Develop a digital service to enable users to submit, view and comment on a Planning Application

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done Hackney Council identified, in consultation with its residents and businesses, that the current planning application process falls short of being a digital service ‘so good, people prefer to use it’. Research resulting from a digital design sprint validated the need for: - An intuitive and accessible interface to help applicants self-serve and improve submission quality. - Improved process visibility to make it easier for proposals to evolve and amendments to be made during the course of the application. - Significantly improve engagement between applicants, planning departments and the local community, resulting in better quality applications and more effective development management. Problem to Be Solved - There is insufficient progress tracking resulting in a significant amount of failure demand - Planning Portal hold national policies and without local policy guidance coupled with loose process controls and guidance many applications are arriving incomplete, inaccurate and unstructured data - Poor website usability and use of Planning terminology is making it difficult for the public to easily finding relevant applications and engage in the consultation process - The use of old technology such as pdf’s for viewing applications does not lend itself to helping the public understand the impact of developments. Who Are the Users As an Applicant, I need to submit an application so that it can be processed and a Planning decision made. As an Applicant, I need to view an application so that I can track progress. As an Applicant, I need to validate my application against local requirements. to improve the chances of it first time registration. As a Citizen or Consultee, I need to view an application and associated documents so that I can understand the development impact. As a Citizen or Consultee, I need to comment on an application as part of the statutory consultation and community engagement processes. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done Hackney Council worked in partnership with Future Cities Catapult and the Boroughs of Southwark and Camden in a digital design sprint. The Sprint identified clear challenges experienced and shared by applicants, citizens and planners nationwide. Two prototypes were developed and demonstrated to an audience of Planning and digital experts. More information is available: http://futurecities.catapult.org.uk/2018/03/12/blog-upgrade-planning-application-service/ Existing Team Head of Service Product Owner Delivery Manager Subject Matter Experts representing Hackney, Camden and Southwark Planning departments responsible for delivering improvements to working practices within their teams Other in-house expertise can be drawn upon: .NET developers, with expertise in developing API integrations Delivery Manager User Researcher Current Phase Not started Work Location Hackney Service Centre, 1 Hillman Street, E8 Working Arrangments We would like the work to be conducted as openly as possible, involving local authorities (via video) and MHCLG in Agile ceremonies, where possible. Therefore, whilst time onsite in Hackney would be beneficial, visits to other local authorities and Future Cities Catapult would also help. Security Clearance Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience Provide a multi-disciplinary team, including user research, service design, front-end and back-end developers Demonstrate a track-record of user-centred design and Agile approaches Have delivered a service that’s been assessed against a government service standard Demonstrate experience designing services for a wide range of digital skills and confidence Share their work freely and openly with the Council and the wider community Be able to build or design a tool that’s so good, people prefer to use it Show how it can support development of REST APIs to Hackney’s standards Experience of developing design patterns that can be re-used for other services Be agnostic of any particular software, enabling us to consider a range of options to meet user needs Nice to Haves Experience of working with apprentices - ideally from Hackney Knowledge of the planning system Experience of working in collaboration with a number of different organisations No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria Understanding of user needs from the service Clarity of the approach Experience from a similar project Team structure, including skills, experiences and relevance of individuals Identification of risks and plan to mitigate them Cultural Fit Criteria Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions Share knowledge and experience with team members and the wider service Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers Budget range £180-200,000 exc vat for the project, followed by support and maintenance costs for the live service (estimated at £10-25,000 per annum).