Redevelopment of the Ofgem website

Tender description

Summary of the work Ofgem require a highly skilled, collaborative supplier with experience in delivering digital services in line with the GDS Digital Service Standards to work on its discovery, alpha and beta phases of the project for our ofgem.gov.uk website. Expected Contract Length 3 months to cover 4 weeks Discovery, 4 weeks Alpha and 4 weeks for Beta. Latest start date Monday 15 January 2018 Budget Range £250,000 - £350,000 Why the Work is Being Done Ofgem.gov.uk exists to communicate our work to stakeholders. The website was built in 2013 on the Drupal 7 platform. We therefore propose to rebuild the website to: 1. Avoid a degradation of the external website, which becomes increasingly difficult to address as support availability diminishes and risks breaches of Cabinet Office requirements for gov.uk websites. 2. Improve user satisfaction towards the application, based on user needs identified in discovery. 3. Make use of better system capability in order to deliver measurable improvements in: a. System security, stability and speed and; b. Internal user experience (e.g. page and document upload process) Problem to Be Solved To ensure we do not run the Ofgem website on a legacy system, that has diminishing support and increased risk to reliability and security. We aim to deliver a working beta” new Ofgem website by end of March 2018. The choice of platform will be determined during discovery. Who Are the Users The Ofgem website caters for a wide pool of stakeholders, which include but are not limited to; Consumers, Consumer Orgs, Media, Government departments, Industry and Academics. Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done User research for internal content creators took place in July 2017 to understand expectations creating, editing and publishing content on the Ofgem website. User research for consumers, scheme participants and industry professionals took place in April 2017 exploring how users navigate through the website from the homepage, including barriers faced to accessing content. User research for prospective and licensed suppliers took place in September 2017 exploring how users navigate specific areas of the site including barriers faced to accessing content. Existing Team In house team: 1x Senior Content Manager, 1x Account Manager, 1x Development Manager, 2x Digital Communications Officers Current Phase Not started Skills & Experience • Deliver digital services using a multidisciplinary agile team consisting of at a least (1x Project Manager, 1x UX designer, 4x Developers and 1x QA tester. • Deliver digital services which meet the required Agile scrum techniques (as in GDS Service Manual) that meet GDS Service Standards and have passed GDS Alpha Service Assessments. • User research with range of users alongside analysis of existing research on the service to ensure good understanding of users and needs. • Delivering rapid development of prototypes created iteratively via user testing - based on Discovery findings to meet user needs (including assisted digital and accessible users) • Reviewing of existing technical architecture and making successful recommendations for legacy systems as well as suitable alternative solutions. • Demonstrable experience of a website development that has led to proven improvements in one or more of: user engagement; user satisfaction • Demonstrable experience of providing CMS strategic guidance. • Evidence of website development which supports photographs, video clips, other rich media as well as social media integration. • Demonstrable experience of redesign and redeployment of websites in a mobile-first manner; to include how this was done and the improvements in business outcomes; • Demonstrable experience of providing an easy-to-use, simple interface for website content contributors to upload, edit and manage content; • Demonstrate experience of redesign and redeployment of websites with a high volume of users and content. • Experience of working with Open CMSs, and ability to build modules/plugins/extensions to increase the functionality beyond what is available from the community. • Experience with integrating external services such as media hosting, document hosting, visualisation libraries and analytics tools into a CMs Nice to Haves • Demonstrable experience of managing the entire project lifecycle, including the planning, design, development and delivery of projects in line with Government Digital Service Standards https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-standard • Leading an agile team as well as coach, mentor and upskill people in agile techniques and roles to build capability within existing teams. Work Location Ofgem: 9 Millbank, London, SW1P 3GE Working Arrangments The team are required to be co-located with the Digital Team in London, Monday-Friday usual office hours. The project will follow the technology code of practice using agile methodology: daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprints, demos, retrospectives, show and tells. The supplier will need to take a lead by being role model in agile ways of working, and invest time in knowledge sharing and coaching to increase the capability of the Ofgem digital team. The supplier may be responsible for recruiting user research participants as part of the bid. Security Clearance Baseline Personnel Security Standard clearance required Additional T&Cs Ofgem shall have the right to terminate the Contract at any time, by giving 4 weeks written notice to the Supplier, and Ofgem’s liability thereto shall be for costs reasonably incurred by the Supplier up until the termination date. Suppliers must confirm acceptance of this term. All title to and all rights and interest in the IPR’s in the Services delivered by the Supplier for the Customer under this Call-Off Contract (or by a third party on behalf of the Supplier), and all updates and amendments of these items, shall vest in the Customer. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Approach, methodology and estimated timeline– taking into account pre-discovery findings, further user research and testing, GDS alpha assessment and planning for beta • Identification of risks, dependencies, and offered approaches to manage them. • Project team structure (with roles and responsibilities) • Proposed approach, methodology and timescales, including team availability and responsiveness; • Skills and experience of the team; • Value for money Cultural Fit Criteria • Demonstrate your approach to engaging with internal senior stakeholders undergoing cultural change and how this will support project success. • Demonstrate how you will work transparently, collaboratively and share your approach with the project team and seek actionable feedback. • Demonstrate how you will take responsibility to challenge the status quo and stand up for your discipline whilst involving staff. • Evidence of working with a government or organisation ; • Evidence of working with clients with different levels of technical expertise Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. We note that the deadline for questions is Christmas day and the deadline for submission is New Years Day. Given the intervening Christmas holidays are these deadlines set in stone?Considering that Christmas falls between the deadline for submission of proposals, is there any possibility that it can be extended by one week? The timescales provided are set by the system. Due to the holidays all questions must be received by 12 noon on 22nd December 2017. Any questions after this date will not be answered.Suppliers should ensure they submit a response by 29th December 2017 as due to the urgency of the work we need to make a decision in early January 2018 2. You've stated "The team are required to be co-located with the Digital Team in London, Monday-Friday usual office hours"; are you open to a mix of onsite/offsite working, or is this to be 100% onsite with your team? Subject to the rational and phases of delivery we are open to a mix of onsite/offsite working. 3. The current website is built on Drupal. While it is appreciated that final identification of a chosen CMS for the new website will take place during Discovery, at this stage have any initial preferences been identified? Whilst we are open to considering other platforms, taking into account the size of the website, our devolved publishing model, time and resourcing we want to see whether remaining on Drupal is the best option. 4. How much content is there on the current website that will need to be migrated (e.g. number of pages)? The migration of content will be treated as a separate piece of work so is not included in this project. The website consists of approximately 58392 pages and assets as broken down below:Navigational pages:Landing pages 28Structure pages 645Publication pages 11555Rich media contentDocuments (pdf, xlsx, doc, csv, txt, zip ) 43553Charts 138Videos 80Infographics 10Offshore tender maps 21Bespoke pages:Consultation pages 1735Investigations 70Events 150Key Terms 335Blogs 56Publication libraries 16 5. Is the GDS Alpha Service Assessment a pre-requisite, or can we be working towards this prior to starting the contract? We do not need approval for the discovery stage. We will get retrospective approval for the alpha stage and will need approval for the beta stage. 6. Has the internal team worked with Agile approaches before? Yes 7. Some user research seems to have been done already. Why the need for an additional Discovery? We would like to consolidate previous research and focus upon testing our assumptions on the existing site IA and taxonomies. 8. Will the service have to go through a GDS assessment? As an exempt site we do not have to go through service assessments. 9. Will the project progress to Alpha and Beta regardless of the findings of the Discovery? At the moment we are definitely proceeding with the Discovery. Final decisions on proceeding with an Alpha (and Beta) will be made on completion of the Discovery (these will be options in the contract with the appointed supplier) 10. 4 weeks for Alpha and 4 for Beta seems like a rushed development timeline. How fixed are these deadlines for delivery? We appreciate the limited time but have to keep to the deadline due to the urgency of the work. 11. Are there any transactions or forms on the current website? Does this include any communication via email or other channels? Ofgem.gov.uk is not a transactional website and uses notify me email functionality for consultations and investigations. See links below: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/investigationshttps://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consultations 12. Has GDS actually said you can procure a Discovery through to Live? Guidance from GDS suggests that you really need to establish if there is a user need for a website before procuring to build one: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works#stopping-after-discovery GDS recognise that there is a continued user need for the website. We do not need approval for the discovery stage. We will get retrospective approval for the alpha stage and will need approval for the beta stage. 13. Are you open to using your existing SharePoint on-premise farm to host your internet site and would you be open to using an accelerator product to reduce the amount of development time required? No we will not be open to using Sharepoint. We aim to maintain the technology code of practice by using open source products.See link below for technology code of practice. https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi_oY2AtJ3YAhVrDsAKHUROAksQFgg8MAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fpublications%2Ftechnology-code-of-practice%2Ftechnology-code-of-practice&usg=AOvVaw3wvuW6k670YRYvSj8_U7-C