculation, invoicing, reporting and updating across all modules, as well as field work and mobile work processes within, among other things, sanitation, water meter management, property tax assessment and fire prevention. The system shall also offer a self-service portal where inhabitants can perform simple services themselves, such as changing the invoice frequency or ordering changes in sanitation systems, as well as communicating digitally with the municipality. Before the planned contract is signed, the contracting authority has carried out a market survey to clarify whether there are alternative suppliers who can deliver a combined system that fulfils these requirements. Norconsult AS has stated that their system ISY ProAktiv, which can fulfil the need, will be discontinued from 01.01.2027 and that the company will not offer a new system in this market. The survey also shows that there are tenderers who can offer individual solutions in limited disciplines, but not a comprehensive and integrated system with a common register, as required by the Contracting Authority. The contracting authority intends to carry out the procurement without a competition and enter into a contract directly with a tenderer, as the procurement concerns services that only one specific tenderer can deliver and the competition is impossible for technical reasons, cf. the Public Procurement Regulations § 13-4 letter b no. 2. In order to safeguard the fundamental principles, the intention notice is published and tenderers are given the opportunity to promote objections within the waiting period of 11 days, cf. the Public Procurement Regulations § 21-5. A contract will be signed with Norkart after the waiting period has expired.