Enhancement of the Individual Electoral Registration Digital Service (IER DS)

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The IER Digital Service (IER DS) allows citizens living in the UK to apply to register to vote online. The service was implemented in 2014 and has four distinct user journeys for different types of citizen applications: the ordinary journey (representing the majority of applicants) and public servants who are likely to be posted overseas. Each application goes through a verification process to match applicants with data held by the DWP. The applications are returned to the IER DS with a matched or unmatched indicator and retrieved by the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to complete the registration process. Problem to Be Solved The new iteration of the service is designed to reduce operational overheads, drive efficiencies through the use of the elastic capacity of the public cloud and generally modernise the technology stack. Who Are the Users As a citizen I want to: apply to register to vote using the online Register to Vote service, so that I can vote in UK/EU elections As a local electoral officer I want to: receive verified applications to register to vote, so that I can ingest verified registrations into my electoral management system upload paper registration applications received into the Register to Vote service, so they can be verified through the same verification process as the online service notify, and be notified by, local authorities, when an elector has moved so that our voter records are accurate Early Market Engagement Work Already Done The existing service was implemented in 2014. In total over 38m applications have gone through the IER DS with over 75% of applications being made online. Existing Team It is anticipated that Supplier will supplement the existing internal team which comprises of; Service Owner (Constitution Group, CO) up to 4 days per week Business Analyst (Constitution Group, CO) up to 4 days per week Delivery Manager (Digital & Technology Team, CO) up to 4 days per week Principal Technical Architect (Digital & Technology Team, CO) up to 3 days per week The team operates with further delivery, operational, architectural and information assurance support from Government Digital Service. Current Phase Live Work Location ・Constitution Group, 1 Horse Guards Road, Westminster, London, SW1A 2HQ ・Digital & Technology Team, 50 Victoria Street, Westminster, London, SW1H 0TL ・Government Digital Service, 10 Whitechapel, High Street, London, E1 8QS Working Arrangments A combination of co-location and remote is desirable. We anticipate that workshops, demos and retrospectives will need to be face to face, and often on the Cabinet Office estate in London. Other delivery activity, agile rituals and ancillary meetings may be delivered remotely where appropriate. Security Clearance All individuals, including developers, with access to data, infrastructure, credentials, source code, architectural designs and other sensitive assets as defined by the Buyer must hold, or be prepared to undertake National Security Clearance to Security Check (SC) level or above, and be U.K based. Additional T&Cs The Supplier must hold Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO27001:2013 prior to commencing the engagement. Skills & Experience Recent experience designing and developing highly available, robust, resilient and performant public facing digital services that experience unpredictable spikey traffic patterns Recent experience designing and developing highly secure digital services, conformant with all relevant NCSC cloud security principles and the Minimum Cyber Security Standard Recent experience designing and developing services on the Amazon Web Services ecosystem with cloud-native toolsets, such as API Gateway, DynamoDB and Direct Connect (PSN) Recent experience designing and developing compliant HTML, CSS and JavaScript code, using techniques such as responsive design and progressive enhancement Recent experience designing and developing digital services that meet common accessibility compliance requirements e.g. WCAG Level AA and above Recent experience of service and API design and implementation using Play Framework (Scala, Java) Recent experience of designing and implementing services using containerisation and container orchestration (e.g. Docker and Kubernetes) approaches Recent experience of developing systems using non-native tooling and services e.g. Github, ConcourseCi, Flux, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk Recent experience designing and developing services using AWS Lambda (NodeJS) and serverless management frameworks Nice to Haves Familiarity with the Twelve-Factor-App methodology Familiarity with GaaP services e.g. GOV.UK Notify and GOV.UK Design System. Familiarity with the Government Digital Service Standard (DSS) and the GDS Way No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria Design and architecture Functional testing (e.g. BDD, unit testing, pairing, code reviews) Non-functional testing (e.g. load testing incl. serverless, ITHC) Compliance (e.g. DSS, TCoP, MCSS, ISO, WCAG) Delivery, reporting & governance Plan, timeframe, risks & mitigations Team structure, consistency & expertise Cultural Fit Criteria Corporate and social responsibility Working effectively within governance frameworks Working as a single collaborative and transparent team Taking responsibility for the deliverables Ability to engage with a broad range of stakeholders and existing suppliers Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Case study Work history Reference Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 15% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers Budget range up to £1,300,000.00 ex vat.