UK SBS IT18017 BEIS Primary Authority Register – Public Beta

Tender description

Summary of the work The Office for Product Standards and Safety (part of BEIS) requires a highly skilled, collaborative team with expertise to deliver digital services in line with the GDS Digital Service Standards to complete a prioritised backlog, pass Beta assessment, and prepare for transition to business as usual support. Expected Contract Length 6 months with the option to extend for up to 2 months Latest start date Tuesday 3 April 2018 Budget Range £220,000 to £270,000 excluding VAT We expect the first 3 months to be more resource intensive to deliver the prioritised backlog and pass the Beta assessment, with a reduced team for the remaining 3 months to carry out continuous improvements and prepare the service for business as usual support. Why the Work is Being Done Primary Authority (PA) offers businesses the opportunity to form a legally recognised partnership with one local authority, which then provides reliable regulatory advice for other councils to take into account when carrying out inspections or dealing with non-compliance. Regulators are required to use the PA Register (https://primary-authority.beis.gov.uk/) for many of their transactions concerning businesses participating in PA. The Register was redeveloped to support legislative changes which came into force on 1/10/17. Further development is required to complete the product backlog to ensure the Register continues to meet user needs and to prepare for transition to a steady-state public Beta. Problem to Be Solved Completion of prioritized product backlog to ensure the Register continues to meet user needs and preparation for transition to steady-state public Beta. We anticipate approx. 3 months development will be required to complete the current backlog. Once the backlog is complete the service will need to pass a BEIS Beta assessment before progressing to public Beta. The remaining 3 months will be spent on continuous iterations and transitioning the service to a steady-state ready for business as usual support by the end of the contract. Who Are the Users Example user stories: As an Enforcement Officer I need to quickly and easily find out if a business has a PA arrangement, if advice has been issued, and communicate with PAs about enforcement activity. As a PA Officer I need to be able to view details about my partnerships, upload advice, apply for new partnerships, respond to communications from Enforcement Officers, and apply to revoke partnerships. As a business/trade association I need to view advice and enforcement activity issued to my organisation. As a trade association I need to view and update my members list. Work Already Done The Register has been through Discovery and Alpha and is currently in private Beta. Beta has focused on delivering an MVP service. A product backlog has been identified and prioritised for development with the new supplier. Existing Team The current team for beta production is supplied entirely by an external supplier. It is a full multi-disciplinary team covering all roles to develop and deliver a digital service into public beta. For this requirement, the following roles will be provided by internal BEIS resource and the procured team will work with them: Delivery Manager Business Analyst Technical Lead User Research Manager DDaT Apprentice (supporting UX and development) Service Manager Product Owner Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Demonstrate how you will apply your skills and expertise to: • Deliver digital services that meet the GDS Digital Service Standard criteria and pass GDS service assessments and how this will ensure the successful delivery of this service. • Prioritise development using metrics and analytics and how this will ensure the successful delivery of this service. • Design and build services which meet accessibility standards to ensure the successful delivery of this service. • Develop prototypes (wire frames/coded prototypes/etc.) iteratively via user testing/research and how this will ensure the successful delivery of this service. • Develop production ready code in Drupal 8 (or equivalent) for public Beta/live releases and how this will ensure the successful delivery of this service. • Use automated testing environments and user acceptance testing and how this will ensure the successful delivery of this service. • Support the application layer by the test and implementation of upgrades and patches, and how this will ensure the successful delivery of this service. • Implement continuous integration, delivery and deployment and how this will ensure the successful delivery of this service. Work Location The primary site will be 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0EH. However, OPS&S have other sites including Birmingham and Teddington and the team may be required to work there on occasion to engage with OPS&S colleagues and stakeholders. There may be a requirement for travel to other sites to conduct user research and testing. Working Arrangments The team must be co-located at 1 Victoria Street, London and adhere to BEIS normal working hours (09:00 - 17:00). Suppliers must comply with the BEIS travel and subsistence policy. There is a possibility of travel for user research purposes, which could be anywhere in the United Kingdom (BEIS will meet any additional travel costs incurred away from the London office for the purposes of user research or attendance at other BEIS sites). Travel to Birmingham and Teddington offices should be expected occasionally. Security Clearance Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) clearance required. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Approach and methodology • Technical solution • How the approach or solution meets user needs • Estimated timeframes to complete the work • Team structure (with roles and responsibilities) • How risks and dependencies are identified and approaches to manage them • Approach to maintaining control, transparency and quality Cultural Fit Criteria • Demonstrate how you will: • Work with the GDS PaaS team and other delivery partners to ensure that issues caused in the wider live environment are understood, communicated and actioned to ensure rapid resolution. • Work transparently and collaboratively with Regulatory Delivery when making decisions throughout this project. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. What technology stack do you envisage this application to be based on? SharePoint Online? • GOV.UK Notify (open source)• Cloudfront (CDN) (Amazon platform services)• Route53 (DNS) (Amazon platform services)• Drupal 8 PHP app (custom code)• Postgres service (open source)• Flyserver (PHP) (open source)• Anti-virus srvc (PHP) (custom code)• Clam AV (open source)• Hashcorp Vault (open source)• S3 (Amazon platform services)• Vagrant• Docker• GitHub• Travis• WebDriver• IO/Chrome Headless• Travis• Cloud Foundry (GOV.UK PaaS)• Sentry• Uptime robot• SaltStac• AWS (EC2)• LetsEncrypt" 2. Would you consider an off site development in Glasgow, with weekly workshops in London, and scrums via Skype on a daily bases with the end users? We have used this model before for a £1.5m development in 2017 for a Government organisation. We have a 15 x Developers SharePoint team. No. We would not consider an off-site development team. The primary site that the team will be based is 1 Victoria Street, London. 3. Can the suppliers have access to ‘prioritized product backlog’ to estimate development time, as this is a capped time and materials bid? The prioritised backlog will be shared with suppliers successful in reaching the evaluation stage. 4. Is there any development (completion of user-stories) between MVP and private Beta? The MVP is in private Beta. This procurement seeks to complete the prioritised backlog, pass beta assessment, and prepare the service for steady state support. 5. Would the supplier be required to complete GDS Beta assessment before working on public Beta? Or would it be done by the incumbent after private Beta? The supplier is expected to work with Safety and Standards to pass a Beta assessment so the service can progress from private to public Beta. The service assessment will be carried out by BEIS. 6. Can you please detail the full-stack of technologies used? • GOV.UK Notify (open source)• Cloudfront (CDN) (Amazon platform services)• Route53 (DNS) (Amazon platform services)• Drupal 8 PHP app (custom code)• Postgres service (open source)• Flyserver (PHP) (open source)• Anti-virus srvc (PHP) (custom code)• Clam AV (open source)• Hashcorp Vault (open source)• S3 (Amazon platform services)• Vagrant• Docker• GitHub• Travis• WebDriver• IO/Chrome Headless• Travis• Cloud Foundry (GOV.UK PaaS)• Sentry• Uptime robot• SaltStac• AWS (EC2)• LetsEncrypt 7. How are you expecting to approach the handover/resource allocation between private and public Beta? We are dedicating the first half of this contract to deliver high priority items from the product backlog and prepare the service for public Beta; we will then work with the supplier to appropriately reduce the resource required to maintain the service and prepare the service for steady state support. 8. Would you please provide the name of supplier appointed for the MVP phase? The Engine Group Ltd t/a Transform 9. Apart from resource time for developers and testers, have you included cost in your budget range for outsourced testing such as load/penetration testing or would you see these as additional costs? We view these as separate additional costs. We do not expect them to be included in the specified budget. 10. You mentioned “current team for Beta production is supplied entirely by an external supplier” – Is this team expected to work alongside the new vendor team for public Beta? Are you looking for additional development capability with this advertisement or looking to replace the existing vendor for MVP? The new team is not expected to work alongside the current team. This procurement seeks to complete the prioritised backlog, pass beta assessment, and prepare the service for steady state support.