TRN 964/01/2015 - Quality Assurance of Excel Based Energy Model

Tender description

The purpose of this contract is to hire in an experienced analyst to use the DECC QA guidance to review the UK TIMES analytical model and help improve our confidence in them. This will involve four stages. 1) Reading and understanding our guidance and tools we use to review Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets. 2) Working through the UK TIMES files systematically, identifying issues with them. 3) Communicating these issues to the DECC project team and agreeing the corrective actions that need to be taken. 4) Implementing the agreed changes within the Spreadsheets. The type of issues that will need to be identified and corrected will range from errors within formulae, to poor best-practice, such as units not being included in tables or formulae containing hard-coded numbers. There will not be a requirement to review the methodology of each sector within the model, as this has already been done as part of the development of the model. The profile of a likely candidate will be someone with an Operational Research, or similar technical background, and who has experience of developing, maintaining or quality assuring complex excel based models. Advanced excel skills are essential. The successful candidate will need to demonstrate that they are able to self-direct their work, and get to grips with the scale of the task, budgeting sufficient time to review all the spreadsheets they're given. They will also need to be able to communicate their findings succinctly and effectively to the DECC project team, and work closely with them to agree changes to the files