Joining the Registered Partner Scheme

The Registered Partner Scheme

OCC’s Registered Partner Scheme allows experienced ContrOCC contractors and consultants who meet the requirements of the Scheme to sign up as Registered Partners. As a Registered Partner, you will receive the following:

1. Listing on our website as a Registered Partner
2. Invitation to attend product annual user group meetings
3. Annual 1-day refresher course, concentrating on new and changed functionality and project methodology (for example, migrations, UAT, testing)
4. Access to our help desk service for advice and guidance in your own capacity (as opposed to on behalf of a local authority) 
5. Additional training (chargeable) on areas you want to understand more about
6. Recommendation to customers when they ask OCC to recommend third-party consultants (we cannot recommend non-partners) 

Our Partner recommendations are for named individuals, not companies, although we will record the Partner’s organisation in the register. 

Competencies and requirements

Partners can register for one or more competencies, based on the nature of the work they can carry out. Each competency can be Silver or Gold status,  depending on the requirements met. The competencies and their requirements are:

• Project Management – act as a project or programme manager delivering a ContrOCC implementation either standalone or as part of a wider implementation with Liquidlogic
• Consultancy Adults’ Finance – provide advice and guidance on system configuration and testing, including defining interfaces to corporate finance system for Adults’ Finance (ContrOCC)
• Consultancy Children’s Finance – provide advice and guidance on system configuration and testing, including defining interfaces to corporate finance system for Children’s Finance (ContrOCC)
• Consultancy MarketPlace – provide advice and guidance on system configuration and testing OCC MarketPlace Directory or Brokerage
• Data Extraction and Migration – provide advice, guidance and technical expertise on extracting data from legacy systems and importing it into ContrOCC

Joining the Registered Partner Scheme

To become a Registered Partner, you must do the following:

• sign up to and follow our Partner Code of Conduct
• for Silver competency status:
  • provide at least one customer reference for a project within the last 3 years that recommends your work in your chosen competencies
• for Gold competency status:
  • provide at least three customer references for a project within the last 5 years that recommends your work in your chosen competencies
  • at least one of your references must include live implementation of a ContrOCC portal, such as the Provider Portal, Online Financial Assessment or Client Finance Portal (not required for data extraction and migration)
• attend the annual 1-day partner refresher training course

The Registered Partner code of conduct

The Registered Partner code of conduct is designed to protect the good names of OCC and our Registered Partners as well as those of our mutual customers. 

Partners agree to:

• conduct their business in full compliance with the applicable laws and regulations including but not limited to employment, anti-bribery, health and safety, environmental and intellectual property
• respect the terms of their respective contracts with our mutual customers and ensure they deliver to their highest ability and without conflict of interest 
• not take on more work than they can reasonably deliver to the high standard that they and our customers would expect 
• uphold OCC’s good reputation; in the unlikely event of an instance where the partner feels a conflict between their own reputation with the customer and OCC’s, they should escalate this to the operations director or managing director and OCC
• not run any operations that may invalidate a customer’s support and maintenance agreement with OCC
• always provide advice and guidance that is in line with established best practice based on experience with other customers or that is provided by OCC
• always ask OCC for best practice advice and guidance on areas they are unfamiliar with

OCC reserves the right to remove Registered Partner status should this code of conduct not be followed.

How to apply for Registered Partner status

Application – Partners should complete the application form found here.

This form asks for the details that will appear in our register and be provided to customers. We also ask for contact details for your references.

References – You will need to state your references on the application form and send a reference form to your referees for completion. A copy of this can be found here here. Please forward your completed reference forms to OCC.

If your initial references do not respond, you will be free to suggest alternatives. We may contact your referees independently to verify their details.

Completion – Once payment and your references have been received, we will:

• add you to our website as a Registered Partner
• provide you with login details for SherlOCC and OCC Community
• update your profile within Community to appear as a Registered Partner
• provide you with dates for training courses and annual meetings as they become available

Renewal – Renewal will be due 12 months after completion of the application process.