Proc 526 - Technical Architecture

Tender description

Summary of the work Continuation of existing supplier services to deliver Technical Architecture Strategy and Governance. Delivered through stories and sprints by supplier personnel: Technical Architecture Leadership and Governance, Enterprise Architecture, Solution Architecture, Integration Architecture, Information Architecture, Infrastructure Architecture. Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Monday 1 February 2021 Why the Work is Being Done The contract will cover technical architecture for all immigration services (IPT, FBIS, other transformation projects) and the Digitising the Border programme (DSAB). The BICS Technology Portfolio has recently expanded to also cover the entirety of Border Systems, and this may extend to cover some HMPO work. Problem to Be Solved HO DDaT BICS Technology Portfolio has a requirement for the procurement of specialist client-side technical architecture capabilities, to support BICS transformation initiatives. • The Supplier will be responsible for providing technical architecture leadership capability to: o Proactively deliver a re-use and convergence agenda in collaboration across Home Office portfolios. o Drive ongoing innovation and continuously look to industry improvements to make operational efficiencies and reduce costs. o Gaining approval of all new technical architecture through the BICS TDA and Home Office TDA and will provide representation to TDA meetings when required. o The supplier will provide a searchable, collaborative capability for capturing and maintaining key Technical Architecture knowledge (best practice, principles guidance, decision rationale, project and portfolio Technical Architecture artefacts). The main purpose of this capability is to ensure that key Technical Architecture information is retained within HO DDaT in a way that allows new and existing stakeholders to easily understand and find / access it. • The Supplier will actively encourage and support the onboarding of civil servant technical architecture resources into the CTO and portfolio CTO teams, offering support and training to those resources as agreed with the Home Office. Who Are the Users The users (Future Borders and Immigration System, Digitising the Border programmes and other BICS strategy group projects and programmes) will need Technical Architecture services to define the target, transitional architecture and technical delivery to deliver BICNoS vision and objectives. Existing Team The current headcount is 46; however, this is indicative only. The addition of Borders work will have an impact, and there will need to be ability to upscale in the event of HMPO work being added later. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Provide details of having recently (within the past 2 years) done the following: • balanced the demands delivery and quality of technical architecture services at pace and at scale for portfolios, programmes and projects. • driven innovation, continuous improvement and modern engineering approaches into the delivery of technical products and services. • designed high-quality, cloud native solutions that are highly secure, resilient and ensure data integrity. • developed and implemented the end-to-end risk management lifecycle for portfolios, programmes and projects. • provided deep technical architecture expertise in shaping and leading the overall techncial architecture for portfolios, programmes and projects using open standards (such as TOGAF). Nice to Haves • Provide a searchable, collaborative capability for capturing and maintaining key technical architecture knowledge. • Provide evidence of resources that have existing SC clearance that will support the speeding up of on-boarding teams. • Demonstrate experience of handing over products to another team, including service transition. Work Location If in the office, the workplace will be in Croydon. However, Covid-19 arrangements allow for working from home. Working Arrangments During the current Covid-19 situation, staff will be working from home. If this changes in future, it will be subject of further discussions. Security Clearance Staff will require SC clearance, with the potential of some requiring DV in the Borders space. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • 1 - Give a detailed example of where you have successfully deployed a technical architecture team that undertook technical architecture and assurance functions for a large delivery portfolio – 10% • 2 - Explain how you will provide resources with deep technical expertise across a broad spectrum of technical architecture and modern engineering disciplines – 10% • 3 - How will you adopt and improve the technical architecture for the solutions we design? – 10% • 4 - How will you manage the work and maintain quality of delivery of technical architecture services we provide to the delivery portfolio? – 5% • 5 - Describe your proposed team structure – 5% • 6 - How will you quickly identify resources and on-board them on site and on the start date? – 5% • 7 - What is your approach to transition and handover from the incumbent? – 5% • 8 - Describe how you would add value to the delivery portfolio and the wider Home Office (do not discuss pricing) – 5% • (Presentation will account for 20%) Cultural Fit Criteria Please complete the Cultural Fit template attached to the competition documents. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 75% Cultural fit 5% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Rate Cards. With apologies - it was not made that at Stage 2, the price competition will include a requirement not to exceed the DDaT rates: to do so will render a bid non-compliant and it will be rejected. As the DOS platform has no facility to upload documents, the rate card is available on request to IPTCommercial@homeoffice.gov.uk. Please use the email heading 'Proc 526 - Rate Card'. 2. Hi is there an idea of budget for this one? This procurement includes a price competition. It is for the bidder to decide on a price at which they choose to bid. 3. Who is the current incumbent for this service? This is not relevant to the procurement. 4. Can you please advise who the incumbent is? This is not relevant to the procurement. 5. How many resources are you looking for and will these be required to work full time? We currently have c.50 technical architects working across immigration, some areas of borders and DS&A. We will be looking to scale that to around 60 across the 2 year period as the BICS Technology Portfolio takes on responsibility for technical delivery across more areas in borders and other areas required to deliver the BICS vision. The vast majority of these roles are full-time, and we try and align dedicated resources to specific products and services. In some cases, there is a need to distribute available capacity of resources across multiple products and services, depending on where the greatest need is. 6. Can the Authority please confirm whether this opportunity is assessed as inside or outside of IR35? The role of the contracted supplier will be outside IR35. 7. In terms of the online response, the first question which requires a 100 word response is 'Provide details of having recently (within the past 2 years) done the following:' Can you confirm what we respond to here please. Due to the word limit in the question field, the first question is the first part of all the subsequent questions. 8. We note that the budget has not been disclosed. As the incumbent supplier will be aware of the budget the incumbent supplier will have a huge advantage when it comes to their commercial submission. We are therefore concerned that this opportunity is weighted favourably towards the incumbent supplier. Would the Authority consider disclosing the budget to ensure a level playing field for all tenderers? The current and anticipated resourcing levels, the DDaT maximum rates and the full requirements have all been published. All bidders - including the incumbent, should they choose to bid - will have to propose a competitive price model reflecting not only the numbers required to deliver the requirements, but also the proposed SFIA levels of their resources. All the information required to do so is available to all prospective bidders. As such, the incumbent has no advantage. 9. We note that ‘how suppliers will be evaluated’ proposal criteria 7 states that transition and handover from the incumbent will be assessed. As all tenderers will have a transitional risk except the incumbent, we are concerned that this opportunity is weighted favourably towards the incumbent supplier. Would the Authority consider removing step 7 of the proposal criteria from the evaluation to ensure a level playing field for all tenderers? The incumbent will be assessed equally in terms of what they will do to ensure the transition time is utilised effectively to mobilise and improve the current service. That being the case, the incumbent has no advantage and the step will not be removed. 10. What would you like suppliers to write in the box for Question 1, given that it is not a question in itself but the opening to each of the following questions? If bidders feel there is something appropriate to write in the box, they are welcome to do so. Otherwise, it might be considered reasonable to consider why it was laid out this way (see response to Q7), decide whether a response has been requested or is needed, and either leave it blank or, if the form requires a response in order to be successfully submitted, write something akin to N/A. If it assists, the response to this field will not be evaluated. 11. What technologies are currently in scope and planned for the technical architecture? The technologies in use are too numerous to mention. Here is an initial guide:Responsibility TechnologyPlatform AWSProgramming Java / JDKCommon Libraries Google Guice, Jackson, Spring and many other open source librariesData Layer Postgres RDSS3Restful Web Services JBoss RESTEasyHosting & Orchestration DockerKubernetesIncreasing use of AWS Lambda and Step FunctionsBPM Activiti BPMMessaging ActiveMQWeb Container TomcatDistributed Event Streaming KafkaSecurity Tooling Redhat SSO, Fortigate, Sophos and many other open source and AWS native platform security toolsCI / CD Stack TerraformJenkinsAnsible 12. Will application architecture be required? Yes. 13. To fulfil “The supplier will provide a searchable, collaborative capability for capturing and maintaining key Technical Architecture knowledge (best practice, principles guidance, decision rationale, project and portfolio Technical Architecture artefacts).” – is the supplier expected to provide a tool or will the supplier use the Home Office DDaT toolset? Home Office DDaT will provide a toolset. The BICS technical architecture repository is currently on Confluence. 14. Will there be knowledge/ data transfer from the existing supplier? How long has been planned for this activity? Yes, there will be a 2 month knowledge transfer period. 15. Is the expectation that the existing architects will be TUPE transfers? No. 16. When will Borders and HMPO come on board – How big an upscale will it be? Border Systems are likely to be onboarded through 2021. I anticipate circa 5-10 technical architects required for Border Systems. There are currently no plans to extend technical architecture contract for use in HMPO, but it’s something that may happen in future. 17. What tooling is currently in place for the storing of architectural artefacts? Confluence wiki and Sparx Enterprise Architect modelling tools. 18. Who will be the service owner – DDaT? John Holben at DDaT. 19. You mention office of the CTO – will the architecture function report into the CTO? It will report into the BICS Technology Portfolio CTO, which is an extension of DDaT CTO. 20. Please could you confirm any applicable SLAs for the technical architecture service? Deliverables are agreed through Statement of Work (SoW) on a monthly basis. Delivery timescales for technical architecture are agreed as part of the SoW. 21. What time period will be allowed for overlap/handover from the incumbent to the new supplier? See earlier response. 22. Re. the initial 46-50 staff, will they all be expected to start on Day 1, or will you stagger the starts to minimise the oversight of handover impact for the incumbent? The recommended approach from suppliers should be part of the response. 23. Please could you estimate how soon you will need to go beyond the 50 resources and start building up to 60, and will these resources cover the Borders project you mention in the description, or will that require additional resources on top of the 60? It is likely to increase to between 50-60 resources through 2021. 24. If there is a small shortfall in SC-cleared architects, but we have architects available who meet SC criteria, will you sponsor? Yes. 25. Re. the evidence of "open standards", you mention TOGAF as an example. Are you only looking for architectural standards, or is work with other technical open standards considered to be suitable evidence? Yes, other standards will be considered as suitable evidence. TOGAF was only provided as an example. 26. Recognising current architecture headcount numbers ~46 and based upon planned changes is expected to grow to ~60 can a breakdown of numbers within each function be provided, current and planned?• Technical Architecture Leadership and Governance,• Enterprise Architecture,• Solution Architecture,• Integration Architecture,• Information Architecture,• Infrastructure Architecture The spilt is roughly as follows, with the vast majority of resources being embedded within delivery teams. Solution architects as expected to cover a broad range of disciplines, but consult with lead enterprise, information and infrastructure architects in the delivery of technical architecture aligned to the delivery of a service.• Technical Architecture Leadership and Governance 5%,• Enterprise Architecture 5%,• Solution Architecture 40%,• Integration Architecture 40%,• Information Architecture 5%,• Infrastructure Architecture 5% 27. Within the Technology Portfolio, as a percentage what is the breakdown of projects?• New systems development,• On-going systems improvements and maintenance,• Integration projects,• Infrastructure projects We have a number of existing products and services that are core to the delivery of the BICS vision. In the development of technical architecture to realise a business outcome, we identify both new services and changes to existing services, to understand product roadmaps that transition into delivery.• New systems development 30%,• On-going systems improvements and maintenance 50%,• Integration projects 10%,• Infrastructure projects 10% 28. What are the business functions that require the technical office to interact with? Is there a view of what the functions looks like today (i.e. peers) The BICS TDA interacts with the BICS BDA and the various Delivery Boards on the Portfolio. We work closely with Business Architects embedded in the business units, and our own DDaT Business Architecture resources, embedded in the BICS Technology Portfolio, to facilitate the transition from business design through to technical architecture. 29. “Delivered through stories and sprints by supplier personnel” – what is your definition sprint? Sprints are typically 2 weeks. The 'Definition of Ready' defines the criteria that a JIRA ticket must satisfy before it can be brought into a sprint for implementation. The 'Definition of Done' defines the criteria that a JIRA ticket must satisfy before it can be marked as 'done' (given that it had previously been ready for implementation). 30. Clearance is detailed at SC, however there is a note around DV. What proportion of staff are expected to have DV clearance? Roughly 10% of resources, predominantly working in the Borders domain. 31. Could you clarify the relationship between CTO, CTO Portfolio teams, This Architecture Service and DDaT? The CTO portfolio and BICS TDA operates as a spoke of the hub Home Office (DDaT) TDA. • BICS TDA meets weekly, barring exceptions• Decisions are documented using common decision criteria• Technology evaluations are against set criteria• All decisions are audited, traceable and submitted to DDaT TDA• Key decisions are brought up to DDaT TDA for approval• Major Portfolio and Programme spend requires approval of technical architecture at the DDaT TDA• BICS TDA actions log to maintain open actionsBICS Portfolio CTO owns the delivery of this architecture service to the BICS Technology Portfolio. 32. Is the scope of “civil servant technical architecture resources” limited to specific personnel and if so how many people would this would be and what skills will they have? There are a 4-5 “civil servant technical architecture resources” working within BICS in senior roles. We are looking to increase the number of civil servants that are technical architects with different levels of experience over the next 2 years, and it is expected that the supplier for technical architecture services would help to support in the coaching and development of these resources. 33. As there is an incumbent, how can we be confident that other bidders have a chance of winning? While incumbents can have inherent advantages, they can also have inherent disadvantages. Every bidder will have their own unique selling points, one or more of which may prove decisive. We have ensured that every bidder has as much information as possible, and that the requirements and questions are framed so as to ensure a level playing field. Every bid is rigorously evaluated and moderated so that they are treated equally - including that of the incumbent, should they choose to bid. No bidder need be concerned that any bidder, incumbent or otherwise, will receive preferential treatment.