Discovery and development of a minimum viable service for Temporary Accommodation

Tender description

Summary of the work The discovery phase is intended to assess what’s required of the minimum viable product and the business case for developing it. The MVP will address a slice of prioritised user needs. Expected Contract Length 12 months Latest start date Monday 28 May 2018 Budget Range This procurement is for a total value of £140,000 exc VAT. We want to spend no more than £50,000 on the discovery phase and will then review the business case and opportunities for the minimum viable service, on which we’d expect to spend a further £80-90,000. Why the Work is Being Done Hackney Council has around 3,000 families in temporary accommodation, living within the Borough and beyond. The current process for identifying and inspecting the accommodation, allocating it to families and managing their rent is unnecessarily complex and time-consuming. As part of our move away from Universal Housing, we want to develop a digital service to better support residents and the staff that serve them. Through the Homelessness Reduction Act and the shortage of Temporary Accommodation, and it’s associated potential negative impact on outcomes, we want to support residents in finding viable alternative to TA - prevention and ‘move on’. Problem to Be Solved The allocation of temporary accommodation (matching supply and demand) is paper-based The process of booking someone in to temporary accommodation can take over 45 minutes The current system does not support any digital interaction with the resident Inspections of accommodation are entirely paper-based We may also be able to tackle: Payments to landlords are made via a legacy database Tenants in TA have no online means of seeing their statements or easy way to pay their bills Who Are the Users As a resident I want: - to know what’s happening so that I can plan my living arrangements - a clear offer so that I feel confident in the decision that’s being made As a team member I want to allocate Temporary Accommodation efficiently As a housing supply officer, I want to conduct inspections on a mobile so I can work efficiently As a tenant, I want to raise concerns about a property so that they are dealt with efficiently As a landlord I need to know what to fix in my property so that it remains fit for use Work Already Done The Council commissioned FutureGov to conduct a discovery phase in housing, which mapped the customer journey for ‘finding a place to live’. It included three product concepts: place finder - to manage availability of rooms case tracker - to manage the case and required evidence Rent management platform to view rent payments (which has recently been built for tenants and leaseholders) It has recently run an Agile, multi-disciplinary process to support the introduction of Jigsaw to support housing advice. Digital services are being developed to support housing services moving away from Universal Housing. Existing Team Head of Service (project sponsor) Product Owner Delivery Manager Frontline staff as required Current Phase Not started Skills & Experience • Provide a multi-disciplinary team, including user research, service design and front-end developer • Adopt user-centred design and Agile approaches, consistent with the govenrment’s service design manual • Have experience of redesigning a digital service to meet the needs of users • Understand how to meet the needs of a range of users, including those lacking digital skills • Be agnostic of any particular software, enabling us to consider a range of options to meet user needs • Share their work freely and openly with the Council and the wider community • Have had work assessed against a digital service standard (local or national) • Experience of housing needs service design and accompanying legislation • Ability to support development of REST APIs to Hackney’s standards • Experience of working with Universal Housing Nice to Haves • Promote user-centred design and Agile across the Council • Work with a Hackney-based apprentice • Experience of working with Mosaic - the social care system provided by Servelec Work Location Hackney Council offices in Mare Street, E8 Working Arrangments We would expect the supplier to work onsite for the majority of the engagement, enabling them to share their work with social care colleagues and test propositions with residents. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Understanding of user needs from the service • Understanding of the policy context • 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 • An approach that is consistent with the essential skills and experience 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 Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. How relevant is Mosaic (the social care system provided by Servelec) on this project? Not at all relevant. This was copied across in error.