IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Tender description

The Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited (‘HESA’) collects a range of data from approximately 260 higher education (‘HE’) providers across the UK and is regarded as a global leader in HE data collection and dissemination. HESA provides data to UK government and HE funding bodies to support their work in regulating and funding HE providers. In addition, information derived from the data is published as official statistics in many accessible formats for use by a wide range of organisations and individuals. This contract will fundamentally redesign and transform HESA's student data collection and dissemination processes. HESA's vision is for a modernised and more efficient approach to collecting data that is able to respond to a wide range of data users. HESA's objective for this procurement was to create more relevant, reliable, comprehensive and timely information about HE for the benefit of the sector, and deliver this in efficient ways which will reduce the burden on providers. HESA's Data Futures Programme will redesign the way HESA collects, stores, analyses, and disseminates higher education data. Currently HESA operates 12 data collection streams which each have their own bespoke systems, processes and data model. The appointed supplier will: i) Redesign the way HESA specifies, collects, stores, analyses and disseminates data relating to students undertaking higher education (including personal, subject, course and module data); and ii) deliver the new collection system for HESA to operate (see the ‘Part 1’ requirement below). The solution is anticipated to be operated by HESA as part of its ‘business as usual’ procedures (see the ‘Part 2’ requirement below). HESA sought a cloud-based solution which is flexible and scalable so it can be configured in the future, by HESA, to support all HESA collection streams.