MoJ HQ Applications & Others Programme - Secure Exchange Outcome

Tender description

Summary of the work Delivery of a Secure Exchange (Email/messages) solution by transforming a secure electronic integration services between legal entities; and delivery of the solution to provide a digital tribunal and fees solution to be hosted on gov.uk. Delivery for other related projects within the Programme will also be required. Background at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i5SVrdwxc2a9cnmMlUMTFjSa8ApHS-R5iEjFYwG-SWg/edit?usp=sharing Expected Contract Length up to 24 months. Initial Statement of work for 6 months. Latest start date 1st May 2017 Budget Range £3 to £3.5M Why the Work is Being Done This MoJ Programme is a business transformation which will enable the MoJ to improve efficiency deliver a better service to all users. It supports other MoJ technology based programmes. All projects in this programme/portfolio are focused on improving user experience of a variety of MoJ applications The portfolio includes the following projects; *Secure Exchange. Transforming a secure electronic integration services between legal entities *Secure Email. Transforming a secure electronic messaging platform for 500,000 users *Tribunal Automation. “Digital by default” Development of specific tribunal services *Remote Access Solution *Video and voice solutions *Upgrade WiFi technology *WAN/LAN Projects Problem to Be Solved The current Secure Electronic integration service (Secure Exchange) between legal entities is not sufficiently resilient, scalable, transportable (to other cloud platforms and suppliers) or supportable. This project requires the updating and replacement of existing technology, working with existing suppliers. The Outcome will include the Project Management of the work, stakeholder management, transformation management and technical architecture services to validate the new/transformed solution. Technologies involved include Unix & IBM Who Are the Users Users range from internal MoJ people, Arms Length Bodies, executive agencies, third-parties, and members of the public. Existing Team A combination of civil servants and external, 3rd party resource. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Have experience of working in blended, multi-discipline, multi-vendor team environments focused on meeting user needs using agile methodologies and delivering digital improvement outcomes (7%) • Have experience of successfully delivering high transaction digital services to national organisations working in complex and highly regulated environments. (10%) • Technical expertise in integration technology (API's, protocols and standards), particularly supporting the development of micro-services architectures. (6%) • Have experience of working with multiple cloud vendor technologies and tools (e.g Azure and Skyscape and AWS) and have experience of working on migration between different cloud vendor technologies (5%) • Experience of handing over working/live services to in-house teams and/or other supplier teams – e.g. supporting in developing in-house capability and capacity and maintaining an exit strategy/handover (2%) • Have experience of working on three or more digital by default government services with high transaction volumes (100k p/a) and meeting digital by default service standard criteria. (2%) • Managing complex array risks and issues in government departments (2%) • Project support experience for complex and diverse projects (2%) • Must be able to provide a flexible resource profile that can adapt to demands across the engagement (2%) Nice to Haves Experience of working with public bodies similar in size and scope to the MoJ (5%) Work Location MoJ HQ, 102 Petty France, London SW1 Working Arrangments On-site, User Site, Remote Site; Typically Monday to Friday (office Hours), including Weekends and Out of Hours; Depending on the specific project requirements. Security Clearance Disclosure Scotland/BPSS No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • Approach to on-boarding and integration into the existing projects (5%) • Ability to flex resource (increase & decrease) within their team (5%) • Illustrate core team structure (10%) • Value for money, with transparent costs, (2%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Experience of working with (and knowledge transfer to) Government departments such as the MoJ (3%) • Evidence of how the supplier integrates with an existing team, takes ownership of problems and resolves issues (2%) Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 65% Cultural fit 5% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Are the 500,000 users concurrent (i.e. using the system(s) at the same time) ? 2. It seems you would like to implement microservices architecture pattern. Has any study been done to justify the choice of microservices? If yes how many microservices you envision the developed system will have in total? The 500,000 users are not concurrent. They are a mix of secure webmail users (10-20%) and secure remote 3rd party servers (circa 1,500 servers) to (central MoJ) server connections. The technical solution is being completed by a 3rd party supplier and this DOS requirement will support and manage the supplier. It is difficult to calculate the number of concurrent users at this time, but the solution will be able to manage 20% concurrent usage without impacting performance. 2. Please can you advise, is this the Criminal Justice System Exchange that you are seeking to replace? When do you intend to provide more detailed information about your requirements? This requirement is not about replacing the Criminal Justice System Exchange. We are looking for an organisation to work with 3rd party suppliers, manage their delivery and ensure that the MoJ and Service Users receive best value solutions. More detail will be given at the Proposal stage. 3. Could you please update us on: 1. Team size (No.of resources required to deliver the work). What could be the 'Visa Status' of the candidates from this team. The Team size will be decided by the supplier for the project to deliver the outcomes required providing that the number of resources & skill types are sufficient to deliver the Outcome within the agreed price.Any supplier resource working on MoJ requirements must have the legal right to work in the UK and meet the MoJ’s minimum security clearance requirements. 4. The brief mentioned stakeholder management as part of the outcomes required for this project; please confirm where these stakeholders are located? Are they all going to be based in the London or across the country? Stakeholders are spread throughout England and Wales although the majority are based in London. 5. I'm confused by the link you have provided for background as this talks about a "core team", with roles including developers, but the outcome description and your answer to Q2 suggests that you instead want a supplier to help you manage delivery? Could you please provide more clarity on what roles you would expect to see in our team and what work will be done by other 3rd party suppliers or MOJ staff? The supplier needs to be able to successfully deliver the agreed outcomes. To do this we expect the supplier to provide resources with the appropriate skills. This will involve providing resources such as Project Managers, Programme Managers, Technical (Application and Infrastructure) Architects etc. but also drawing upon shared and central resources from the supplier to assist in delivering outcomes. 6. Have the MOJ been supported by a consultancy or similar type of organisation on this project to date? Currently, there is no one organisation supporting this work or managing the delivery of the Primary supplier.For the Secure Exchange project a primary delivery partner/supplier, who is delivering the technology solutions, is in place but this may not be the case for other projects within the Programme. The requirement is to ensure that the Prime supplier is able to deliver an against agreed timescales/costs/quality/resources. This, in turn, will deliver the transformation sought by the MoJ. 7. How can industry best engage with you and/or your 3rd party supplier to establish if there are any capability gaps that could be filled by specialist organisations? We are an SME so not able to respond fully to this requirement but are confident that our capabilities could support the delivery of your Secure Exchange solution, e.g. through the deployment of our COTS Remote Access and Secure Email solutions. We are looking for one supplier to provide these outcomes. It is possible for a supplier to sub-contract elements of work to a 3rd party but the contractual responsibility for delivery will rest with the prime supplier. 8. How do MOJ currently manage the vendors work and delivery of set work? Is there a process in place which identifies what work is in progress, what is in test and what is completed? The majority of work is delivered by vendors/suppliers against defined and agreed project plans, following standard processes and procedures for (project) delivery. Delivery is managed and supported by a combination of civil servants and interim resources depending on the nature and duration of the project or work stream. It is the delivery management and project support that is required, to ensure that the outcomes meet the requirements of the MoJ. Work in progress, test and completed status (and relevance) will depend on the specific activity and managed against a plan to deliver the desired outcome. 9. Would there be the possibility of the vendor supplying access to data-points which we could use to report on the health of the project. We see things such as work delivered, work in progress, work blocked, automated testing reports, number of errors logged for a release. This might be possible but depends on the Vendor having this feature in their delivery and how Data Point access is dealt with in their contract . The MoJ is always interested dealing with issues such as this in an innovative way in order to deliver value and improve outcomes 10. How do MOJ and the vendor collaborate together? Is there a central place for communication relating to the project. Is there a document store for trading and storing documents securely. The MoJ has several methods to share documentation centrally and securely between relevant parties.. 11. The background document https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i5SVrdwxc2a9cnmMlUMTFjSa8ApHS-R5iEjFYwG-SWg/edit?usp=sharing is very light (just 1 page) and doesn't tell us anything about the projects. Are there some pages missing? No pages are missing. This is meant to be a high level, background note. 12. What technologies are currently in use, which will remain and which will be replaced? For the ones that are being replaced which technologies have you chosen to replace them? This will be different to each project and a specific technology will be agreed during each phase with the chosen supplier or during the technology selection process. This DOS Requirement is about delivering outcomes and is not focussed on the technical aspects of the solution. However, as a project or work stream progresses, there will sometimes be a need to reassess or review the technology or architecture. So the ability to support this activity is important. 13. Who are the existing suppliers that we will need to work with? How do they work (e.g. waterfall, agile)? Are they on-site or remote? How many people do they each have working on the programme/portfolio? There is a wide mix of suppliers from large multi-national organisations to SMEs. The approach to work includes waterfall and agile, and is dependent on the suitability to that approach to deliver the best value outcome to the MoJ. There is a combination of on-site and remote workers, and the successful bidder will need to able to work with varied suppliers, approaches and locations. 14. Is it MoJ's expectation that this solution will be a commercial off the shelf product or will there be an element of bespoke development required? This is an outcome based requirement focused on the management of delivery and working with suppliers who will provide the solution, system or service. If tools are required to support delivery outcomes, it would be expected, but not mandated, these would be commercial “off the shelf” products. 15. Please could you explain how you will carry out the financial evaluation at tender stage, as you have not yet provided enough detail for us to develop a cost for an outcome? If there is a pricing template, or an additional background document, could you please provide it now to inform our bid/no bid decision? A financial template will be given at the proposal stage to those suppliers we shortlist, based on their initial responses to the essential, nice to have and cultural fit questions. 16. If we put together a team of SMEs with the capability and capacity to deliver this work (i.e. a prime and number of subcontractors), how would you like us to explain this relationship to you within the 100 word answers? Can we provide a separate statement which explains the team structure and how it maps to the evidence? If yes please provide an email address to submit this to (as we will have no method of asking follow up questions after today). We do not expect a full proposal at this stage and cannot accept separate statements from suppliers. Those suppliers who are shortlisted will be allowed to give a full proposal, with supporting evidence. 17. In your essential skill question "Project support experience for complex and diverse projects" could you please clarify whether you mean a single diverse project or multiple projects that are diverse from each other? Thank you. Multiple projects and work streams, of a diverse nature. For example, infrastructure, electronic data interface, development, video etc. - elements of which might be in a single projects across a number of work streams, or be a project of that specific nature only. The bidders should have experience of working with them all.