IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Tender description

The Environment Agency collects substantial environmental and flood risk data, which we share with the public as well as other public sector bodies, commercial organisations, our staff and our contractors. The purpose for us sharing this data varies dependent on data type, but can be summarised under the principles of: informing the public, enabling our organisation and partners to do a better job, or being driven by a legal requirement. We use a number of separate IT solutions to publicise and distribute this data, some developed and run by us, and others delivered by external suppliers. The solutions combined are known as The Data Sharing Platform (DSP). We have extended some of these solutions to partner organisations — Defra, the Canal and River Trust, the Forestry Commission, Natural England, Historic England and the Marine Management Organisation — and we may add other partners in the future. This PIN specifically refers to the Core Service which is the main service referred to above. The functionality of the Core Service can be split into 5 main components: 1. The Partner Portal — for sharing ‘non-open’ spatial data with our partners; 2. Inspire Services — primarily Web Mapping Services and Web Feature Services; 3. Spatial Download — for spatial data download as Open Data; 4. Survey Download — for very large tiled datasets; 5. Public Application Node — to allow search, view and download of certain data. We welcome contact from suppliers who feel they may be able to fulfil some or all of the below components. Core Service Components: 1. Partner Portal Capacity for providing non-open third party data, to other third parties on a declining profile. If cost-beneficial, we also require additional functionality such as ‘cookie-cutting’ of data. We also require full service management, including: a) Hosting; b) Intelligent reporting; c) Data acquisition; d) Link to Metadata catalogue; e) Data receipt, management, ingestion and publication. 2. Inspire: Provision of compliant Inspire services (further information can be found here: http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/), including Web Mapping Services (WMS) and Web Feature Services (WFS). We require the capability to: 1. Operate an explicit cost model to allow recharging to other parts of our business; 2. Provide higher restricted/dedicated service levels when appropriate at a dataset specific level. We also require: a) Hosting; b) Intelligent reporting; c) Data acquisition; d) Link to Metadata catalogue; e) Data receipt, management, ingestion and publication. 3. Spatial Download: We require the capability to: 1. Allow customers to download spatial datasets without the need for registration, as Open Data; 2. Provide Atom feeds. We also require: a) Hosting; b) Intelligent reporting; c) Data acquisition; d) Link to Metadata catalogue; e) Data receipt, management and publication. 4. Survey Download: We require the hosting of very large tiled datasets as a file store, and a user ‘tile selection’ interface. We require the capability to: 1. Allow customers to download selected datasets without the need for registration, as Open Data; 2. Allow customers to be provided with data in multiple formats. We also require: a) Hosting; b) Intelligent reporting; c) Data acquisition; d) Link to Metadata catalogue; e) Data receipt, management and publication. 5. Public application Node: We require the capability to: 1. Search, view and download data from our Data Sharing Platform via interfaces designed to meet specific user needs. (e.g. An electronic Public Register application that interrogates regulatory data). 2. Provide documentation so that users are supported end to end. We also require: a) Hosting; b) Intelligent reporting; c) Data acquisition; d) Link to Metadata catalogue; e) Data receipt, management and publication. Please note this is not a call for competition, and this notice does not act as formal notification of an upcoming opportunity.