Placid How a council buys Placid, step by step

Route 1: your council's low value purchase system

Most councils run a Low Value Purchase System, sometimes called a dynamic purchasing system or a quotes portal, for spend below their own tender threshold. pop pop studio is registered on these under education and training services, community and social services, and IT services and support. This is the route Jonny recommends, because it is the one your procurement team runs every week.

1. Ask procurement which system they use and what the threshold is for a single quotation or three quotations. For a Placid local offer the total is usually inside the three-quotation band.
2. Tell them what you are buying. "A SEND local offer website platform, built on LocalGov Drupal, with content migration and annual hosting and support." Send them the procurement page, which carries the service definition, Cyber Essentials certificate and pricing.
3. We complete the quotation. Procurement sends the request through the system, we answer it in the form they need, with the G-Cloud figures, and you have a purchase order.

Route 2: G-Cloud 15 direct award

Placid is listed on G-Cloud 15, the government's Digital Marketplace. A public body can buy directly from a G-Cloud listing without a tender by recording a short search and selection, which procurement teams call a direct award.

1. Procurement searches the Digital Marketplace for the service and records why Placid is the best fit against their requirements.
2. They complete the call-off contract using the framework's own template. The terms are already agreed under the framework.
3. You have a contract, typically within a couple of weeks of starting.

What to hand procurement, whichever route

• The procurement page: service definition, terms, Cyber Essentials, and the full G-Cloud pricing with five year cost plans.
• The Calderdale case study, as evidence of a live local offer on the platform.
• One sentence on why now: your current platform contract end date, or the inspection finding, or the reforms changing what you must publish.

What it costs

The exact figures are public on the pricing page. In shape: a one-off directory and site build, a design fee, optional content migration, then a yearly hosting and support fee from the second year. Extra sites on the same directory, for kinship, care leavers, early help or family hubs, are a small fixed sum each per year. That is the one directory, many sites point, and it is the number a Director of Children's Services tends to ask about.

How long it takes

Procurement, two to four weeks depending on route. The build, from first co-production session to launch, is usually a school term. Content migration runs alongside.