Creation of a team to support council tax and business rates processes

Tender description

Summary of the work Creation of a team to support council tax and business rates processes Expected Contract Length 6 months Latest start date Saturday 25 January 2020 Budget Range This procurement is to the total value of £500,000 excluding VAT in order to ensure maximum flexibility. However, we expect to agree small statements of work for each £60-80,000 so that we can ensure we’re delivering solutions that meet users needs. Why the Work is Being Done The Council wants to create a team to develop a tool to support key council tax and business rates processes as work progress in parallel to restore our Academy system. By developing these solutions natively in the cloud, using open source technologies, we want to create value that can be re-used for the delivery of other council services, beyond the specific council tax and business rates processes. Problem to Be Solved We want to form a team to develop a suite of tools that can be used across council services to support core business processes, iterate them and gradually swap in permanent staff into the team. By creating at pace reusable components we can ensure that we provide simple, secure, scalable technology that helps us work collaboratively to deliver better services for residents. Ensuring these tools are developed to the same principles and standards enables the in-house team to develop its ability to support and continuously improve the tools better to meet users’ needs. Who Are the Users We would expect to define detailed user stories as part of sprint planning. However, at a high-level we expect this work to focus on development of the following capabilities: - creation of bills - creation of accounts - management of arrears - handling of exemptions - notifications to bill-payers - management information reporting Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done We are currently doing a discovery and proof of concept to assess the feasibility of this work. The outputs will be shared in full. This procurement is beginning before we’ve made a decision to continue this project in order to minimise delays. Existing Team The team(s) would need to be stand-alone but expected to interface with other teams working in Hackney IT and may benefit from shared sprint planning and show & tells where two projects are delivering value to the same users. Over time, we would expect to ‘swap in’ members of permanent and fixed term staff to support with knowledge transfer. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Demonstrate an understanding of the user needs associated with the delivery of one or more local authority services • Demonstrate a track-record of user-centred design and Agile approaches to delivery • Experience of developing applications that have been assessed as meeting a government Service Standard • Experience of working collaboratively with an in-house team, building skills and capabilities to support a smooth handover • Have experience of working with .NET core, Docker, AWS and Terraform • Have experience of developing ‘in the open’ - using tools such as Github • Have experience of designing and developing minimum viable solutions • Have experience of designing to meet the public sector accessibility guidelines • Demonstrate how they have worked collaboratively in a multi-vendor environment • Demonstrate how they put security first in their work Nice to Haves • Demonstrate an understanding of Hackney’s approach to technology and data • Demonstrate how they provide opportunities for apprentices Work Location Work can take place remotely and communicated via weeknotes and show & tells Working Arrangments This work can be done remotely but will require fortnightly reporting (eg via show & tells) to involve key stakeholders and regular engagement with practitioners through video conferences. We will provide access to key systems to project team members where required. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Understanding of the brief • Clarity of the approach • Experience from a similar project • Team structure, including skills, experiences and relevance of individuals • Identification of risks and plan to mitigate them • Blended day rates of the team Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Share knowledge and experience with team members and the wider service • Hackney Council is a diverse organisation, reflecting the diversity of our borough. Describe how you would successfully work as a team with Hackney and other suppliers in a diverse environment. Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. It says “We are currently doing a discovery and proof of concept to assess the feasibility of this work. The outputs will be shared in full. This procurement is beginning before we’ve made a decision to continue this project in order to minimise delays.”Does that mean there is a chance of discontinuing this after the feasibility study is completed?? If so when do you think that decision to continue this project would be taken? We expect to make a decision on whether to move from the POC to Live in the first half of January. We will make the decision based on the benefits to users and the feasibility of delivering the prioritised user needs for Live by the end of March