DDaT20305 - BEIS - Digital Regulation Navigator Project Alpha Phase

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done Small businesses are vital to the UK economy. However, small and medium business have cited regulations and red tape as the second biggest barrier to business success (BEIS Business Perception Survey 2018). Complying with regulation costs small businesses time and money they could spend on growing their business. The Digital Regulation Navigator (DRN) is a flagship project within the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) in BEIS that considers how digital solutions could make it easier for small and medium sized businesses, including start-ups and innovators, to find out what regulations apply to them, keep up to date with regulatory changes and navigate the UK regulatory landscape. We also want to ease regulatory burden by making it quicker and easier for businesses to get the right regulatory information at the right time, reducing the time and money they spend on complying with regulations and enabling a self-service approach. Following the completion of a successful Discovery phase, this tender for the Alpha phase requests further development of 3 high level future service concepts into a detailed, viable and cost-effective future service, working with users, GDS and other Departments. This work needs to be completed by 31st March 2021 including a successful wrap up. Problem to Be Solved We’re developing an interactive digital service improving access and understanding of business regulation. It should: ● Help businesses navigate information sources, signposting to easily accessible, user-specific information. ● Deliver a cohesive user journey, by joining up the local and national Government delivered business support landscape (e.g. Growth Hubs, Business Support Helpline). ● Collaborate with GDS to explore integration with their work to improve the user journey for ‘Starting and running a Business’, and GOV.UK accounts. ● Test and develop three high-level service concepts from Discovery into workable prototypes: o My Tracker – A personalised online tracker allowing businesses to manage their compliance activities across their lifetime. o My Finder – An online regulation finder service allowing businesses to identify which regulations apply to them, based on user input. o My Messenger – A chatbot handling high volume, low complexity questions about regulation, escalating to human advisors when needed. We are working towards a service which is usable by businesses across the UK, to inform them about all regulation relevant to them. In Alpha we want to refine the scope and value of this work, to deliver a viable, user-targeted, service-design, which can be implemented and improved over time. Who Are the Users In Alpha additional user research with businesses needs to be conducted to understand their needs further and help revise the scope of the service to prioritise these users and their needs appropriately. This will require close working with BEIS and other Government departments, including Cabinet Office, GDS and DIT. This work aims to support businesses to identify and apply UK regulation to their business and builds on 6 thematic areas of user needs identified in Discovery: 1. Give me the right information at the right time; 2. Make content personalised and relevant to my business; 3. Don’t make me do more than I have to; 4. Be my trusted advisor and make me feel assured; 5. Be my partner not my adversary (related to fear of regulators); 6. Make things action orientated and show me what I need to do. An example user story sitting underneath these themes, which applied across all 3 service concepts to be tested being: “As a small business I want to know if I am on top of my regulatory activities so that I don’t get fined." Early Market Engagement Work Already Done During Discovery in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 start-ups and SMEs alongside 25 industry experts on how they access, and problems they face, navigating the UK regulatory landscape. We developed 42 user stories designing and iteratively test 3 high level service concepts. Discovery highlighted a single tool could not meet user needs identified so suggested a suite approach. GDS is working across Government on improving the user journey for ‘Starting and running a Business’ on GOV.UK bringing information together in one place, reusing and personalising, personal details capitalising on journey-wide insights. Any solutions must align with GDS’ work. Existing Team BRE is leading a programme of three digital projects focusing on regulatory barriers. Relevant lessons learnt and user research will be shared across projects. You will be working with: ● A policy and project lead. ● The project’s senior responsible owner (SRO). ● A social researcher and a Digital Fast-Streamer to assist with Whitehall engagement, developing benefits/KPIs, analytical and user-driven appraisal and technical approach as needed. ● A delivery manager and specialist BEIS Digital support as needed. ● GDS’s discovery team on ‘starting a business’: Project, Policy and Delivery leads, Developers, Content and Service designers, User Researchers and Data Analysts. Current Phase Alpha Work Location Due to the ongoing pandemic, this project will be conducted remotely using productivity solutions such as Microsoft Teams. The team has experience of delivering agile projects remotely having successfully completed Discovery in a similar way. We will keep working arrangements under review during the Alpha and make adjustments as needed. BEIS asks that it be given opportunities to review the work as it progresses, in order to react to any issues which may arise. The BEIS policy lead and delivery manager will be available to pick up issues with the supplier. Working Arrangments We will be working together remotely and expect a transparent and collaborative approach to working with you. We would expect all the usual agile ceremonies to be conducted regardless of work-mode including daily team stand-ups, end of sprint show and tells with a wide selection of stakeholders, end of day discussions between our lead and yours, end of sprint retrospectives etc. In Discovery we were successful at running these using Microsoft teams and other online collaboration tools. For virtual thought and whiteboard collaboration BEIS currently recommends Microsoft Whiteboard or any other suggestions subject to security clearance. Security Clearance BPSS clearance Additional T&Cs We would add an additional clause we also used in our Discovery phase which would allow the Alpha to be paused if needed due to a reason linked to the Covid-19 pandemic Skills & Experience Demonstrate your recent experience of designing services on GOV.UK, compliant with the Service Standard, including Service Design Manual, Technology Code of Practice, GOV.UK standards. (3%) Demonstrate your recent experience of working jointly with Government and collaborating with GDS (3%) Demonstrate your recent experience of working on or delivering a service or digital project involving regulation, describing the approach you took. (3%) Demonstrate your recent experience of working with Government to successfully pass alpha assessments and deliver a successful alpha phase, describing the approach you took. (3%) Demonstrate recent experience working on a service involving complex changing policy landscape (like the business support landscape), describing how service helped join up and simplify user journey. (2%) Demonstrate your experience of prototyping a digital service designed to meet a variety of complex and unique user needs where SMEs and microbusinesses were the main users (2%) Demonstrate your recent experience of delivering a digital service where the user experience involved highly personalised content. (1%) Demonstrate ability being able recruit diverse and relevant set of users. Particularly interested in SMEs/microbusinesses/entrepreneurs from the 4 nations of UK including those with accessibility needs. (2%) Nice to Haves No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria How your proposed team’s technical expertise, solution, approach and methodology will ensure the successful delivery of this project. (8%) Demonstrate how your team’s approach and solution will take high-level service concepts develop them into workable future service prototypes which meets GDS’ Service Standards and other relevant standards (8%) Proposed team structure and staff expertise (7%) Project plan and timescales proposed for the work (8%) Provide details of the key risks and a plan for mitigating against them (5%) Knowledge transfer into BRE (4%) Cultural Fit Criteria Approach to ways of working with BRE staff in a transparent and collaborative way 100% remotely. (4%) Involve BRE staff in key decisions and quality control of work (3%) Challenge assumptions and status quo (3%) Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers Budget range the total maximum contract value shall not exceed £500,000.00 ex vat. suppliers should provide full and detailed breakdowns of costs. this should include staff (and day rate) allocated to specific tasks. competitive costing will be a criterion against which bids which will be assessed. payments will be linked to delivery of key milestones. the indicative milestones and phasing of payments will depend on your project plan. one core milestone would be passing an expected alpha assessment. these milestones can be adjusted and agreed with the contractor based on the tender response/details. please indicate suitable milestones for payment in your bid.