NLEDP 171 - Product Team 3

Tender description

Summary of the work The Home Office National Law Enforcement Data Programme (NLEDP) requires a Product-centric supplier to work with us from discovery through into live operation; delivering world-class capability suited to the needs of modern policing to replace legacy IT systems. This approach will serve as a blueprint for all future product delivery. Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Monday 20 September 2021 Budget Range £4.96m total contract. HO DDAT Target Rates will be applicable to this work, and will serve as the maximum permissible rates for any given role and SFIA grade for all work under this contract. Why the Work is Being Done NLEDP is a major programme within the Police and Public Protection Technology portfolio. It will deliver Law Enforcement Data Services (LEDS) that support the operational needs of modern Policing and Law Enforcement across the UK. NLEDP is a long running programme that has recently undergone a major reset of goals and delivery approach. To supplement our existing capability, we require an experienced product supplier to help us continue to reshape our approach to delivery and products. We are looking for a product supplier who has: 1. a proven track record in the discovery, delivery and evolution of products; 2. experience of managing complex inter-related products; and 3. has experience of legacy monolith replacement of operationally critical systems. You should be able to demonstrate experience of iterative delivery of value as a mechanism for legacy monolith decomposition and replacement. The Supplier will be a key contributor of business change to a product centred delivery approach. Suppliers will need to collaborate with Law Enforcement product owners, work alongside other product teams who are developing and delivering complementary products and services, and provide support to the wider leadership team, if required. Problem to Be Solved NLEDP’s primary drivers are: 1. supporting the operational needs of modern policing throughout the UK, reliably and without interruption; 2. providing a foundation for future enhancements through innovation; 3. delivering services that will be actively maintained and incrementally evolved to meet user needs in a timely and cost-effective manner that considers the technology landscape used by policing. The Supplier must deliver the required outcomes meeting user needs and the government digital standard by: Establishing clarity around the technical approach, scope, product roadmap, backlog development and delivery plan; Generating alignment, demonstrating strong stakeholder management and partnership with user groups; Ensuring user needs are always centred in every set of product evolution; Designing and delivering a world-class product; Driving adoption, playing a role to help adopting forces to understand and plan for business change implicated in product adoption and supporting full scale roll out; Ensuring transparency and visibility are key tenets of the culture, leading open and honest communications about progress, impacts and implications of their approach and roadmap, with other product and dependent teams, the programme and its stakeholders; Evolving the product over time, while supporting continuous deployment and rollout, and supporting the product in production and in use by forces. Who Are the Users To meet the operational needs of modern policing, LEDS products will support the enquiries that underpin the everyday activities of law enforcement in the UK and will be used nationally, by many different organisations and personas. Product delivery will need to respond to short- and long-term changes in the policing landscape. LEDS products will enable searching, updating, reporting, alerting and audit across the national data domains of person identity, associated criminal records, police and DVLA vehicle and driver records. The winning Supplier for Product Team 3 is expected to initially focus on the Front-line Person Check product. The Front-line Person Check product will enable police officers to assess risk and make informed decisions when engaging with suspects and members of the public on the front line. Currently, police officers typically need to contact colleagues in control rooms using radio or similar devices to access vital information. The new product will be simple to use, provide better and more efficient search results, and enable officers to access essential data quickly - at the point of need - without the need for control room support. The new product will need to run in parallel with the existing service until full adoption. Early Market Engagement A form of market engagement has already been conducted in relation to this procurement as part of the previous Product Team 1 procurement, This demonstrated a strong level of interest in the supply of these services to this Buyer in line with the stated requirement across a broad spectrum of the market. We are therefore optimistic that this will remain the case. Work Already Done Product-centric delivery is still relatively new for NLEDP, so a key aspect of the work will be to help refine the blueprint, whilst delivering Person. An experienced team is required to help evolve working practices and the approach for other product teams. Therefore product suppliers are expected to work as part of the larger programme, alongside other suppliers in a collaborative partnering manner. Products will aim to be as independent as practicable, but product teams should expect to contribute to a shared programme roadmap with a shared set of goals and outcomes and adhere to programme and policing governance. Existing Team The Product Supplier will work alongside other suppliers in a collaborative manner, with the Product Managers and Owners (and potentially other roles in future) residing within Law Enforcement, with test assurance provided by QAT. We are building a culture that is an enabler for high performing teams and that supports continuous improvement and development of internal capability. Your people should be teachers and coaches as well as skilled practitioners. You should be comfortable working alongside Home Office people and staff from other suppliers, demonstrating how, over time, you would leave behind a more capable team. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Expert understanding of iterative, user-centred design and delivery and how this will be applied to deliver services, working across multiple product lines, operating within an evolutionary architecture approach. • Extensive practical experience of working within a product centric team focused on developing a blue-print approach for future delivery, driving quality throughout. • A best-in-class product-centric approach, demonstrating successful delivery, deployment and adoption focused on end user value and experience. • Ability to deliver products/services to government service standards, working with critical national infrastructure. or similar • Evidence experience of strong and rapid continuous delivery practices approach to service continuity. • Ability to provide suitably skilled resource, rapidly mobilise and scale up a full team, flex resource or pause, when required. • Ability to prioritise multiple concurrent SOW demands to ensure that there is no delay to delivery timelines in this contract. • Expert approach to managing risks, within the outlined governance structure and culture, to ensure that capability requirements can be met as required so that delivery is not impacted. • Transparent financial structures and fair pricing, showing how value for money will be achieved for the duration of the contract, recognising the future use of capped and fixed pricing. Nice to Haves Familiarity with current Law Enforcement technology and related infrastructure, policing strategy and related Home Office priorities. Work Location We are seeking optimised delivery models, anticipating that remote Centres of Excellence will form part of this proposal. However, there will be a need for significant user interaction, likely on site, resulting in joined up ways of working to enable delivery in partnership. Physical attendance of key meetings by some team members may be beneficial on some occasions. NLEDP normally operates out of Croydon, just outside London in SE England. Working Arrangments Due to the current Covid-19 situation the entire Programme is working remotely. The Supplier team is expected to be available during standard Home Office working hours. Expenses will conform to Home Office internal policies and will not be payable within the M25. The expectation is that CCS Framework rates are inclusive of travel and expenses. Any extraordinary reimbursement claims will conform to Home Office internal policies, meaning travel and subsistence costs will not be payable within the M25. Security Clearance All team members must have, or be working towards, Security Clearance (SC). Non-Police Personal Vetting (NPPV) Level 3 is also required and new members will be supported through this vetting process. Waivers may be possible for an interim period but access to HO IT and NLEDP documentation may be constrained. Additional T&Cs This contract is non-exclusive. HO intends to establish a diverse Product supplier community to ensure there is capacity to deliver the required products. Statement Of Work will be offered periodically aligned to discrete delivery phases subject to satisfactory performance by the Supplier. Both Parties will target Capped T&M or Fixed Price delivery for SOW. Suppliers should anticipate the all relevant DOS5 Schedules and Joint Schedules being applicable, adjusted to reflect the nature of the work. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Product delivery capability, expertise and ability to achieve the required outcomes • Approach to the delivery of a specific product through the different delivery phases, initially focused on Driver's Data Discovery. • Relevant reference case studies. • Team structure, skills, experience and management of delivery across multiple product lines. Cultural Fit Criteria • Approach to issue management, problem resolution and improving ways of working. • Ability to build a high trust collaborative working environment. • Ability to function effectively and collaborate in a multi-supplier environment. • Experience and industry best practice to provide thought leadership, and collaborative problem-solving. • Approach to social value, including commitments to specific targets Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you confirm what the HO DDAT permissible rates are so that we can ensure our rates do not exceed. The HO DDAT maximum permissible rates are (where ""::"" represents a new column in a table):Role Type::SFIA 3::SFIA 4::SFIA 5Architecture::£600::£750::£950Data::£550::£650::£900Delivery::£500::£700::£850Engineering::£450::£650::£800IT Operations::£450::£650::£800Product::£540::£680::£800QAT::£460::£575::£800UCD::£425::£575::£825Note: HO DDaT does not believe that any resource above SFIA Level 5 are required in support of this delivery. 2. Who’s in the incumbent and how long they have been the incumbent Although NLEDP is a long running programme it is undergoing a major reset of delivery approach. We require an experienced product supplier to help us continue to reshape our approach and start to deliver products.Within the last two months NLEDP has signed contracts/CCNs with two other Product Teams to focus on other products; Fimatix are focused on Lost & Stolen Property and Glue Reply are looking at Driver Enquiry.The Supplier will be at the forefront of a business change to a product centred delivery approach and the approach developed will help refine our blue-print for future LEDS products. 3. Would it be possible to use nearshore resources for this work Due to the nature of the customer and the need for clearances near-shoring and/or off-shoring is not a possibility at this time. However, supplier delivery centres can be based anywhere in the UK, recognising that not all resource will be able to operate remotely due to the nature of product delivery. 4. Please can you confirm the split of roles that you anticipate across the team structure? The Authority require an expert proven product delivery supplier to deliver the product discovery, and then likely thru into live service. The Authority will provide the Product Owner and Product Manager for the supplier to work alongside. The Supplier will be responsible for proposing the roles and team structure, including the engineering, design and product skills for the delivery. You will therefore need to work with the Authority to refine and optimise our product methodology into an approach that we can continue to apply in future. 5. Who will be on the evaluation panel? The panel will comprise expert members from both inside and outside the Programme. 6. Is there a delivery roadmap available to give an indication of phasing? We expect to develop a full portfolio and indicative road map over the coming months as the programme breaks down the earlier backlog which was heavily constrained to a ‘like for like’ (to legacy) solution.The new portfolio will be designed around user centred products that are more deliverable and have an evolutionary road map that incrementally delivers value to law enforcement. Further details on the Frontline Person Check product will be provided following shortlisting. 7. In regards to your question;"Ability to prioritise multiple concurrent SOW demands to ensure that there is no delay to delivery timelines in this contract."Can you confirm if this is about breadth and depth to provide teams, or is it more to do with management across workstreams? Post discovery, there will likely be further SOW related to this product to complete the journey to live operation, subject to satisfactory performance.There may also be further Product SOW (not related to the Frontline Person Check product) that are offered as part of this contract.In addition you will need to operate within a wider ecosystem of Product and Programme delivery, including other Product suppliers whose Products may intersect with their own. However, this is a product delivery team, not a delivery management team sitting across Product delivery. 8. Do you require one example for each essential requirement or will you accept more than one example per question? Please read the Digital Marketplace guidance. Within the constraints of the response framework, Suppliers may provide example(s) that best demonstrate your skills and experience. Suppliers are required to provide one example for each and will not score higher or lower purely because they gave more or less examples than another supplier. The assessment will be based on content not volume. 9. In Q4 about service standards – can you give some examples of infrastructure which you see as similar to critical national infrastructure. Elements of infrastructure, the loss or compromise of which could result in major detrimental impact on the availability, integrity or delivery of essential services – including those services whose integrity, if compromised, could result in loss of life, taking into account significant economic or social impacts; or significant impact on the customer's ability to function. 10. In Q6 about resources are you asking us:**To explain how we will “provide suitably skilled resource, rapidly mobilise and scale up a full team, flex resource or pause, when required” for this work for the Home Office? Or,**Are you asking for an example of where we have done this for a different customer? The former, but you could use the later as an exemplar. 11. In Q9 are you asking for:1) An example of how we will (for the Home Office in this contract) provide transparent financial structures etc. Or are you asking,2) For an example of where we have provided (to a customer) transparent financial structures etc. The former, but you could use the later as an exemplar. 12. Can the buyer clarify the proposed delivery methodology for the product team, is there an intended agile methodology? We expect suppliers to align to practices and principles that enable continuous, user-centred product delivery in a highly complex stakeholder, customer and technical environment. As such, your proposed delivery approach must cope well with ambiguity and be highly responsive and change-tolerant. 13. Can the Buyer confirm the that the successful supplier in this DOS procurement will not be precluded from future NLEDP procurements, in particular for future product teams. As stated in the advert, the HO intends to establish a diverse Product supplier community to ensure there is capacity to deliver the required products. However, success this in this procurement will not preclude participation in future product procurements. 14. Please can you define what product(s) you anticipate will be required to replace legacy IT systems? NLEDP will deliver a number of products that allow policing and law enforcement to search and update information about persons of interest in order to establish their identities and understand their threat, vulnerability and criminal history background. The products will also provide access to DVLA data about drivers and vehicles and a lost and stolen property register. The new products will be designed to meet the current needs of users of PNC and designed to be evolved to adapt to future demands. 15. Please could you confirm what the eligibility criteria are for NPPV3? Please refer to the guidance at the links below:https://www.warwickshire.police.uk/police-forces/warwickshire-police/areas/warwickshire-police/about-us/about-us/national-contractors-vetting-scheme/vetting-process/https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/sites/default/files/files/recruitment/per68.pdf 16. Is the development environment is in secured network? If yes, will the Authority provide the development laptops (Product development team) for remote working? When office operates in normal pattern (post Covid-19 situation) will the Authority provide the work desktop within secured network in the office for product development and support activities? The development environment will be accessed via a secure VPN over the internet. The supplier’s own devices can be used for development, subject to them undergoing the Home Office End User Device review. There may also be a need to install some client software, such as AWS Workspaces.Arrangements for office working, when resumed, will be agreed on a case by case basis for roles requiring secure access to Home Office systems. 17. What are requirements for demonstrating Security Clearance (SC). Evidence of existing Security Clearance will be requested at the written proposal stage. Current SC can be transferred from a relevant Government department if evidence can be provided. Staff cannot commence work until SC clearance has been confirmed, or an equivalent waiver been approved. 18. When will suppliers be notified if they are successful post stage 1 submission? Supplier will be notified of the outcome of their stage 1 submission as soon as reasonably practicable following submission. The number of submissions requiring evaluation will have a major bearing upon this, but we endeavour to notify the outcome within 10 days of stage 1 submission. 19. What are the timelines for stage 2 including proposal submission, contract negotiations and supplier appointment to meet the target start date? The information in support of stage 2 will be issued as soon as possible following evaluation of the stage 1 submission and the resulting shortlist. The pack will include additional information and templates for your proposal response (including two case studies) and pricing.The outline plan includes 2-weeks for the stage 2 response, with presentations and evaluation taking place in the following 2-week period, followed by award. Delivery commencement will be subject to clearances and on-boarding. 20. The budget stated is £4.96m over two years, what is the estimated budget for the initial discovery phase? This is being determined in conjunction with Suppliers as part of this procurement exercise. 21. The opportunity references the need to engage and collaborate with other suppliers. Who are these suppliers and what are their roles/responsibilities on the programme? The supplier landscape is evolving and the intention is to appoint more than one Product Supplier over time. In addition some programme management teams are staffed with a combination of civil servants, contractors and client side advisers. The successful bidder will be required to collaborate effectively with all of these. 22. What are the programme timeframes to deliver the Frontline Person Check product?Could you provide context on the scope, users, proposed solution, any integration and/or existing risks/challenges? What are the architecture principles, and any progress made to date? Further detail on the Frontline Person Check product will be provided as part of Additional Information in the next stage of this procurement exercise, following short-listing. 23. How many products has the Programme scoped for the supplier, what are these, and what are the timeframes for delivering these products during the two year period of the contract? The Programme has currently only scoped the Frontline Person Check discovery phase for the Supplier. Successful delivery will likely see the supplier take forward this product into live operation. There may also be other related Product opportunities subject to satisfactory performance and sufficient financial headroom within the contract. 24. Does the scope of the Programme include PNC and PND, and will the supplier be asked to develop products using both systems? The programme has currently scoped the first product and will be producing a portfolio of further products that remove reliance on the existing PNC without directly replacing it. This portfolio will not directly address the scope of PND. 25. What is the role of the programme with respect to business change and adoption in regional/local customer organisations? The programme works closely with policing and law enforcement, who drive business change and adoption. Product-centric incremental delivery driven by user needs is a new way of working for this programme and therefore our role in continuing to support these activities will be informed through this procurement. 26. The following essential skill “Expert approach to managing risks, within the outlined governance structure and culture, to ensure that capability requirements can be met as required so that delivery is not impacted” Is this in relation to programme delivery risk, security risk, or another specific category? All aspects of risk management associated with achieving the desired outcomes. 27. Would decommissioning of legacy systems form part of the programme or would this be handled separately? The decommissioning of legacy systems will not be directly achieved by the products and hence is separate to this opportunity. 28. For Question 4 “Ability to deliver products/services to government service standards within the context of critical national infrastructure, or equivalent.”, can we use a non-UK (Northern Europe) case study if it’s built to GSS equivalent government standards and is within the context of critical national infrastructure? The supplier must determine the most suitable case studies to put forward. However, there is no requirement for all case studies to be from the UK. 29. Please confirm the IR35 status of this assignment. The delivery will be outcome-based so the team size and structure will be determined by the Supplier in order to achieve this. Our expectation is that, to the extent the “Off-Payroll Working Legislation (IR35)” is applicable to your team, that this would likely fall ‘outside’. However, a formal determination will be made at contract award in light of the Supplier response and finalised contract.In addition, Suppliers will also need to make their own assessment for any resource within their supply chains, as these resources may be classified as ‘inside’ given they will likely be working at the Supplier’s direction. 30. Can The Authority please confirm the timeline for the procurement, including the proposal and presentation stages? The Authority refer to the Supplier to the pre-existing responses for Q18 and Q19. Broadly speaking, subject to size/quality of the response, Stage 1 will take place in July, Stage 2 in August, and signature/onboarding in September. We are hoping to commence work late September or early October. 31. The Home Office procured a Product Partner through the DoS framework earlier this year. Can you advise this partner’s involvement in this work and / or how the selected supplier will be expected to work with them? The Authority refer the Supplier to the pre-existing NLEDP 171 - Product Team 3 Requirements, in particular the sections titled "About the work - Any work that’s already been done", "About the work - Existing Team" and the "Additional terms and conditions", as well as the responses for Q2 and Q21. The previous procurement was for Product Team 1. Our intention is to establish a pool of viable product suppliers of equal standing. Products will aim to be as independent as practicable, but individual product suppliers will contribute towards a shared product delivery approach. 32. Can you tell me the proposed/planned core technology stack for this product please? The proposed architecture is based on RESTful services with micro frontend UIs, hosted on a Home Office containerised AWS platform. While the product team will be able to propose the technology stack they believe best suits the needs of the product, any additions to the home office technology register will need to be justified, and will be subject to constraints of supportability and reducing divergence with in the enterprise and governance approval.Cloud native services are preferred (e.g. API Gateway, SQS/SNS, RDS) and it is expected development will be largely java based including React and Spring Boot. 33. Does the responsibility of the Product Team include both platform and application layer (or) either one? The product team should be focussed on application capabilities as it will be built on an existing Home Office platform that will either directly, or via an encompassing NLEDP platform team, provide a significant proportion of platform services. Products are likely to require some capabilities not provided by the platform and the product team will be expected to implement these capabilities, in agreement and working with the NLEDP platform team as necessary.Where the product team implement additional capabilities these should be delivered so as to benefit other product teams where appropriate. 34. In the “How suppliers will be evaluated” section of the DOS notice, we noticed the following;"Approach to the delivery of a specific product through the different delivery phases, initially focused on Driver’s Data Discovery."Could you please confirm if this is a typo or is indeed a supplier skill you are looking for, as our understanding is another supplier is already delivering for you in this area?Thank you, Apologies. This is an error in the published requirements document. The section of text should read:"Approach to the delivery of a specific product through the different delivery phases, initially focused on Discovery for the Frontline Person Check product ." 35. Can you please advise as to what you want demonstrated in the question: “Ability to prioritise multiple concurrent SOW demands to ensure that there is no delay to delivery timelines in this contract.”? The Authority refer the Supplier to the pre-existing responses to Q8 and Q12.In summary, the Authority require the Supplier to provide examples of services that what you have delivered previously in relation to this areas of expertise, how you delivered the required outcomes and deliverables and what you learnt in order to best demonstrate your organisations capabilities.If you have a specific question in the relation to this question, please set this out clearly, and we will endeavour to answer it. 36. Can you please advise as to what you want demonstrated in the question:“Ability to provide suitably skilled resource, rapidly mobilise and scale up a full team, flex resource or pause, when required”? The Authority refer the Supplier to the pre-existing responses to Q8 and Q12.In summary, the Authority require the Supplier to provide examples of services that what you have delivered previously in relation to this areas of expertise, how you delivered the required outcomes and deliverables and what you learnt in order to best demonstrate your organisations capabilities.If you have a specific question in the relation to this question, please set this out clearly, and we will endeavour to answer it. 37. Can more information be provided on what is being looked for in the point:“Evidence experience of strong and rapid continuous delivery practices approach to service continuity”? Apologies, this text contains a typographical error and should correctly read:“Evidence experience of strong and rapid continuous delivery practices and the associated delivery approach to service continuity”?