Hackney Council is set to invest nearly £1 million in a new payment and income management system, aiming to streamline customer payments and improve the handling of council income. The system, which will run for an initial three years with an option for a two-year extension, is expected to go live from November 2026.

The Hackney Procurement Board approved the award of a contract for the new system at their meeting on Tuesday, 13 October 2026. The total maximum cost for this contract is £964,648, net of VAT, funded from existing revenue budgets. The core support and maintenance cost represents a 6.7% increase compared to the expiring contract, which the council deems value for money, especially when benchmarked against typical SaaS market price increases of 11%–16%.

This new system is described as crucial for facilitating customer payments to the Council and ensuring the accurate distribution and management of income received. Beyond these core functions, Hackney Council anticipates that the system will align with the Council's technology strategy and approach, supporting our objectives to provide secure, accessible and efficient digital services while improving the resident experience. It also meets the required PCI DSS and applicable data security, privacy and information governance standards, providing appropriate safeguards for resident and payment data.

The decision document for the meeting highlighted that alternative options, such as GOV.UK Pay or standalone income management solutions, were considered but ultimately rejected due to significant limitations. GOV.UK Pay, for instance, lacks native automated telephone services and built-in support for customer-assisted payments, which complicates PCI DSS compliance. It would also necessitate additional procurements, complex custom integrations, and would prevent us from leveraging our new merchant acquiring contract for expected savings. Standalone income management options were rejected because they requires local or third-party hosting, maintenance, and patching, and would demand building new, custom integrations to bridge the software with both our core back-end systems and selected payment processors.

The chosen solution is expected to align with the Council's technology strategy, providing secure and efficient digital services while adhering to data security standards like PCI DSS. The new system will also offer optional digital payment integration for Apple Pay and Google Pay.

The success and efficiency of the new system will be measured against key performance indicators (KPIs), including a target of 98.5% system availability, monitored through service review meetings and availability reports. Incident response times will also be tracked against contract targets as part of ongoing contract management.

The contract for the Payments and Income Management application is for a period of three (3) years with the option of a two (2) year extension, starting from November 2026. The report does not specify a distinct implementation or full rollout timeline beyond the contract start date. 1

  1. Decisions Tuesday 13-Oct-2026 14.00 Hackney Procurement Board.pdf ↩