On 17 January 2023, Cabinet:-
(i) Noted the OBC attached at Appendix 1 to the report and the current state of full fibre coverage across the City and supports an intervention from Council in order to address the speed and coverage of full fibre roll out in Birmingham where overall plans from providers do not address underserved areas;
(ii) In line with the recommended option from the OBC in Section 4, the Council commences a procurement analogous to competitive dialogue (subject to a further Cabinet award report) which targets, but is not limited to, a Joint Venture Limited by Shares to:
(a) Build, deploy and commercialise a ‘City Spine’ full fibre network.
(b) Targets the underserved constituencies with less than 50% full fibre coverage
(c) Utilises the current BCC WAN spend, in partnership with the new partner over a 20-year period, enabling an economic uplift to Birmingham and a financial return to the Council;
(iii) Authorised the procurement and investment request of £0.656M to procure specialist resource to deliver:
(a) A compliant procurement process
(b) The development of a final business case which will come back to Cabinet for approval
(c) The development of a governance model and processes for the proposed Council oversight of any proposed JV/partnership arrangements.
THE DEADLINE FOR CALL IN IS 1600 HOURS ON MONDAY 23 JANUARY 2023.
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