HMCTS Reform - Virtual Hearings (VH) Development Service

Tender description

Summary of the work Virtual Hearings enables the move from traditional F2F hearings where all parties have to attend the court premises for the hearing to a virtual model. Hence we are looking for a supplier to provide development(s) team to build Beta products initally using Skype for business API's Expected Contract Length Up to 2 years. 1st SOW for 3 months, subsequent SOWs dependent on Agile phase duration Latest start date Monday 8 January 2018 Budget Range The anticipated Development service will initially consist of 1 team consisting of ( 1 lead developer/scrum master, 2 FE Developers, 2 BE Developers, 1 x Devops, 2 x Automation/manual testers). The MOJ targeted blended day rate is £750, with no single resources rate exceeding £1000pd. The total Supplier charge will be evaluated as per evaluation criteria %. During the contract period, the size may flex, potentially additional teams of the equivalent size and capability will be required. A team Code Assessment will be held as during the presentation stage to assess the teams capability Why the Work is Being Done HMCTS is undergoing an extensive reform transformation enabled by a technology work stream. The Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) programme of work is enabling the transformation of HMCTS Services. Current Court hearings typically require all parties to be present in a courtroom, with limited use of video links for defendants appearing from custody or vulnerable victims and witnesses. The I&O Programme’s main technology objective is to deliver efficient, proportionate and accessible digital components to be consumed by transformed services. These digital components are being developed within a coherent architecture which maximises their reuse across the services. Problem to Be Solved Court and Tribunal Hearings today typically require all participants to attend the court building and be present in a hearing room with the Judiciary. The reform transformation programme is delivering a component allowing appropriate hearings to be conducted by a Virtual court using application that integrate video/audio conferencing technology. The VH project, require a development service to takeover the current VH prototype applications which utilise Skype for Business (SfB) and work with the current project team to iterate and support a more robust and feature rich beta product integrating with other components and services. Who Are the Users The Virtual Hearings component will have many users, broadly these can be categorised as Decision Makers, Professional Users, Citizens, supporters and observers. Users will engage in Hearings via the VH Applications on devices that support web based and or enterprise video conferencing technology . VH are an alternative to Face to Face hearings for appropriate case types where all participants are able to use the VH channel, and are not at risk of being disadvantaged by appearing virtually. The VH application will provide a sophisticated on the day management concierge capability to support users Work Already Done During the current Alpha phase Microsoft consulting services are developing a pilot Prototype that utilises Skype for Business online, deployed on HMCTS Azure platform the prototype currently provides a platform for User testing This tender focuses on the following Beta activities : - Delivery of additional features from the Alpha product backlog - Integration and operational enhancements - Supporting a live Pilot of the VH service (private beta) in Q1/18 - Hardening and assurance improvement for a public Beta to start mid 2018 Existing Team The existing team is a blend of internal staff and external contractors/consultants from a range of suppliers. The Virtual Hearings team includes several user experience, content design, research and Business Analysis roles, each with a primary alignment to one of the functional themes whilst also supporting colleagues working on the other themes. The team also consists of Service and Project Management, a Solution Architect and a Delivery Manager. Current Phase Alpha Skills & Experience • Demonstrate experience of developing bespoke products for commercial clients with O365, SfB online, Skype Web SDK, Skype Client SDK, with referenceable case studies. Provide reference details (10%) • Demonstrate experience developing Services for the Microsoft Azure PaaS Platform, including Azure AD, Azure App Services, Azure Functions, Azure Key Vault and Azure SQL Databases and MS Graph (10%) • Demonstrate experience developing with Visual Studio 2017 and .Net Framework,ASP.MVC, ASP.NET Web API, ASP.NET SignalR, Entity Framework (ORM framework), Unity (dependency injection container), Bootstrap & JQuery (10%) • Demonstrable experience in implementing Skype based Services using Skype Trusted Application API and Unified Communication Web API (UCWA) Meeting Scheduler API, SignalR / web sockets technology (5%) • Demonstrate you have sufficiently experienced resources available to commence work on contract award in Jan 2018, and are able to maintain the team composition and core capabilities throughout (5%) • Demonstrate experience of the following: VSTS, Ansible, PowerShell, CI tooling, Opensource Libraries and their controls, ARM (IaC), Application Insights, Redis Cache, Storage Queues, WAF SDK (2%) • Experience in DevOps technology using the Azure Portal and deploying Applications to Azure Services (App Service, Web Job, Function) using Visual Studio Online and AzureRM Scripts. (2%) Nice to Haves • Have demonstrable experience in web application server-side development, including ASP.Net Web API, Entity Framework. Knowledge of Dependency Injection would be advantageous. (2%) • Have demonstrable experience in building services and micro services with RESTful APIs using C#, ASP.NET Web API (1%) • Demonstrable experience in Front End web application development using HTML5, CSS 3, SASS, JavaScript (ECMA 5/6/7), TypeScript, Angular JS (1%) • Demonstrable experience building semantic and accessible UI code to at least W3C AA standard for accessibility (1%) • Demonstrable experience in code analysis and security functions; SonarQube, FXCop, StyleCop, JSLint, FXCop for SDL, SSL, TLS, enterprise-grade, standards-based authentication mechanisms, OWASP, Telemetry, Cryptography, SQL Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) (1%) Work Location 102 Petty France, London, SW1H 9AJ (the 'Base location', although some UK Travel may be expected) The authority may consider suppliers hosting project teams at their own premises. Any benefits offered by suppliers in this scenario should be reflected in the value for money section of the written proposal. Working Arrangments The Service is being delivered against the GDS Service Manual using SAFe. SoW/Work-Orders will be issued to define the development outcomes of each project phase. The suppliers team will initially be required to work onsite at the base location working a (5) day week. For works performed at a non Base location (or the supplier's own premises) and London (outside of the M25), all reasonable travel and expenses costs shall be met in accordance with the rates set out in the MoJ travel and subsistence policy. All expenses will require prior approval from HMCTS. Security Clearance Baseline Personnel Security Check (BPSS) which must be dated within three months of the start date. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-baseline-personnel-security-standard for further guidance. Additional T&Cs All expenses shall adhere to the Ministry of Justice standard Travel and Subsistence policy. Expenses to Base Location of works will not be paid, nor expenses within London M25 location No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Explain your overall Development Approach and Delivery Methodology(1%) • Provide named individuals and cv's to meet the initial team required in January; demonstrating experience of working in agile multi-vendor teams(3%) • Describe how will you ensure that HMCTS is supplied with high quality and appropriately skilled team specialists, whilst minimising HMCTS's effort in screening the proposed team members(3%) • Describe your approach to adding, replacing and rotating new team members, within a 2 week notice period, to the existing team without reducing the teams velocity(2%) • Provide three referenceable client focussed case studies where your company have provided the desired service capability; please identify the proposed team member(s) that were part of the delivery team(5%) • Describe how you intend to measure and manage quality and speed of delivery within the team to ensure continuous improvement(2%) • Propose your approach for enabling digital teams, delivering capability and ensuring that knowledge transfer is conducted during handover of project outputs to the HMCTS BAU maintenance team(2%) • Give examples of KPIs and SLAs that you would be prepared to commit to for this contract, including ability to provide high calibre substitutes/replacements within 2 weeks (2%) • Explain the Value Proposition; value for Money, how the proposal will optimise costs, and generate savings. Demonstrate how discounts will be linked to volume and duration(5%) • Explain the approach for working with multi-vendor teams across multiple projects at different locations(2%) • Explain how you will ensure collaboration at all levels of the project and programme delivery between users, team members, and management. Give examples of where you have taken this approach(3%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Explain the approach for working with multi-vendor teams across multiple projects at different locations(3%) • Explain how you will ensure collaboration at all levels of the project and programme delivery between users, team members, and management. Give examples of where you have taken this approach(2%) Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 75% Cultural fit 5% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. You mention that during Beta, you expect "Delivery of additional features from the Alpha product backlog" Are you able to share the backlog features you are expecting to deliver so that we can identify relevant case studies for our evidence response? Thank you for your question regarding the Alpha Product Backlog. The backlog is constantly being amended and therefore is deemed as not relevant, at this stage, for the purposes of the tender. However, the Programme can advise the following Themes are to be further developed during Q1/Q2-2018 • Identity and access management (IDAM) integration • Administration features to input / maintain Hearing lists • UX Accessibility compliance to WCAG-2.0• Integration with external scheduling and listings solution and other common components• Product hardening NFR’s and assurance in advance of public Beta • Supporting VH Pilot (Private beta) 2. The last two questions of the Proposal criteria appear to be the same as the Cultural fit criteria, except the %marks are switched. Please clarify if this is an error. Thank you for your question. The MOJ can confirm this is a typo. The questions should read:1. Explain the approach for working with multi-vendor teams across multiple projects at different locations(2%)2. Explain how you will ensure collaboration at all levels of the project and programme delivery between users, team members, and management. Give examples of where you have taken this approach(3%) 3. You are asking for experience in a large number of specific technologies (for example five different static analysis tools). This risks ruling out suppliers who have experience with most of the technologies and would be capable of delivering the project, but don't 'tick every single box'. Would you consider republishing the opportunity with a focus on the core skills - the ones where relevant experience is genuinely essential to the project? Thank you for your question regarding the large number of specific technologies listed, and which of these are genuinely essential to the project. The tender lists technologies under two categories, “Essential” and “Nice to have”, the most important skills by reference are weighted accordingly, the higher the weightings the more critical the technologies are to the project. The 5 static analysis tools that you have called out are listed in the “Nice to have” category, carry a low weighting and will be marked adhering to DOS guidance; https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-shortlist-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-suppliers