Assess technology needed to support delivery of an affordable, efficient housing needs service

Tender description

Summary of the work A programme to assess, buy and/or build the technology needed to support delivery of an affordable, efficient, empathic housing needs service Latest start date Monday 1 July 2019 Budget Range We can spend up to £500,000 in each of the next two years. However, we would expect to draw this down in blocks of c. £50,000 in order to ensure we’re meeting the Service Standard and securing value for money. This budget does not include the licence fees for any software options. Why the Work is Being Done Hackney has one of the largest, most complex housing needs service in the country. We were well-prepared for the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act and used it to embed user-centred, Agile approaches across the service. Now we want to ensure that the flows of data and technology we use supports efficient, empathic delivery across the whole service whilst ensuring we can continue to iterate the technology to meet user needs. Problem to Be Solved We use old and/or inflexible technology to manage housing needs which creates inefficiency and additional concern for our service users as they lack clarity about their status and options. Who Are the Users - As a service user I need simple, intuitive tools to understand my options and current status so that I can live in affordable accommodation. - As a housing needs officer I need intuitive, efficient tools so that it’s quick and easy to follow legislation whilst providing an empathic service to customers. -As a housing property officer I need to be able to manage our properties so that we’re maximising availability for people in housing needs. Work Already Done We have conducted user research and service design across the whole service (attached below). We currently use a number of different software to deliver the service and these are also listed in the supporting documents but include Universal Housing, Jigsaw and TAPL https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1x5okvinSEu9aUofb4KXVPNOqUZhuBH5sOLQ3DI_21Gc/edit?usp=sharing Existing Team -Head of Service (project sponsor) -Product Owners for different aspects of the end-to-end service -Frontline staff -The development team available to write .NET APIs Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Have experience of working to the GDS service design manual • Have built a service that has passed a Government Digital Service standard assessment • Have experience designing services for a wide range of digital skills and confidence • Provide a multi-disciplinary team including user research, service design and development skills • Ability to support development of REST APIs to Hackney’s standards • Experience of developing design patterns that can be reused for other services • Agnostic of any existing software • Experience of behavioural economics Nice to Haves Have an understanding of Housing Needs and relevant legislative requirements Work Location Initially London Borough of Hackney offices Working Arrangments We would prefer a team onsite for 3 days a week, most weeks in order to engage with subject matter experts and ICT thus building broader engagement with the style of working (eg through show and tells). No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Understanding of user needs • Clarity of approach • Quality of the technical solution • How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • Team structure, including skills, experiences and relevance of individuals • Experience from a similar project • Estimated time-frame for the work Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes • Take responsibility for their work • Work openly • Hackney Council is a diverse organisation, reflecting the diversity of our borough. Describe how you would work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers in a diverse environment Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 7% Price 33% Questions from Suppliers 1. I believe that we at Light Media could build a Website with a portal log in for users and share holders alike. This could be configured for service providers/ support and for users. It could be used to track issues and remediation activities providing a summary of activity view. This would have prompts to action/escalation and be visible to managers. My Question- We could not place developers on site for the time envisaged. Our approach would be to gather information then build a specification that all would sign-off. So therefore is it worth responding taking into account this reservation The description of the above solution does not match user needs. The suggested governance (gather information, build a specification and sign-off) does not match our understanding of a user-centred, Agile approach.. We believe that a colocated team delivers better outcomes but would be willing to consider a mixed model. 2. The work summary says it is to "to support delivery of... a housing needs service". So, is the build/buy assessment based on supporting tools rather than an actual build/buy of a housing needs service? No. We don't know whether this is a buy, build or a hybrid project. We want to assess the existing market, understanding the suitability of COTS against user need and the technology code of practice and then be able to build solutions where there aren't options that are fit for purpose. 3. The advert mentions User Research and Service design has been done, yet one of the essentials is being able to do those things. Does the buyer need more of that, or do they ONLY want a team to assess those existing outputs and now research the build/buy options? We can provide user research and service design skills but would be expecting the supplier to have these available. Whilst work has been done, we will need to continue to use both skills to ensure any new solution met user needs. 4. Did an incumbent or an in house team do the initial phase for this piece of work? The initial work was led by FutureGov and DXW, supported by an in house team. Neither agency are currently contracted to provide expertise in housing needs. 5. Where does the existing.NET team fit in? If the outcome of this is to build it, would the buyer expect to use some/all of their team? If so, can the provide details of skills/capacity of that team as that would influence later Stage 2 pricing submissions Our .NET developers have led on the creation of our APIs and would be expected to continue to do so. Given the structure of the project we would expect to judge submissions according to the average cost per sprint of the proposed team rather than expecting bidders to correctly guess the exact team and skills required.