Services to Support Digital Development of a Loans Assessment Platform

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done SLC's primary functions are to: • Deliver financial support to eligible students pursuing higher education; • Pay Higher Education Institutions public contribution towards tuition fees for England, Wales and Northern Ireland; • Supply information needed by HMRC to ensure repayments are collected on time from those due to repay under the Income Contingent Repayment Loan Scheme; • Manage direct collection of repayments for loans granted under former Mortgage Style Loan Scheme. • Undertake specific tasks for individual Devolved Administrations e.g. payment of Education Maintenance Allowances. • Undertake administration and payment of bursaries and scholarships to higher education institutions throughout UK. Problem to Be Solved There are specific Policy changes requested by Government that SLC are required to implement by Q2 2018 regarding Part Time Maintenance and Post Doctoral Loans. SLC requires a Supplier to undertake some development of Part Time Maintenance and Post Doctoral Loans Policy changes on its Assessment Platform known as LA Portal. The solution is based on an established architecture which is in the process of being replaced. SLC also require development of their replacement system Business Capability Foundation (BCF) which is undergoing a parallel stream of development pending a strategic review of the most appropriate platform to support SLC. Who Are the Users As an internal assessor within SLC I need to, on behalf of applicants, ascertain eligibility and entitlement for repayment, payment and lending capabilities, so that the appropriate processes and capabilities are in place in support of study. Early Market Engagement No early market engagement has taken place with suppliers for this requirement. Work Already Done Inception phases of both BCF and LA Portal are currently underway. These have been supported by incumbent suppliers and the successful bidder will be expected to mobilise and complete the delivery phase for LA Portal and assist with delivery of BCF (if required). Existing Team The Supplier will provide a managed service in alignment with the scope of works and deliverables as agreed with SLC. The SLC team will agree in advance with the successful bidder priorities for the backlog of features to be delivered as well as contract and project governance mechanisms , including Assurance and Acceptance of Supplier work and reporting format/frequency. Current Phase Discovery Work Location Glasgow (multiple sites), potentially Darlington site in future Working Arrangments The services to be delivered onsite within SLC premises and are anticipated to be 5 days per week (unless otherwise agreed with SLC). Travel and Accommodation expenses only will be paid (in alignment with SLC Travel and Expenses Policies) and only for sites that are not the nominated working location. Security Clearance All Supplier resources must meet the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS/DS) Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience 1) The Supplier must provide evidence of its ability/experience in successfully providing services, for delivering complex solutions to the public sector in policy driven environments, including the following areas: - 1a) Digital application development and maintenance (ADM) activities (including test and QA) - ADM Service - 1b) Programme, project and delivery quality management - Programme and Delivery Management Service - 1c) Legacy code development and management - 1d) Data Management, data integration, data modelling, - 1e) End User Provisioning Services - 1f) Configuration management, source control, standards for development & test - 1g) Demand Management, Resource Management, Planning, Change management, Delivery performance management etc. Governance Services (to be included in the overall service at no additional cost to SLC) - 1h) Java development and legacy Java versions including Java 1.4 - 1i) Oracle Development (RMBDS, Application Server, Reports) in legacy versions i.e. Oracle 10 2) The Supplier must evidence their ability to drive forward existing architecture to deliver Policy aims, including on legacy platforms without the need to force version upgrades. 3) The supplier must evidence ability and experience to deliver outcome based delivery as a supplier only delivery team 4) The Supplier must evidence experience of working on systems heavily integrated into a complex legacy estate involving heterogeneous platforms and different delivery methodologies. 5) The supplier must also evidence their experience of working in contemporary architectures such as microservices, in mixed teams of SLC and other supplier staff 6) The Supplier must provide evidence of a track record of building service oriented and event based architectures 7) The Supplier must evidence experience of operating agile and managing significant backlogs of work across one or more Agile delivery teams, including knowledge sharing/transfer. Nice to Haves The supplier must be able to demonstrate formal adherence to standards for quality, security and service such as ISO27001, ITIL etc. Contemporary code and database development i.e. Clojure, MongoDB, Reactjs, Rabbit MQ Microservice frameworks such as Dropwizard, Spring Boot or other No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria 1) The Supplier must provide evidence of its ability/experience in successfully providing services, for delivering complex solutions to the public sector in policy driven environments, including the following areas: 45% - 1a) Digital application development and maintenance (ADM) activities (including test and QA) - ADM Service -1b) Programme, project and delivery quality management - Programme and Delivery Management Service -1c) Legacy code development and management -1d) Data Management, data integration, data modelling, -1e) End User Provisioning Services -1f) configuration management, source control, standards for development & test -1g) Demand Management, Resource Management, Planning, Change management, Delivery performance management etc. Governance Services (to be included in the overall service at no additional cost to SLC) -1h) Java development and legacy Java versions including Java 1.4 -1i) Oracle Development (RMBDS, Application Server, Reports) in legacy versions i.e. Oracle 10 2) The Supplier must evidence their ability to drive forward existing architecture to deliver Policy aims, including on legacy platforms without the need to force version upgrades. 25% 3) The supplier must evidence ability and experience to deliver outcome based delivery as a supplier only delivery team 5% 4) The Supplier must evidence experience of working on systems heavily integrated into a complex legacy estate involving heterogeneous platforms and different delivery methodologies. 10% 5) The supplier must also evidence their experience of working in contemporary architectures such as microservices, in mixed teams of SLC and other supplier staff 5% 6) The Supplier must provide evidence of a track record of building service oriented and event based architectures 5% 7) The Supplier must evidence experience of operating agile and managing significant backlogs of work across one or more Agile delivery teams, including knowledge sharing/transfer. 5% Cultural Fit Criteria 1) Give details of management processes and mitigations for poor service delivery, staff handover, turnover, quality maintenance and corrective actions. 5% 2) Describe how good performance is incentivised to ensure milestones are delivered on time. 5% 3) Describe how outcome based services are managed and tracked. 5% 4) In order for a successful delivery, what roles would you expect SLC to provide to support your team. 15% 5) Ability to offer fixed price for defined statements of work (after the initial discovery). 20% 6) Outline a proposed squad and how quickly you could mobilise a squad from the point of contract award. Also, how quickly you could mobilise a fully resourced team. 50% Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Case study Work history Reference Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers Budget range between £1m and £2m. for comparative purposes we will review resource costs alongside suggested profiles of teams a completed pricing matrix and sample cvs should be submitted before the deadline to allan ferguson (allan_ferguson@slc.co.uk) who should be contacted for a template.