Agile development of a replacement for Key to Success and School to School

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done Data is vital to the DfE achieving its overall vision of improving educational outcomes. Across DfE there are a number of different systems for learning providers to access and share learner information in a secure manner. These date back many years; involve business processes which are manually intensive and that by nature are incapable of meeting our users needs. We want to provide our users with a modern, intuitive and secure digital service through which they can access the learner information they are permitted to see and transfer data to other providers as their learners move around the education sector. Problem to Be Solved To develop a replacement for the ageing existing applications that are used to meet our users needs - Key to Success and School to School. The new service must meet GDS digital service standards and needs to be: - Flexible, - Intuitive, - Scalable, - Cost-effective, - Secure, - Reliable - Responsive Who Are the Users Our main users are childrens services and learner providers including early years settings, schools, local authorities, academy trusts, along with further and higher education establishments. The existing systems have a shared user base of around 60,000 users. They use the systems to transfer pupil information in the form of common transfer files from the current school to a successor inline with pupil movement and to view selected attainment history about that pupil to support the development of a tailored curriculum plan. Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done We have completed a discovery to confirm there is a genuine and persisting need for this type of service which does not exist elsewhere within government or the wider education sector. Existing Team The digital team is in Data Directorate. Currently it comprises of civil servants filling the service owner, delivery/product manager and business analyst roles. There may be provision for further non-technical roles to be resourced internally but we would like interested suppliers to provide bids for covering the roles of a standard agile multi disciplinary team as defined by the Government Digital Service service manual (including user researcher and UX design). The supplier will also be expected to work with the wider Department Technology Directorate Dev and Cloud Ops teams who are responsible for maintaining the DfE infrastructure. Current Phase Alpha Work Location All resource must be based within the EEA, unless the Authority agrees in advance in writing. All resource must be able to travel to DfE locations as required, including: LONDON: Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BT COVENTRY: 53-55 Butts Road, Earlsdon Park, Coventry, CV1 3BH SHEFFIELD: 2 St Paul's Place, 125 Norfolk Street, Sheffield, S1 2FJ DARLINGTON: Bishopsgate House, Feethams, Darlington, DL1 5QE MANCHESTER: Piccadilly Gate, Store Street, Manchester, M1 2WD Travel & subsistence to and from DfE premises can be claimed when approved and in-line with Departmental policy. Working Arrangments Remote working is acceptable but the supplier will be expected to collaborate with the wider team using our tools of choice (currently, O365, Teams, Slack, Azure DevOps, Zoom, Trello and Google Drive/Hangouts). The scrum teams will work in two-week sprint cycles. High-level priorities will be managed month-by-month by the product manager distilled to the scrum team during fortnightly sprints and monitored during daily stand-ups. Travel for sprint ceremonies and other key meetings may be required. Suppliers will be responsible for providing their own suitable work arrangements/locations in order to achieve the required outcomes. Security Clearance Evidence of BPSS clearance and annual certification on information handling and data protection are required for all contractors. Workers are not permitted to copy/remove or share any data owned by DfE, additionally suppliers will need to ensure that any system holding DfE data comply with the government security policy framework. Additional T&Cs None Skills & Experience Provide evidence of experience of using GDS Design Principles and Digital Service Standard. Provide evidence of experience in designing citizen-facing digital services. Provide evidence of experience of developing software that complies to Government security guidelines Provide evidence of experience of MS Azure: Hosting/platform/monitoring, Visual Studio Team Services, Infrastructure Automation, IaaS/PaaS, Blob Storage. Provide evidence of experience of implementing, maintaining and interacting with a variety of IDAM solutions and of developing software that complies to Government security guidelines Provide evidence of experience of using Agile/Scrum methodology to iteratively architect/develop high quality government digital services to GDS standards. Provide evidence of ability for all roles to work effectively and collaboratively with other delivery teams both internal and external to DfE to achieve shared goals and objectives. Nice to Haves Provide evidence of ability to provide and flex multi-disciplinary team roles as required in line with internal capability and capacity. Provide evidence of experience of leading, coaching, mentoring and upskilling people in agile techniques and roles to build agile capability within existing teams. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria How they will ensure they deliver services in line with user needs and GDS service standards, and not be overly driven by technology. How they will ensure they deliver quality service features which meet industry best practice. How they will ensure the solution (services) is flexible and scalable. How they will support the DfE prepare for service assessments. How they propose to work with any projects that have a dependency on the service How they propose to work with any projects where the service has a dependency. What risks and dependencies they have identified and their approach to managing them. Include security and protection of data, and risks to the DfE’s reputation. Availability, what will the hours of work be and how will these hours be. How they will ensure the DfE receives best VfM. How they will scale resources up or down based on project needs without any implication to the project, and the lead times from request to commencement of the role. Cultural Fit Criteria Explain how they will collaborate with the wider team whilst working remotely and the flexibility to travel for key meetings as required. Explain how they will coach and mentor DfE staff to develop and build capability. Explain how will they interact with the in-house aspects of the team and wider DfE. Provide evidence of their proactivity in managing risk and identifying potential issues and providing effective mitigations in a timely fashion. Confirm whether they have office space that the DfE can use for meetings with the supplier Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 45% Cultural fit 10% Price 45% Questions from Suppliers Budget range we expect bids up to a maximum of £800,000 for resourcing the team required to deliver the initial mvp along with estimates for additional phases throughout the life span of the contract. suppliers should include a break-down of their day rates for multi-disciplinary team members along with their associated sfia level or equivalent.