DfE Adult Skills Pipeline Capability Contract

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The Government has an ambitious adult skills agenda and is looking to develop products and services that support adults to upskill and reskill. Skills interventions need to respond to short and long term changes in the labour market, from things like long term productivity challenges to the very immediate response to Covid-19. To supplement our existing capability, we are looking for an experienced Supplier to work with us on research and development of a number of related products and services, in line with the government service standard. Suppliers will need to collaborate with policy professionals and work alongside other digital partner teams which are developing and delivering complementary products and services. Suppliers must provide sufficient guarantees to meet the requirements of GDPR in line with Procurement Policy Note 03/17 Changes to Data Protection Legislation & General Data Protection Regulations. Problem to Be Solved DfE needs a Supplier that can deliver policy outcomes through meeting user needs and the government service standard. Skills are an important driver of productivity and given longer-term trends towards higher employment levels we need to address the stock of skills in the workforce. That involves, for example, enabling individuals and organisations to understand skills needs; make choices about how to fill them; develop and deliver quality learning opportunities; application of skills - understanding user needs in relation to this, and developing a coherent and well understood offer to respond. Critical to this is making sure the incentives line up across the system: for individuals; firms and providers. We are developing solutions based on the best available evidence, and taking a test and learn approach to finding solutions to this challenge. Who Are the Users Products and services to support a number of user groups may include: Adults Employers (including SMEs) Employees and recently unemployed Potential employees DfE staff Providers For example: As an employee in an occupation vulnerable to significant change, I need to…. …. understand what else I could do, so that I can maintain secure employment. ….understand how to get a better job, with minimal disruption to my life so that I can take the necessary steps. ….understand what training and support is available to me so that I can secure a better job. ….access advice and support flexibly so that I can fit it around my life. As an employer with a vacancy, I need to find quality candidates so that I can keep my organisation running smoothly. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done An evidence review has been conducted to inform the policy scope of the National Skills Fund; including the design problem and the cohort. We have conducted extensive user research with employed adults and employers relating to skills and training, although this was in a different economic environment and with a somewhat different user group, so will need updating. To date we have not completed formally assessed discovery or alpha phases. Existing Team The Programme operates using mixed supplier/client Delivery Teams and the Department typically provides a Product Owner for each product line. There will be other Service Delivery Teams, working on associated product lines as part of the wider programme, with whom the successful supplier will need to collaborate. There is also a senior programme level service leadership team, experienced in developing and delivering services using agile methodologies. Contract and Vendor Management will form a key part of governance and suppliers will be expected to co-operate in a manner that fosters healthy working relationships and quality delivery. Current Phase Not applicable Work Location DfE Manchester and London co-located with Policy teams, with other locations in England possible over the lifetime of the contract. The primary base will be detailed in each Statement of Work (SOW). It will also be necessary to engage and collaborate with colleagues in other DfE locations and it is a requirement for user research and testing to take place in a number of different locations across England. Remote working is likely in the immediate term due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Working Arrangments We are looking for a Supplier to complement and further develop our in house agile capability in roles including; product and delivery management, user-centred design, user research and business analysis.The Team or individual contractors engaged through this contract will be required to invest time in knowledge sharing and coaching to increase DfE staff capability and knowledge transfer will be a requirement for each work package. The Supplier must operate using agile methodologies to rapidly deliver user-centred products and services which meet policy intent. Security Clearance Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) clearance is required for all team members. This will need to be in place for the contract start date. The supplier will also need to be compliant with DfE's Departmental Security Standards. Additional T&Cs DfE reserves the right to utilise any DOS framework payment terms at the point of issue of each SOW. Primary location in each SOW will not attract expenses. Any travel to other locations must be pre-agreed and adhere to DfE Travel and Subsistence Policy. The use of hyphens or slashes should not be used as a method to reduce wordcount. In reviewing proposals, we will refer to the Plain English Campaign guidance http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/using-hyphens.html on the appropriate use of a hyphen and may choose to remove if we feel that a deliberate attempt to reduce wordcount is being made. Skills & Experience Clear evidence of planning and delivering user-centred services including digital services using agile development approaches and continuous delivery techniques. Clear evidence of an effective approach to identifying and managing risks, issues and dependencies within an agile product team to ensure quality and timely delivery. Experience of user journey mapping and service design; delivering evidenced, prioritised user stories. Ability and capacity to be able to deploy multiple digital teams/roles (disco,alpha,beta) in DfE locations specifically in Manchester and London. Experience in conducting user research including working remotely to inform the design and developing of working digital services. Evidence, drawing on experience, of being able to provide suitably skilled, flexible teams, operating in a mixed supplier/client setting across multiple product lines. Experience of successfully working with in-house teams and other stakeholders with limited agile experience and sharing knowledge, coaching, mentoring and cross-skilling to develop in-house team capabilities. Experience of developing appropriate technical architecture to deliver high quality agile services. Evidence of successful delivery of digital projects to quality, in time and on budget. Experience of designing assisted digital support. Experience of collaborating with policy professionals to deliver services/projects that meet strategic intent. Awareness of GDS service assessments. Nice to Haves Evidence of successfull delivery of high value (£1m+) agile projects. Ability to present and communicate project update/outcomes to a variety of stakeholders including those with low technical expertise. Experience with Ruby on Rails, Posgresql, Redis and familiarity of Microsoft Azure cloud environment in a project delivery setting. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria Experience of agile technologies and practices with specific focus on Ruby on Rails, Posgresql, and Redis in a project delivery setting, and familiarity with Microsoft Azure cloud environment. Evidence of a solid understanding of agile, iterative, user-centred design and delivery and how this will be applied to deliver products/services within required timescales. Demonstrate understanding/ability to deliver products/services to government service standards or equivalent. Ability to provide suitably skilled resource and scale up to full team(s), flex resource or pause, when required, working across multiple product lines. Demonstrable experience of working alongside clients in co-located, integrated teams. Demonstrate how you would prioritise mulitiple concurrent SOW demands to ensure that there is no delay to delivery timelines in this contract. Evidence of a transparent financial structure and fair pricing for the service, showing how value for money will be achieved for the duration of the contract. Demonstrate a clear approach to managing risk to ensure that capability requirements can be met as required so that delivery is not impacted. Drawing on your experience and capabilities, how you would ensure that your activities can take place remotely without any reduction in effectiveness in light of COVID-19. Cultural Fit Criteria Demonstrate your approach to knowledge and skills transfer. Experience of working with a number of key stakeholders and delivery teams, adapting agile ways of working to meet the needs of a dispersed team, without reduction in efficiency. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers No questions have been answered yet Budget range budget approval is subject to cabinet office spending controls, service assessments and dfe governance. a pipeline of activity is foreseen over the next 24 months - based on the scope being considered the budget could range up to £3.5m consisting of multiple sows, but that scope could expand or contract. dfe does not commit to any minimum or maximum spend at this point. supplier pricing proposals must be flexible enough to enable different rates for different locations. rate cards will be static for the life of the contract. standard framework and call off terms and conditions apply.