Home Office Border Client Side Architecture

Tender description

Summary of the work To develop, implement and maintain the technical architecture capability for Border Force Technology and its portfolios and projects in relation to Service, Solution and Technical architecture. Expected Contract Length The Service Capability will be 2 years from contract commencement date. Latest start date Monday 2 October 2017 Budget Range £4 million to £5 million Why the Work is Being Done The Home Office Border Systems Portfolio has a requirement for the procurement of a service to deliver Service, Solution and Technical Architecture Service capabilities. Problem to Be Solved A Service, Solution and Technical architecture service is required to deliver across the main domains of business, data, application and infrastructure. The Home Office is seeking capability across multi disciplines areas within the departments and programmes. Focussing on both technical architecture/design and also assurance of suppliers’ designs against requirements, industry best practice and HMG/HO strategy and standards; may include design artefact production for specific problem areas. Interpretation of requirements, ensuring the relevant programme provides a secure and value for money solution, meeting current needs and planning future growth and throughput, achieving HMG IA system accreditation marked OFFICIAL and above. Who Are the Users Border Force is a law enforcement command within the Home Office. We secure the UK border by carrying out immigration and customs controls for people and goods entering the UK. We Edit are responsible for: •checking the immigration status of people arriving in and departing the UK •searching baggage, vehicles and cargo for illicit goods or illegal immigrants •patrolling the UK coastline and searching vessels •gathering intelligence •alerting the police and security services to people of interest. The Supplier is tasked with transitioning the existing service to a disaggregated services model. Services required across the various service "Towers". Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done These Services have previously been procured via GCloud. Existing Team There is an existing team in place working within the Programme. The new supplier will need to work collaboratively within the Programme and other suppliers. Currently there are a number of Technical Architects deployed under various programmes. As and when there is a need for these services, a statement of works detailing outcomes and deliverables shall be execute. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Are you able to provide resources with 5 years experience and deep technical expertise across a broad spectrum of architecture disciplines: Enterprise, application, integration, information, infrastructure, data, business and service. • Provide demonstrable experience of technical governance within projects delivered to the GDS service standards and production of appropriate artifacts as projects move through discovery, alpha, beta and into live service. • Provide evidence of resources capable of shaping and leading the overall enterprise architecture for HO DDaT portfolios, programmes and projects using open standards (such as TOGAF) • Provide evidence of resources capable of developing, implementing and maintaining an architecture roadmap and the supporting implementation plan. • Provide evidence of resources capable of architecting modern SOA and microservices architecture, with structured thinking around technical recommendations and presenting to a senior audience. • Provide evidence of resource capable of architecting solutions within a large scale transactional and analytical data environment, utilising RDBMS and nosql technology. • Please provide evidence of teams of up to 10 people comprising of Enterprise Architects, Business, Data, Application, Integration, Information, Infrastructure and Service Architects can be deployed. Nice to Haves • Provide evidence of resources with experience of architecting, securing and sustaining enterprise solutions for on premise and large scale/hyperscale cloud providers. • Provide evidence of applying TOGAF and using Enterprise Architects tooling such as Sparx EA. • Provide evidence of innovations to previous engagements and projects. • Provide evidence of bringing thought leadership to the wider community e.g. technical papers, conference talks or on social media. • Provide a detailed understanding of detection services and related services. • Demonstrate experience of working successfully in complex public sector organisations. • Demonstrate success in the delivery of core infrastructure and/or distributed IT systems/programmes within the last 12 months. • Demonstrate experience of of transitioning services from physical infrastructure to cloud. • Proven track record of in a multi-supplier environment of bringing organisations together to deliver a shared objective. Work Location Metro Point, Croydon and Marsham Street, London, as well as other Home Office locations on request. Working Arrangments The Architects need to be able to operate within a hub and spoke governance model and with other 3rd parties if required. The team is expected to work across the multiple sites, the main site is expected to be Croydon and be available during standard HO working hours. Expenses will conform to HO internal policies and will not be payable within the M25. Security Clearance Service Provider personnel need to be compliant with Security Clearance as a minimum if working in Home Office buildings. Depending on the nature of the role, if escalated and/or privileged access is necessary then there may be a requirement and in certain circumstances, DV clearance. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • All essential and nice to have requirements will be evaluated further as part of the overall proposal criteria below. • Evaluation criteria have 8 categories: Specific Competencies 35%, Plan for initial phase 15%, Risk Management 15%, Ability to scale capability 10%, Performance Management 10%, Methodology 5%, Policy 5%, Security 5%. • Specific Competencies: Includes all essential and nice to have technology criteria. • Specific Competencies: Domain knowledge of business requirements and issues. • Specific Competencies: Ability to transfer to Business as Usual. • Security: Compliance with people security requirements. • Methodology: Agile - Government Digital Service. • Policy: Cloud - Open Source - IPR and Licensing - Technology Code of Practice • Delivery Plan: Quality of delivery plan for first phase of engagement and statement of work. • Scale Capability: Capability of increasing delivery or service capability in the medium to long term. • Performance: Delivery and Service management reliability and repeatability - Client reporting and Quality management. • Risk Management: Approach of delivering scope and scale of requirements to the overall contract scope and project plan over contract life. Cultural Fit Criteria Cultural Fit: Stakeholder Management - One Team approach - Development of Client capability - People Development - Innovation and Value for Money. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 65% Cultural fit 5% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. We are a specialist architecture company, who have worked with HO previously and are Architecture Delivery Partners to many public and private sector clients, but not Border Force directly. The Nice to Have section has a question "Provide a detailed understanding of detection services and related services", which could be taken as a blocker as it requests "detailed understanding" as opposed just some as a nice to have. Can you please confirm that this is a nice to have and will not be a compliance issue. Suppliers will not be excluded based on the answer to a nice to have criteria. Whereas a supplier must score a 2 or 3 on essential criteria to progress to the next phase, a supplier may score any mark and still progress to the next phase. Therefore it is not a compliance issue. 2. Is the role inside/outside of IR35? The intention is the provision of a service with defined outcomes where the supplier is responsible for deliverables, risk, and provision of individuals. If this was to be executed in this manner then it would probably be deemed outside the intermediaries legislation but could be affected by factors outside HO control. HO assumes no liability and will grant no guarantee of status. Suppliers should note that continuity of supply, resource stability, and management are part of the assessment criteria - excessive dependence on independent contractors may be detrimental to bid evaluation unless this is part of a managed supply chain. 3. What is the estimated day rate budget for this project, for one applicant? As this is an Outcomes-based service we do not have a budget day rate. It is based upon a service and a fixed price, fixed output type approach. 4. What is the estimated earliest start date for this project? The contract will start immediately upon placement. 5. Are we permitted to use contractors? The Home Office preference is for a balance of permanent and contract staff so as to ensure continuity of service. 6. Within the "nice-to-have" section of the skills and experience component, there is a requirement to "Provide a detailed understanding of detection services and related services". Can you provide any additional detail in regards to which types of detection services or systems this pertains to, in order to identify appropriate credentials and evidence? The current service is focused on RN detection, but Border Force continuously looks at the threat landscape and will add additional capabilities to protect the UK (people and freight).Border Force requests suppliers to cite experience and innovation in this area. 7. Could you confirm the size of the current Home Office Architecture team that the supplier team will be operating alongside? The supplier will work alongside a central portfolio architecture function of 6-8 people. 8. Is the requirement for a supplier to provide a steady state team on an FTE basis or will this be structured as a call off arrangement for work 'as required'? If the former is there an expectation on the supplier team size to maintain a continuous presence? If the latter is there a minimum volume of work that will be subject to the 'call off'? It will be structured on an “as required” basis; there is no minimum volume of work. 9. Will the successful supplier for this opportunity be precluded from working/bidding for other technical related work at the border / Home Office? It may preclude other work in Borders if there is a potential conflict between client side architecture and assurance & delivery. This will be addressed on each occasion and may necessitate an ethcial wall arrangement being put in place. 10. Would the successful bidder be precluded from undertaking other delivery work within Border Force or indeed the wider DDaT Portfolio during the same timeframe? It may preclude other work in Border Force or the wider DDaT Portfolio if there is a potential conflict between client side architecture and assurance & delivery. This will be addressed on each occasion and may necessitate an ethcial wall arrangement being put in place. 11. Does the Authority require the Provider to build or run an in-house Pen testing service, or to conduct internal vulnerability assessments as part of the service? There is no requirement for this service, but if the supplier is able to provide they are invited to describe in their response. 12. Does the Authority require the Provider to provide full Application Security services on top of the Architecture and Assurance services, including: the implementation, installation and management of application and infrastructure security components and services, e.g.: Web Firewalls, PKI and encryption services, Certificate Authorities, Anti-virus software, DLP and NIDS, etc. Or will these services be provided/delivered by the solution/application/infrastructure/platform providers? There will be a need to define the Authority's needs of these services and provide assurance. If gaps are identified, it may be needed to provide design expertise.