Scoping & design of 'Gateway for Growth' digital portal

Tender description

Summary of the work A Discovery is required the Government's 'Gateway for Growth' project. The Gateway for Growth will explore ways of aligning and expanding the HMG offer across trade and development. Gateway will streamline the way businesses are able to interact with and receive support from HMG by providing a single user-friendly web-presence. Expected Contract Length The contract will be for an 8-week Discovery with the option to extend if required. Latest start date Monday 1 July 2019 Budget Range The maximum budget for this Discovery is £80,000. Why the Work is Being Done Consultations with business highlight that although there are various HMG services on offer, they are difficult to navigate and complex to use especially when looking to trade with and invest in developing markets. Through a joint DFID and DIT initiative, the UK Government are looking to create an integrated user experience, potentially making use of DIT's existing great.gov.uk platform, to bring together all relevant HMG services to the private sector in regards to developing markets in one place to signpost and coordinate. Problem to Be Solved Supporting the UK Government to gain a clear understanding of how to best meet user needs and streamline the way the businesses are able to access support from both HMG services and those available in the private sector when trading with and investing in developing markets. It is our aspiration to create a single user-friendly web-presence, potentially making use of DIT's great.gov.uk platform. Who Are the Users The internal stakeholders will be various HMG staff in the Department for International Trade (DIT), the Department for International Development (DFID), the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). External users will be primarily UK and international businesses, including foreign exporters, importers and investors. Further users might include trade associations, foreign governments and consumer groups. Existing Team The successful supplier will be working with HMG staff from DFID's Growth and Resilience Department, DIT's Official Development Assistance (ODA) policy team, FCO's Economic Diplomacy Directorate, BEIS' Business Growth Department and the Overseas Africa Network. It will also be required to coordinate with DIT's Digital, Data & Technology (DDaT) team which will provide maintenance and support. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Demonstrate experience in the ability to identify user personas, deliver user journey mapping and deliver evidenced and prioritised user stories. • Demonstrate experience of conducting user research with businesses and civil servants to improve system or process effectiveness • Demonstrate experience working in a complex stakeholder and technical environment • Specific experience in delivering services that comply with legal accessibility standards Nice to Haves • Experience of working with multiple central government departments and/or their arm's length bodies. • Experience of working with international trade and development issues • Experience of developing and supporting government systems with businesses as the primary customer • Specific experience of delivering and managing content on GOV.UK Work Location The work will be carried out in DIT's office in London; 50 Victoria Street Westminster London SW1H 0TL Working Arrangments Co-working full time in DIT's London office 5 days per week is preferred, but flexible working arrangements can be discussed. Security Clearance Baseline BPSS clearance Additional T&Cs The Buyer will reserve the right to use alternative payment mechanisms e.g. Capped T&M, T&M, etc. for future Statements of Work with agreement from the Supplier. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Describe your approach to scope out a successful signposting, coordinating, user-friendly digital portal of HMG services in developing markets through user research • Describe your multidisciplinary agile team with the technical, UX, user research, content design and delivery record • Detail how you will ensure user needs are understood and met in the development and delivery of the service. • Detail what your Discovery report would look like and how you will ensure the outputs can be used for any potential Alpha phase. Cultural Fit Criteria • Demonstrate your ability to deliver in an open, collaborate, agile way according to the principles outlined in the Government Service Design Manual. • Demonstrate your ability to work and communicate with clients/ team members with low technical expertise. • Demonstrate your ability to be able to work collaboratively across several government departments. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 65% Cultural fit 15% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. What technologies would you wish to use to deliver the solution? We are, as a working hypothesis, looking to reuse the technology being used for great.gov.uk, however as this is a Discovery there is no real preference from DIT at this stage. The technology for great.gov.uk includes: Wagtail CMS, Django/Python back end, standard front end, all hosted on GOV PaaS. The Supplier will be given access to emails and other internal communication platforms so that they can share and collaborate while working. 2. Could you be specific in regards to what accessibility standards you are referring to in the opportunity? All government digital services must, as a minimum, meet level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1). Therefore, Suppliers responses to this question should, as a minimum, be able to demonstrate experience in delivering services that comply with WCAG 2.1. 3. Is there an incumbent supplier? This is a new piece of work, so there is not an incumbent supplier. 4. Are you willing to consider a primarily remote working engagement, with regular catch-ups via video conferencing and on-site meetings as required? Our preference would be that the Supplier's team is co-located at DIT's office in London. We would be willing to accept a different approach, however this would need to be negotiated and agreed between the Buyer and Supplier prior to contract award. If Supplier's wish to have a remote working engagement, then we would likely ask them to go into further detail on how they see this working at the presentation stage. 5. Please can you confirm what access we would have to stakeholders end users in order to complete this exercise? DFID, DIT, FCO and BEIS will make relevant internal and external stakeholders accessible to the discovery team. This will include private sector and HMG counterparts. 6. Please can you confirm, is the cost of participant incentives and testing facilities are to be covered within the £80k budget? All aspects of the Discovery are to be covered by the £80k. There is no further funding available for the Discovery. 7. Would you be prepared to share any user research during this stage of the bidding process, if any exists? There is no further information available to share at this stage of the process. 8. Will you be carrying scores forward from 100-word answers to the full assessment or are they just used for shortlisting? Yes, the scores will be carried forward. 9. Can you please clarify how you will be scoring this opportunity on pricing? In particular, whether this is done on the total proposed cost or is based on day rates. This will be disclosed to the shortlisted suppliers at the Request for Proposal stage. 10. Are you looking for a full-service digital agency team who can take the engagement all the way from Discovery through Alpha and Beta to Live, or would you consider a Discovery-only SME who would be unable to progress to future stages? This procurement is for the Discovery only, therefore we are willing to consider all organisations who would be able to deliver it. There will be no scores given to a supplier's ability to take on any future Alpha, Beta and Live stages. If these stages are required, they will be competed as a new requirement. 11. Given the multiple stakeholders involved, can you please confirm the sign-off process? There will be two routes for sign off. DFID will sign off as policy owners, and DIT will sign off in regards to the potential use of any platform(s). 12. Please can you confirm what the proposed governance structure is, for example will there be a product owner in place that we will be able to work alongside? DFID will provide a product owner for the supplier to be able to report into and work with. 13. What level of access to customer/end users can suppliers expect? Is this going to be facilitated by DFID/DIT or should it be include into supplier's user research activities? We don't currently have a participant recruitment contract that could be utilised, however we do have other routes available to access businesses for conducting user research. 14. What customer research and insight can DFID/DIT share with us at this stage? There is no further information available for us to share at this stage. 15. Could you please provide more detail around the anticipated level of involvement of the existing team, such as their roles and how much time they’ll be allocated to this project? There will be a product owner from DFID who will be able to work with the supplier on the discovery on a regular basis. DIT's digital staff and DFID's policy staff will also make themselves available to support research as required. 16. Do you have exemption from GDS to create a new, separate government website away from gov.uk? We are not looking to create a new website for this. We will instead make use of existing platforms on the back of the discovery outputs.