Development of 'Safety by Design' Guidance for Online Platforms

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The Online Harms White Paper sets out the government’s ambitions to make the UK the safest place in the world to go online. The White Paper acknowledged the impact that platform design decisions can have on the likelihood of online harm occurring. Government committed to developing a ‘Safety by Design Framework’, a library of practical guidance for companies on how to design safer online services and products. This will be hosted online on gov.uk. This work is being led by DCMS. This work will help to develop and design a range of guidance on safer platform design choices. The target user for the guidance are small and medium sized organisations and start-ups, with a range of digital skills including low digital competency through to product designers and developers. The work should be completed within this Financial Year, with a review stage in December 2020. Problem to Be Solved The design of online services and products can directly impact on the likelihood of harms occurring to users. However, many companies do not have the necessary information to make safer decision choices. Existing ‘safety by design’ guidance has been produced in a format that many smaller organisations and those who are less digitally literate struggle to implement. There is also a lack of guidance tailored to relevant design relevant roles within the target organisations - specifically product designers, product managers and developers. This work will be helping to fill this resource gap and will develop a website with an online library of design guidance. The presentation of the guidance will be tailored to organisations with a range of digital skills to enable them to easily adopt a ‘safety by design’ approach. The work will include collaboration with DCMS to engage with target users and subject experts to help refine the tailored content of the guidance, and will also include sigificant product development and user testing to ensure products are suitable for the target user. Who Are the Users The target users are SMEs and startups organisations, and key design roles within an organisation including product designers and developers. These users need to understand easily how to design an online platform to be safer for their users from the outset to improve standards of online safety. Early Market Engagement The government consulted on the measures outlined in the Online Harms White Paper including the Safety by Design Framework. Consultation found broad agreement with the proposal and its focus on supporting smaller and start-up organisations. Engagements also highlighted the need to support organisations with a range of digital skills and subject knowledge of online harms. Feedback highlighted the need to tailor guidance to some key roles including product designers, product managers and developers. An initial scoping exercise on the framework was undertaken alongside the publication of the Online Harms White Paper which proposed developing the guidance as an online ‘library’ of resources with a broad range of forms of guidance - including narrative pieces such as case studies and more technical forms such as design patterns. Work Already Done Initial scoping work alongside the consultation of the White Paper recommended an approach centred around an online library of resources. It also recommended that interested and relevant stakeholders were brought together to form a ‘community’ to support content development and promotion of the guidance. DCMS has also undertaken work to review the risks posed to user safety by common features and functions of online services and products. This provides a foundation on which to direct engagement around product development. Existing Team The existing policy team is three people, with one person’s role primarily focused on supporting this project and another 50% on the project. While there is not another supplier to work with there are other relevant government departments who will be providing support and input on the content and format. Current Phase Discovery Work Location DCMS is based in 100 Parliament Street, London, SW1A 2NP. However, we are currently working remotely and primarily remote working for this project is expected. Working Arrangments Due to Covid-19 we expect this work to occur remotely unless government advice changes. Throughout the duration of the project: Weekly check-in calls with the policy team, over video call; Monthly updates on progress remotely/ over video call while restrictions are in place and in person when it becomes safe to do so; Ad-hoc calls/meetings as needed by default video calls but if necessary these can happen in person if it is in line with government guidance. We would expect to be in attendance at the majority of workshops and can be available for help for other engagements. Security Clearance Suppliers should be prepared to have CTC (counter terrorism check) for he relevant team before starting work. Additional T&Cs The standard contract will be used. Skills & Experience Experience and skills in designing websites Experience and skills in designing products or materials to be used by businesses Experience and skills in designing online guidance Experience and skills in designing products or materials to be used by end users with low digital literacy Experience running a multi-stakeholder project Nice to Haves Undertaking user-research with businesses Delivering to short and defend timescales Designing material or products targeted at SMEs and startup organisations in the technology sector Designing material or products targeted at product designers, developers, and product managers No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 10 Proposal Criteria Approach and methodology Time scale Technical solution How the proposed approach meets user needs How the proposed approach meets policy goal of project Team structure Identification and management of risks and dependencies Value for money Cultural Fit Criteria Approach to collaborative working with DCMS team Approach to ensuring transparency and clarity about decisions and findings Approach to maintaining open communication Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method Case study Work history Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers No questions have been answered yet Budget range the expected cost range for this project is £160-180k including vat. we would expect most of this cost to be assigned to product development and user-testing/ research. suppliers should include a breakdown of costs in their tender. the supplier will be required to provide regular updates on development of the work to assess progress and spend.