Digital Services at the Border Programme – Big Data Capability

Tender description

Summary of the work Home Office Digital, Data and Technology (HODDaT), Borders IT require a Delivery Partner for ongoing Big Data capabilities to work on projects within the DSAB programme. Expected Contract Length 12 months + 6 month extension option Latest start date Tuesday 1 May 2018 Budget Range Budget Range of between £1.5m - £2m over 12 months (excl VAT) Why the Work is Being Done Digital Services at the Border (DSAB) is a major agile programme within the Border Systems Portfolio that is building functionality to transform the way the Home Office (HO) manages the United Kingdom Borders. The primary benefits of delivering DSAB are to: enhance the security of the UK; gather and act on data from those people and entities crossing the border, both inbound and out; and provide timely and accurate data to those who need to access/use it. Problem to Be Solved A Delivery Partner to increase its Big Data capabilities on the following projects within the DSAB programme: Border Crossing(BX) Advanced Freight Targeting Capability(AFTC) Advance Border Control(ABC) You will join a multi team and supplier environment responsible for managing the build, deployment, continuous integration of the project through development, test, and production. The supplier will be required to work to standards and practices set by GDS and the Home Office Centre of Excellence. Delivery Partners are expected to work as part of a delivery team focused on a specific outcome. They will be required to adopt common agile practices. Who Are the Users Users include Border Force Officers, Police and wider government agencies to secure UK borders, and detect criminal behaviour as part of the Home Office’s mission to protect the public. Work Already Done There are currently resources in place on the programme and there are existing services that have already commenced work and are live. The data platforms in use currently run on the Hortonworks Data Platform and now provide Beta services in the department. Existing Team The Delivery Partner will be working with the Authority’s incumbent development teams (both in house and outsourced specialists), with other areas of the portfolio and programme and with other Delivery Partners. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Demonstrate experience in designing and delivering outcome based services that meet both user needs and business requirements • Experience of designing and implementing solutions in the engineering and big data space, including ownership of the software architecture, design, technical governance and product choice • Experience in providing skills across various Big Data roles including Big Data Dev Ops (Senior/Junior), Big Data Developer and Data Architect • Experience of building and running highly secure data platforms using HBASE and Hortonworks Data Platform in the cloud. • Experience of delivering and running data platforms for both transactional (system of record) and for analytical use cases. • Experience of running / managing a data platform with multiple tenants and client applications • Oversee the integration of the output from the development teams for to production quality and the support of the live system. • Experience with Elastic, Knox, Kerberos, Jenkins, AWS, REST tools Nice to Haves • Evidence of resources that have existing SC clearance that will support the speeding up of on-boarding teams • Demonstrate experience of handing over outcomes to another team, including service transition Work Location The Supplier will be predominantly based at Home Office premises at Lunar House, Croydon, CR9 2BY, but may be required to attend Marsham Street, London, SW1; and MetroPoint , Croydon; Surrey; or other locations as necessary. Working Arrangments The service will be required to work to standards and practices set by (Government Digital Service) GDS and Home Office Teams. Resources are expected to work as part of existing delivery teams focussed on specific outcomes. On-site delivery partner resources will conform to prevailing Home Office rules & procedures. The supplier requires being physically on site Monday – Friday. Approximate hours are 08:00 – 18:00. Expenses will conform to Home Office internal policies and will not be payable within the M25. Security Clearance The delivery partner’s personnel should have Security Clearance or willing to undergo Security Clearance. Current SC can be transferred from a relevant Government department provided that evidence can be provided. Additional T&Cs These roles are deemed to be outside the scope of IR35 of the Intermediaries legislation. Candidates may be working towards obtaining SC clearance and must possess this by the latest start date. The HO may support the candidate with this process, but this must be in place by employment commencement. Candidates with DV Clearance have already undergone SC level checks will also be considered. Expenses conform to HO internal policies and will not be payable to Westminster, Croydon, Stansted, Gatwick or Heathrow. Those Travel and Subsistence expenses that apply will be payable in addition to the day rate. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Technical competence: Skills and experience 20% • Technical capability 20% • Governance 5% • Working successfully in complex multi Delivery Partner public sector organisations 10% • Approach to on-boarding of resources 5% • Value for Money 30% Cultural Fit Criteria • Proactive one team approach • Ability to be transparent, flexible and collaboratively work as part of a team with existing delivery partners and services • Problem resolution • Knowledge and experience sharing Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you please provide a high-level description of what Border Crossing (BX), Advanced Freight Targeting Capability (AFTC) and Advanced Border Control (ABC) are? What are the key user needs? Which key user needs have already been delivered and which are in scope for the 12 month contract? These services provide critical national infrastructure to protect the UK border. Further information in regards to the requirements will be provided within the RFP. 2. Does a supplier need existing expertise in borders? Not necessarily. We have specified the essential and nice to have skills and experience required within the opportunity for the initial stage. Further information will be provided at the RFP stage. 3. Does a supplier need existing expertise law enforcement? Not necessarily. We have specified the essential and nice to have skills and experience required within the opportunity for the initial stage. Further information will be provided at the RFP stage. 4. What are the specific roles and number of each role that a supplier is required provide? Is there a high-level view of numbers and types of roles that a supplier will be required to provide over the first 6 months / lifetime of the contract, if so what is that? Initially, For ABC - 1 x Data Architect; for AFTC - 5 x Developers with Big Data skills and experience, 3 x DevOps with Big Data skills and experience; for BX – 2 x Developers with Big Data skills and experience. All must hold Home Office SC clearance before commencing work 5. Do the BX, AFTC and ABC projects run a DevOps model? Yes 6. At a high level can you please describe your release cycle and testing regime? Does this differ between BX, AFTC and ABC in a significant way, if so how? AFTC and ABC have a fortnightly release cycle with a mature CI pipeline and automated regression testing. The data platform is currently not part of the release pipeline but is part of the automated testing. BX is in the process of migrating form Skyscape to AWS and will use the same processes as described above. 7. What are the job descriptions of roles that need to be deployed on 1st May 2018? Which roles and what quantities are required separately for BX, AFTC and ABC on May 1st 2018? Initially, For ABC - 1 x Data Architect; for AFTC - 5 x Developers with Big Data skills and experience, 3 x DevOps with Big Data skills and experience; for BX – 2 x Developers with Big Data skills and experience. All must hold Home Office SC clearance before commencing work 8. At a high level can you please describe your release cycle and testing regime? Does this differ between BX, AFTC and ABC in a significant way, if so how? Duplicate - see above response 9. Is the work in question on balance more biased towards 1) support, maintenance and minimal enhancement to functionality or 2) implementation of significant new features? 2) implementation of significant new features 10. Will the supplier be required to take delivery management responsibility, or are existing people expected to take delivery management responsibility? Existing resources will manage delivery 11. Are there any notable challenges on either BX, AFTC or ABC that Home Office are struggling to solve, which it would be useful that a supplier could help solve? If so what are these challenges? Further information will be provided at the RFP stage. 12. Have DSAB defined the target architecture for big data and analytics capabilities? How open is this for change? No, not defined 13. Are DSAB using Hortonworks on premise as well as in the cloud or only in the cloud (AWS)? In cloud only 14. Other than the Hortonworks data platform capability in AWS - what other AWS services are being used? Bidders should assume that all standard, compatible services are being used, e.g. Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, Elastic Search 15. Can the request for REST skills / experience be elaborated? Further information will be provided at the RFP stage. 16. Is there a view of the resource profiles and numbers required? e.g. across roles such as Solution Architect, Data Architect, DevOp Engineers, Security Specialist, Other? Initially, For ABC - 1 x Data Architect; for AFTC - 5 x Developers with Big Data skills and experience, 3 x DevOps with Big Data skills and experience; for BX – 2 x Developers with Big Data skills and experience. All must hold Home Office SC clearance before commencing work