Digitisation of UK State Aid - Discovery Activity

Tender description

Summary of the work The CMA require a supplier to work with them to validate user needs and to define -" To Be processes", the MVP and the high level solution design for the Digitisation of UK State Aid. CMA expects this work to be completed in 4 weeks due to legislative deadlines. Expected Contract Length 4 weeks Latest start date Monday 16 July 2018 Why the Work is Being Done The EU Commission is currently responsible for ensuring that State aid awards by Member States comply with EU rules and adhere to notification, reporting and transparency requirements. After EU Exit in March 2019 the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will take over the EU Commission’s regulatory and monitoring roles for UK State aid. The current IT systems for State aid are hosted by the EU Commission and after EU Exit UK specific systems will be required for use by the CMA to manage and regulate UK State aid and by UK Granting Authorities to adhere to reporting and transparency requirements. Problem to Be Solved The Digitisation of UK State Aid project will implement the UK State Aid IT Systems required after EU Exit. It has entered the Discovery phase and the CMA require a Supplier to validate user needs, define the “To Be” business processes, create a backlog of epics and user stories and define the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The Supplier will also be required to help the CMA identify gaps where existing systems can be reused and/or new systems need to be procured / built and define the high-level solution design for the new UK State Aid system. Who Are the Users The main users of the UK State Aid system will be the CMA, the UK State Aid teams at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Transport (DfT) and UK Granting Authorities. They will need to use the new UK State Aid system(s) to ensure UK State Aid awards comply with UK State Aid legislation after March 2019 Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done Pre-Discovery activities have mapped out the existing “As Is” business processes, identified the data elements on the input screens for the three existing EU State Aid applications used by UK State Aid Central Teams and Granting Authorities and produced an initial list of epics that will be validated and refined during Discovery. Statutory Instruments have been drafted that outline the policies the CMA will have to adhere to for regulating UK State Aid after EU Exit and the CMA Operational Readiness team is drafting the CMA’s Target Operating Model. These will be key inputs to the To Be processes. Existing Team The Supplier will be working with a team that currently consists of a Product Manager, Project Manager and Business Analyst. The team is co-located at the CMA’s offices in Holborn, London. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Give examples where the Supplier has used agile methodologies to successfully deliver projects (40%) • Provide examples where the Supplier has defined high level solution designs for clients (30%) Nice to Haves • Provide examples where the Supplier has produced clickable wireframes and/or prototype screens for clients (15%) • Give examples where the Supplier has worked on projects that have delivered solutions with data capture and workflow components (15%) Work Location Workshops and meetings with CMA and BEIS teams will take place onsite at the CMA offices at 37 Southampton Row, Holborn and the BEIS offices at 1 Victoria Street, Westminster Working Arrangments Client-side delivery and engagement with the Supplier will be provided by the CMA Project Manager who will provide the Supplier interface to key stakeholders within the CMA, BEIS, Defra, DfT and Granting Authorities. Security Clearance BPSS check completed by contract start date. Additional T&Cs All expenses must be pre-agreed and must comply with the CMA Travel and Subsistence Policy. All vendors must provide sufficient guarantees to meet the requirements of GDPR. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Examples showing that the supplier has understood the goals and deliverables required from the Discovery Phase (20%) • Examples that demonstrate a strong understanding of agile and core principles and how these were applied to successfully deliver a Discovery Phase (15%) • An example of how the supplier will ensure that the high-level design is consistent with the current CMA technology stack can reuse existing solutions / technologies where appropriate (25%) Cultural Fit Criteria Examples where the supplier has worked collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team with a client and/or other service providers (5%) Payment Approach Fixed price Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. 1. You have mentioned a legislative deadline for this work, requiring the discovery work to be completed in 4 weeks. Can you please confirm the timelines for the build phase(s) that will follow this discovery and when the actual legislative deadline is?2. Please publish, or send us, the telecom code details for the Q&A session. 1. “There is a hard deadline of end-March 2019 for the new system to be live. We expect the build phase for at least the MVP to complete by January 2019 to allow operational testing prior to go live.”2. Those who want to be part of Q&A session, please send me( as per portal's instruction) your email address where I can send the telecom details. 2. 3, Are you open to suppliers working remotely / from their offices, attending meetings when required?4. Do you have an incumbent supplier? 3. We expect the supplier to be onsite for key meetings and workshops. We would want them onsite for the first week to build relationships with key stakeholders and understand the work performed to date. However, we do not expect them to be onsite for the duration of the engagement if they are able to be more productive working on deliverables remotely / at their own offices.4. CMA does have a relationship with a number of suppliers supporting existing services. It selects additional suppliers best placed to deliver against the business requirement. 3. Please can you clarify if the requirement is for a supplier to deliver a Discovery or support and validation of existing Discovery work that has been and is being undertaken by CMA? • Can you summarise the current CMA technology stack referenced in the Evaluation Criteria? The requirement is to deliver Discovery by building on the work performed to date by BEIS and the CMA. 4. We'd see user research as an essential part of any Discovery Phase, and it would appear from the notice that some work has already been done to identity key users. Has any participant recruitment work been done or planned so far? If not, how flexible are the CMA on the 4 week deadline for this work, as more time may be needed to recruit participants and conduct the vital research. No participant recruitment has taken place or is currently planned. Due to time constraints and availability of business stakeholder we would like to keep the 4 week deadline but access will be provided to end users of the current system. 5. Please can you state what mix of people and skills you are looking to be provided? “We would ask the suppliers to propose a team in their proposal based on the skills required to deliver the products identified in the requirements.” 6. What is the budget for this project? What is the budget for this project? 7. Please can you clarify if the requirement is for a supplier to deliver a Discovery or support and validation of existing Discovery work that has been and is being undertaken by CMA? • Can you summarise the current CMA technology stack referenced in the Evaluation Criteria? The CMA is moving services to the Cloud and has introduced Microsoft Office 365 (E5) and runs a number of services on Azure. Azure Active Directory services support a hybrid ID solution using Federated ID providing an SSO solution and access to the Azure IAM services. Servers host applications and services on physical servers or on virtual machines (Hyper V) and databases are hosted on and on premise SQL cluster. The CMA is migrating to SharePoint Online to replace the existing SharePoint 2013 on premise solutions. Nintex forms and workflow are currently used to support existing CMA business processes. 8. Please post telcom details on the portal. Telecom details -You are invited to join an audio and web conference. Start Time: 2:30 PM Europe/London Jun 26, 2018 (Duration: 1 hour) To join the conference: - Go to https://conference.cma.gov.uk/call/0196684 To join only the audio portion Dial: main: 02037386767 extension: 6767 - Enter this access code: 0196684 - Optionally enter your personal ID: If desired, use the link above to create or look up your ID. Visit https://conference.cma.gov.uk/wd/en-gb/testbrowser.asp?code=a0196684 to test your PC set-up for compatibility with AWV 9. Can you summarise the current CMA technology stack referenced in the Evaluation Criteria? The CMA is moving services to the Cloud and has introduced Microsoft Office 365 (E5) and runs a number of services on Azure. Azure Active Directory services support a hybrid ID solution using Federated ID providing an SSO solution and access to the Azure IAM services.Servers host applications and services on physical servers or on virtual machines (Hyper V) and databases are hosted on and on premise SQL cluster.The CMA is migrating to SharePoint Online to replace the existing SharePoint 2013 on-premise solutions.Nintex forms and workflow are currently used to support existing CMA business processes. 10. We'd see user research as an essential part of any Discovery Phase, and it would appear from the notice that some work has already been done to identity key users. Has any participant recruitment work been done or planned so far? If not, how flexible are the CMA on the 4 week deadline for this work, as more time may be needed to recruit participants and conduct the vital research. No participant recruitment has taken place or is currently planned. Due to time constraints and availability of business stakeholder we would like to keep the 4 week deadline but access will be provided to end users of the current system. 11. Please can you state what mix of people and skills you are looking to be provided? We would ask the suppliers to propose a team in their proposal based on the skills required to deliver the products identified in the requirements. 12. What is the budget for this project? Up to £45,000 13. You talk about favouring a solution that makes best use of the existing CMA technical stack, can you give a broad overview of that stack please? The CMA is moving services to the Cloud and has introduced Microsoft Office 365 (E5) and runs a number of services on Azure. Azure Active Directory services support a hybrid ID solution using Federated ID providing an SSO solution and access to the Azure IAM services. Servers host applications and services on physical servers or on virtual machines (Hyper V) and databases are hosted on and on premise SQL cluster. The CMA is migrating to SharePoint Online to replace the existing SharePoint 2013 on-premise solutions. Nintex forms and workflow are currently used to support existing CMA business processes. 14. Are you expecting your BA, or the supplier team, to write the stories ? We are expecting the supplier to provide resource to review and refine the epics and user stories produced to date and document any additional high level epics and user stories identified for the MVP 15. Who are the users of the system? Please see the section titled "Who are the users and what do they need to do". 16. You've mentioned the organisations that your users work for but not their roles. Please could you describe their roles and what they will use the system for? Users within Granting Authorities will use the system to provide notification of new State Aid schemes, provide transparency information for relevant schemes and report on the amount of State Aid awarded annually against schemes. The users in the central UK State Aid teams will use the system to review and approve inputs from the Granting Authorities before they are submitted to the CMA. Users at the CMA will use the new system to review and approve new schemes, investigate schemes where more information is required, publish decisions, respond to complaints and report on State Aid. 17. If we do want to be on site for more than the first week, do you have space for us ? In principle, yes. We are aiming to have a dedicated project area within the building that will have space for supplier resources, but it would depend on the number of people in your onsite team. 18. Is the list of epics you mention as already having been compiled available to share with us? The current list of epics and user stories is in a format that cannot be shared on the portal. However, we expect that it will be made available during the second stage of the procurement process. 19. In respect of the work already completed during pre-discovery: - Are the materials produced in electronic format? If so, can the CMA please specify which format? - Is any information held within a specialist system design toolset? If so, can the CMA please specify which? - Has the existing material been produced by the CMA internal team or will knowledge transfer from a 3rd party need to be undertaken? Business process maps have been produced using MS Visio. All other documents have been produced using Word, Excel and PowerPoint. All existing materials have been produced by the project team. 20. Is this opportunity outside of IR35? Yes 21. Will scoring from the evidence stage be taken through to final evaluation scoring? As opposed to being used solely for the purpose of shortlisting. No the previous scoring will not be taken forward. However the provided technical evidence will be considered for overall evaluation 22. - "You should only provide one example for each essential or nice-to-have requirement (unless the buyer specifies otherwise)." Can we assume that by asking for 'examples', that you would like more than one example if suppliers have them?- Is this procurement purely for the Discovery phase of the project?- Price carries a very large weighting in this procurement, can we ask how suppliers prices will be evaluated in order to provide an apples for apples comparison? - It is at the suppliers discretion whether they feel it is appropriate to provide one example if they feel that it demonstrates their ability to do this work. However, we would not want to constrain them to one if they feel that supplying further examples would add value to their proposal. - Yes. - As published on the portal, all suppliers are going to provide fixed price so all the suppliers prices will be based upon their provided fixed price 23. 1. As part of the price evaluation, will CMA be expecting a breakdown of costs?2. Can we ask what the expected procurement timeline is? With key dates for proposal, presentation etc? 1. As the requirement is for a fixed price contract there is no mandatory requirement for a cost breakdown if the proposal is within the indicated budget. We would expect a cost breakdown if the proposal exceed the budget as part of the justification for the higher cost. 2. The deadline for initial proposals is 03/07/18. We will be looking to select a shortlist of three preferred suppliers by 10/07/18, with contract award for the selected supplier targeted for 13/07/18 so that they can start work w/c 16/07/18. 24. Will the resource(s) on Discovery be expected to continue through to Delivery? At this point we are unable to say whether the resources would continue past Discovery, as that would be dependent on the high level design and MVP defined during Discovery and the plan that is agreed for the next phase. However, if the selected supplier was retained for post-Discovery work we would want the same resources to be retained to provide continuity. 25. Whilst the work is deemed to be of 4 weeks duration, what is the expectation as to how many people can be expected to be supplied to do the work? That is at the suppliers discretion and should be outlined in the proposal with the rationale provided for the recommended team size. 26. With reference to the existing material that has already been produced, will the material be made available to the selected supplier in advance of the start date? Yes we can, 27. Are there resources from the CMA or BEIS with detailed in depth business and technical knowledge of existing systems who can provide support to the supplier in order to understand which parts of existing systems can be re-used? yes 28. What work has been during PreDiscovery? As Is processes have been documented for the main processes such as notifications and approvals. We have also identified the main components of the current systems and the system users. 29. Are the existing systems owned and maintained outside of the UK?Is the intention to replicate the current systems or are you looking to develop a completely new system?Does the sourcing of the funds for State Aid need to be considered? Yes, the existing systems are owned and maintained by the EU Commission. Whilst we need to replicate core functionality, we would look to consolidate applications and improve them if possible e.g. there are three EU applications used by UK users at the moment but we would be open to consolidating functionality into a single application. 30. Does the sourcing of the funds for State Aid need to be considered?Is the high level design an application design or business process design?What's your overall IT strategy related to this need? No. The sourcing of funds is not relevant and out of scope for this project. It is the high level system design that will identify the main components of the solution so that we can assess which components can use existing CMA technology and which ones we will have to source from the market. Where possible we would like to resuse existing CMA technologies such as O365 and SharePoint Online. We would also like to consider the use of things like Microsoft Forms and Flow. 31. Identifying the design systemIs there an expectation that the project will align with the Government digital approach?discovery phases for 4 weeks - what outcome are you expecting align with the current activityWe would expect that the supplier would have knowledge of GDS. However, please note that whilst this has been labelled a Discovery phase it is not a pure Discovery phase as defined by GDS and we are looking to bring forward some deliverables from later phases such as the definition of the Minimum Viable Product. 32. Is there an expectation that clickable wireframes will be produced?Do you have preferred tool for the production of wireframes e.g. Axure?How many users are there currently for the existing systems?What is the budget for this work? If possible we would like the supplier to produce wireframes so that we can give stakeholders visual evidence of progress and create an early feedback loop. There is no preference and we would not prescribe what tool the supplier should use. There are currently up to 1000 UK users per system.Up to £45K. 33. Was the Pre-Discovery phase completed using internal or external resources?How did you come to a period of four weeks for the work?Are the key stakeholders aware of the four week timeline and are they available? Internal resources only. It was driven my a number of factors: (1) we do not believe this to be a complex system; (2) there is pressure from senior leaders for the Discovery Phases of all EU Exit projects to be fast-tracked; (3) the availability of key business stakeholders who are on holiday in the second half of August; (4) we need to start development in September to ensure the system is available for March 2019. Yes.