NLEDP 148 - External Systems Integration Team

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The NLED Programme will replace legacy data systems, such as the Police National Computer & Police National Database, with the Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS). LEDS shall ensure continuity of business services, and act as a platform for innovation to transform the way the HO manages and supplies data services to Law Enforcement Communities and other authorised Agencies throughout the UK and internationally. As part of that transition, existing legacy services and integration points must be treated, either transitioned or replaced, to sustain external business interactions and access to external data. Problem to Be Solved The transition architecture and approach seeks to minimise mandated external change whilst sustaining existing legacy interactions. Each legacy interface has had an interface approach/treatment/definition and dependency roadmap agreed with the respective integration partner or partners. Partners typically are other government departments, law enforcement agencies, and commercial vendors of services and products. The work is now to design (low level), build and system test each of these interfaces on an Integration Gateway ready for internal systems integration test by the programme’s lead build partner followed by external systems integration test with the respective integration partners. The work under this contract will include level 3 support (bug fix) of internal and external systems integration testing but not the management or execution of these phases. There is an incumbent supplier providing the current team that will transition out. There will be a handover phase during the first 1 months of the contract to the new supplier. Who Are the Users LEDS shall use its integration layer to establish information flows to support the NLEDP web application and API service consumers. In providing equivalent and enhanced services to those provided by PNC and PND, LEDS must also integrate with external parties using several protocols. This integration uses several Enterprise Integration Patterns, implemented in Fuse. The target for NLEDP is to reduce the numerous legacy integration points but, to avoid significant software and business change, NLEDP aims to support the existing information flows until external partners can modernise their interfaces alongside the necessary business change. Additional Information The successful supplier may also be asked to supply ad hoc short term supplemental resources in areas such as project management, business change, technical architecture, technical development, test, business and system analysis. Supplier’s may also be required to provide DevOps capabilities within the scrum team. The NLED Programme comprises a number of workstreams delivering using the SAFe method. There is a parallel procurement under TS2 which will put in place a Delivery Partner and Build Partner(s). Early Market Engagement Work Already Done The existing team has an Interface Catalogue and proposed treatments against each interface. The team uses an Interface Treatment lifecycle to articulate the tasks and products required to transition an interface and the overall roadmap of work. The work is related to the team size and the priority interfaces have been progressed through the design, build, system test phases; none have progressed to the integration test stages. All the interface treatments have been elaborated-documented. All development tooling and the components required for the scope of the integrations has been deployed to the development environments, which are under a controlled pipeline. Existing Team The ESI team has a Solution Owner and Lead Integration Architect and aligns it’s work to the overall programme increments and sprints. The ESI team will be matrix managed by the Delivery Partner (for SAFe cadence) and the Solution Owner/Lead Integration Architect (for direction, decisions, support and escalation). New team members will be expected to work within this context, sometimes dependent upon other workstreams for deliverables, content or assurance. NLEDP sits within the Law Enforcement Portfolio and is being delivered by the Police and Public Protection Technology department of the Home Office Digital, Data and Technology Directorate. Current Phase Not applicable Work Location The team is expected to be at the Home Office in Croydon most days, but may require some travel to external stakeholders. Some remote working can be accommodated where HO IT enables it. Working Arrangments The ESI team will operate as a single scrum team and maintain work breakdown and report progress in Jira. The supplier should provide team members with technical skills and a breadth of project and communication skills to plan and deliver the outcomes within the context of the team priorities. We expect the supplier to be flexible to our needs, scaling accordingly to accommodate the desired work. There are weekly team meetings, specific internal and external meetings that require face-to-face and phone interactions. Security Clearance Team members must have Security Clearance (SC) or be prepared to undergo Security Clearance. NPPV Level 3 is also required and new members will be put through this vetting. NPPV is non-police personal vetting, performed by the police. Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience Experience of operating effectively in blended, multi-discipline, multi-vendor team environments and providing a flexible resource profile that can adapt to demands across the engagement, taking direction where required Skills to manage personal and team effectiveness to deliver outcomes and necessary interactions with the broader programme Experience of successfully delivering multiple and varied integration points using common patterns and services. This must include meeting NFRs such as deployment in a cloud environment, security and error handling. Skills in deploying and configuring/coding in Camel/Fuse, Software AG EntireX Broker and Rabbit MQ. Skills in interpreting and declaring JSON schemas for RESTful resources. Experience in manipulating EDIFACT, XML, JSON in translations and transformations Experience of using message brokers and AMQP as an integration pattern to deliver an integration Skills in handling FTP and SMTP as well as http for interface transport Architectural diagramming skills to convey designs from various viewpoints Experience of providing Project Management for projects with many complex dependencies, internally and externally Analysis skills to understand and design against data, business and service requirements Effective communication skills to run workshops, elicit detail, articulate solutions, document technical material concisely and drive out agreements Ability to flex resource (increase & decrease) within the team Demonstrate experience of on-boarding and initial integration with existing teams Experience of designing and implementing security controls used to protect confidentiality, integrity and accessibility of data Skills to script and automate system testing for XML, JSON and EDIFACT data formats Experience of creating test doubles for System Tests Experience of executing and managing a test plan that accounts for and schedules iterative interface deliveries. Nice to Haves Experience of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) method of delivery. If not, then the supplier will be expected to train their staff in the SAFe method. Skills and experience in managing financial & contractual processes where change must be negotiated with and funded by Stakeholders Experience of Redis Cache and its various deployment configurations for persistence and temporary storage underpinning interfaces. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria Approach to the work, illustrating flexibility in team roles and multi-skilled personnel to meet NLEDP goals. How to be effective in a small focussed team Team structure Demonstrate Value for Money in your approach with transparent costs Ability to plan and anticipate for risks and provide potential mitigations Cultural Fit Criteria Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes Share knowledge and experience with other team members Be transparent and collaborative with colleagues and Product owners to make informed decisions Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers Adaptable and flexible people able to deliver against changing priorities of team goals as they evolve Proactive issue management, problem resolution and improving ways of working Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers No questions have been answered yet Budget range the roles cannot exceed a day rate of £1000.