Services to Support Digital Development of a Loans Assessment Platform

Tender description

Summary of the work SLC is looking to engage a professional Supplier to provide additional specialist application development and maintenance services to support and accelerate the delivery of specific programme outcomes for Student Loans Assessment Platforms involving enhancements to meet the current Policy Requirements for Post Doctoral and Part Time Maintenance Loans for 2017-18. Expected Contract Length 24 Months.7 months for the initial Statement of Work, optionally followed by additional SoWs Latest start date Monday 2 October 2017 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. 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 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 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) 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 Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you please forward the template for the pricing matrix mentioned in the DOS2 opportunity on the portal? Please note that the pricing matrix will be made available to those suppliers shortlisted for next round and is not applicable at this stage of the process in accordance with GDS guidance. Please ensure all future questions are process through the DOS portal and not direct to Allan Ferguson. 2. Could you be a little specific about the technical skills and roles you are looking for with this opportunity? We are looking for a software delivery service which can accommodate the technical skills stated. We are providing input to the service via SLC roles and we are looking for suppliers to propose the roles that they would use provide this service. 3. Please can you clarify what you mean by "A completed pricing matrix and sample cvs should be submitted before the deadline"? Is this instead of providing 100 word evidence against each of the requirements? Please see portal for updated guidance with regard to this 4. Are the incumbent suppliers that have supported the inception phase(s) eligible to participate in this opportunity? Incumbent suppliers are eligible to participate in this tender. 5. Can you please confirm what is required for submission by 30th August. Does a pricing matrix need to be completed, with proposed CVs submitted to the e-mail address provided? Or do we need to just complete the online DOS application by providing experience to the essential/nice-to-have skills, as per DOS guidelines? Please see updated advice on portal with regard to this. Pricing matrix does not need to be completed at this stage as this will be part of the evaluation stage. Please complete the DOS application process at this stage. 6. In the overview is states that the contract length is 24mo, 7 for the initial SoW; is also states budget of between £1-2M; is that budget for the initial SoW or for the entire duration of 24mo; if the latter, what is the expected budget for the initial SoW. £1-2M is the budget for the entire Workpackage. The initial SoW of 7 Months is expected to be in the order of £0.6M - £0.9M 7. Under Work Setup the location is stated as Glasgow (multiple sites) and potentially Darlington. What is the expected split between your Bothwell St and Carnegie Rd offices, and the probability of development extending to Darlington. Are you open to negotiation on number of days that must be spent on-site. "For the initial Statement of Work the Supplier team would most likely be based at our offices in the Cerium Building on Waterloo Street and/or the Europa Building on Argyll Street, both in Glasgow City Centre, however for both this and future Statements of Work there should be flexibility to work across both Glasgow and Darlington as needed.All work must be carried out on site and this is not open to negotiation." 8. Under 'Essential skills', question 2 states: "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.". Can you advise why this has been included if upgrading versions may improve overall outcomes? "Much of the work to be carried out is building on an existing system whichuses a number of older technologies. Given the timescales, the other workbeing carried out on the system and the likely risk and cost involved inupgrades, they are not seen as realistic for at least the period of theinitial SoW. As a result we need evidence that the Supplier has the abilityto work within these constraints and still deliver policy aims." 9. Can you confirm that you are not looking for a response in the box for Question 1, as this looks to start the questions for questions 1a), 1b), 1c), 1d), 1e), 1f), 1g), 1h), 1i). As question 1 states the answer should include answers to questions 1a), 1b), 1c), 1d), 1e), 1f), 1g), 1h), 1i). If however the supplier can provide "evidence of its ability/experience in successfully providing services, for delivering complex solutions to the public sector in policy driven environments" that fall outside these sub questions they may provide this also as an answer to question 1.