Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI) Programme: Accessibility Features

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The EESSI Programme is a cross EU initiative to move from the current clerical process for exchanging information between Member States to an electronic digital solution that will: - further protect the social security rights of citizens who are mobile across Europe; - facilitate the effective application and management of EU social security law; and - speed up the administration and decision-making process for the actual calculation and payment of social security benefits, allowances and pensions to European citizens. Problem to Be Solved To deliver this solution within the UK, the DWP is responsible for deploying two EU built applications consisting of a shared UK Access Point to be used by a number of Government Departments and a Departmental specific (DWP, HMRC and DHSC) user application called RINA. For DWP, these applications are hosted within the Microsoft Azure Cloud. These requirements relate to the RINA component, i.e. the Front-End of EESSI, which users interact with and not the Access Point Component. The RINA application is not WCAG2.0 AA accessibility compliant and thus meet the accessibility standards required by UK Government Departments. Who Are the Users 1. Supplier to reskin/refactor the RINA User Application to fully meet Government Accessibility Standards within nine months of Mobilisation. 2. Supplier to work with DWP to clearly define the extent to which DWP can move closer to, or meet, the GDS Standards, jointly producing a GAP analysis and costed plan which DWP may select to take forward as separate work item. 3. Supplier to provide a costed plan for additional UI/UX improvement that can be delivered at a lower cost as part of this activity than in isolation, which DWP may select to take forward as separate work item. Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done To date, DWP have built the Azure Infrastructure and deployed the two applications. The IT Go-Live is March 2019 and the business Go-Live is April 2019. It has been agreed by the UK Programme Board that as initial go-live is small scale, the Minimal Viable Product will not be compliant with Accessibility Standards on the basis that a deliverable plan exists to remediate by December 2019. Existing Team The Supplier will work collaboratively with the DWP Programme team and will co-locate with the North West contingent. The existing team is formed from civil servants, Gov.co and capita personnel with support from a Microsoft Partner (Sol-Tec) for hosting and infrastructure deployment. The Supplier will also collaborate with HMRC Project Team and exceptionally with EU Commission personnel. Supplier outcomes will be managed by a DWP civil servant as part of a wider Programme Work-stream. Current Phase Not applicable Work Location The Supplier will be expected to be primarily located with the Customer on a DWP site based in Blackpool. Working Arrangments The Supplier personnel will be expected to be on site 5 days (37.5 hours) per week co-locating, collaborating and working flexibly with DWP teams. The Supplier will be responsible for travel and expenses to normal workplace. Any travel required in addition to/or outside of the location(s) specified in Location will only be paid if agreed in advanced and in line with the DWP Travel and Subsistence Policy. Security Clearance All resources must be BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standard) compliant or equivalent (or prepared to undergo clearance process prior to commencement of work). DWP would support an application however costs are to be met by the Supplier. Additional T&Cs None currently anticipated. Skills & Experience Experience of delivering Accessibility Compliant solutions aligning to stated EU, HM Government, WCAG and GDS specifications and standards in an Agile environement using JAWS; Zoomtext; Dragon; Read, Write, Gold Experienced (2-5 years) technical skills in Agile development lifecycle supported by references of deliveries they have either led or had significant involvement utilising JIRA; Confluence; and Agile/SCRUM. Experienced (2-5 years) expertise in Front End/Full stack development supported by references of led deliveries utilising Angular; TypeScript; JavaScript including JQuery; HTML; CSS; Bootstep; Node.js; REST; JSO; Git; IntelliJ Experienced (2-5 years) technical skills in developer testing supported by references of deliveries they have either led or had significant involvement utilising Mocha, Jasmine or Karma; Selenium; JMeter; Cucumber/Gherkin. Experienced (2-5 years) expertise in Front End/Full stack development supported references of led deliveries utilising Java8+/Groovy; Spring Framework; Hibernate/JPA; ElasticSearch; PostgeSQL; RabbitMQ; Swagger; Gradle; IntelliJ; Junit; Mockito; JaCoCo Nice to Haves Experience or working with the following tools and technologies: Linux; Docker; AWS; Jenkins. Experience of working within DWP or a comparable organisation within the last 3 years. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria To be set out in the Request for Proposal Cultural Fit Criteria To be set out in the Request for Proposal. Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method Written proposal Case study Work history Reference Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 5% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers Budget range not disclosed.