National Careers Service Digital Developments

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The National Careers Service is implementing a new operating model based on investments in design and digital tool developments to enable more customers to self-serve. As the programme has developed it has become clear that further work is needed, both to complete the programme and to accommodate the growing backlog of developments, beyond the programme. A supporting service, the course directory service, is undergoing a digital development and this work needs to be completed. This serves not only the National Careers Service, but also the Apprenticeship Service and third parties via open data. Problem to Be Solved Ongoing digital developments need to be completed. New product developments need to be subject to discoveries and possibly taken through to alpha and beta phases. All digital products need to be compliant with end to end service design requirements, data and technical standards that are in place (and continuing to develop) within the National Careers Service. All digital products need to be able to be handed over to a live support team and be sustainable and supportable. We may also need to supplement the live support team in their ability to provide continuous improvement services over an expanding digital service. Who Are the Users As an English citizen (aged 13+) requiring careers advice, I need to: - Consume accurate and up to date information so that I can make informed career decisions, improving my future economic prospects - Manage my career effectively, so that I improve my social/economic circumstances As a careers adviser I need to: - Have effective careers information/tools so that I can help citizens improve their social and economic circumstances As a course provider I need to: - Publish courses which citizens use to develop their skills, so that their social and economic circumstances improve Early Market Engagement No, we have current suppliers who can meet our needs, but the contracts are being exhausted. Work Already Done After significant work on understanding user needs, we developed a service design and Target Operating Model to inform digital development. Product development comprises three teams working on the digital service. One of those teams is effectively managing the live service including a migration from direct-gov to a service domain. One team is delivering a service for citizens to discover their skills and careers and another team is delivering a replacement course directory service for FE and apprenticeship training providers to upload their courses / training provision. This work needs to be completed. All developments are in beta stages or live. Existing Team Currently we have: - a BAU / live service team; - a discover your skills and careers team in private beta; - a course directory team in private beta; - a data sharing team in live service; - a team preparing for alpha work in future access - a service design team maintaining the target operating model and experience maps and data standards These are teams rich in contractors sourced from different service providers, but there is a process to increase permanent staff across the teams. Current Phase Beta Work Location Cheylesmore House Quinton Road Coventry CV1 2WT Working Arrangments The team is to be co-located with other digital teams on-site in Coventry. There is also data that needs to be shared across different parts of the customer journey. There is a weekly scrum of scrums to coordinate dependencies. Products have to be constructed on the same azure/ sitefinity platform as the wider digital service and supported by a common DevOps team. Security Clearance BPSS and you will be expected to provide evidence of this Additional T&Cs Standard DOS framework and call-off terms and conditions. Day rates should be inclusive of any costs of travelling to and working from the base location. The cost of travel to other locations while performing ESFA work must be pre-approved by the project manager and will be covered as per the ESFA travel and subsistence policy and will need to be invoiced by the supplier with supporting receipts. Skills & Experience Provide a multidisciplinary complete team able to run a digital development through to completion Evidence of successful assessment by GDS (or equivalent departmental assessment) Be able to mobilise a team to work in Coventry within 2 weeks of contract award Full understanding and demonstrable experience in planning and running a discovery, alpha and beta development Ability to work with third party teams working for the same overall service to the same customers Provision of, or willingness to subcontract, subject matter expertise in relevant disciplines related to careers services Ability and experience in agile working Experience of compliance with the government Technology Code of Practice Knowledge / experience of working with .NET Framework, Core and Standard and Azure PaaS Services Knowledge and experience working with IoC and dependency injection and MVC, MVVM and Composite UI Knowledge and experience working with CosmosDB and SQL Server and WebAPI, Open API specification and REST Knowledge and experience working with Azure Serverless functions and App services and Integration patterns such as ESB, messaging, pub/sub, observer patterns Knowledge and experience working with Unit testing, TDD, BDD and OWASP Zap and HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript Knowledge and experience working with Authentication mechanisms such as OAuth2 and OIDC Knowledge and experience working with PowerShell and JMeter Knowledge and experience working with Browserstack and Selenium Nice to Haves Strong understanding of the Government Digital Service's design principles and digital service standard Ability to scale services up or down at short notice as requirements shift Knowledge and experience of working with DevOps functions Knowledge and experience of working with Azure search and Cognitive Services Knowledge and experience of working with Sitefinity CMS Knowledge and experience of working with GDS prototyping tools No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria Evidence of success in GDS assessments or confirmation of understanding and ability to do so Evidence of successful agile working Evidence of sharing developments and findings with wider colleagues and other supplier teams Evidence of effective working with third party teams delivering related services and how dependencies were (or should be) managed Evidence of working with technology standards and data standards already in place across a wider service. Evidence of working with a specialist subcontractor providing specialist skills Price (will be based on an illustrative proposed team rates and specified phases of work) Cultural Fit Criteria Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers, fully participating in scrum of scrum events To set up teams that incorporate specified staff as required by the buyer (whether permanent or from another contractor) Share knowledge and experience with other teams Share progress, findings and developments with other teams (including other suppliers) via show and tell presentations Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Work history Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers Budget range approximately 8.2 million over two years and across multiple suppliers