Managing research reports effectively (Discovery)

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done This work is being done as part of an early phase of the Better Information for Better Government programme. This is a cross-government initiative to improve how government manages its digital information and facilitates collaboration online. The Cabinet Office is leading work to adapt core processes and attitudes to information in departments to fit with new digital ways of working in the 21st century civil service. This discovery phase activity must complete by 31 March 2018. Problem to Be Solved Many government departments, other agencies and public bodies are responsible for large collections of research reports, many of which are not suitable for publication. Approaches to managing these collections vary in quality, resulting in sub-optimal exploitation of research across government. Who Are the Users As a public servant I need to easily and quickly identify, and then seek access to, relevant research held within government that may assist me in my work, so that it is informed by available relevant research. As an information management professional I need to understand how best to manage a research corpus in a way which is coherent across government to facilitate search, discovery and access decisions so that the value of government research is maximised. As an information management professional I need to understand how such an approach may be extensible to other information collections. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done A limited number of government departments, other agencies and public bodies have undertaken activities to work towards solutions to this problem. The discovery and synthesis of this work will be an important component of this opportunity. The programme team has an untested conceptual framework based on GaaP principles. The programme team has created a list of planned outputs and desired outcomes from the discovery phase. Existing Team The supplier will be working with a small team of Civil Servants in the Cabinet Office / The National Archives and possibly with other suppliers undertaking related concurrent discovery activity. Current Phase Discovery Work Location Interactions with the programme team will be in London and it is anticipated that a significant proportion of research activities will be London based. Working Arrangments We will want the team to work from their own premises, or remotely, meeting with the programme team weekly - at least half of these meeting to be onsite in Whitehall. The programme team will provide a point of contact for initial user research and other meeting requirements. Security Clearance Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience Have experience of working with multiple government departments / agencies on a single project (5 points) Have experience in successfully providing knowledge transfer to client teams (5 points) Have experience of conducting user research across a mix of general and specialist (e.g. KIM profession) staff (4 points) Nice to Haves Have experience in working with small client teams in 'start up' mode (3 points) Have experience of projects involving large collections of information assets with associated specialist meta-data (3 points) No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria Approach and methodology (7 points) How the approach meets user needs (5 points) How the approach meets your organisation’s policy or goal (5 points) How the supplier intends to ensure effective knowledge transfer (8 points) How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them (5 points) Team structure (3 points) Estimated timeframes for the work (2 points) Value for money (5 points) Cultural Fit Criteria Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers, in a self-starting fashion: not over-reliant on the small client team (6 points) Be transparent and collaborative both in decision making and, more generally, to facilitate knowledge transfer (8 points) Be comfortable working at the boundary between modern digital ways of working and formal procedures and policies (6 points) Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method Written proposal Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers Budget range the budget range is £80,000 - £99,000 excluding vat. travel, subsistence and all other expenses must be included in the overall cost.