To design and build a new Haringey Council website based on LocalGov Drupal

Tender description

Summary of the work Haringey is looking for a partner agency to collaborate in UX, design, build and content migration to a LocalGov Drupal platform. Haringey wants to upgrade from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 using the LocalGov Drupal distribution. Hosting and maintenance of Drupal 9 platform are not required. Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Monday 3 October 2022 Budget Range £245,000 maximum (exclusive of VAT) Why the Work is Being Done Haringey Council is upgrading from Drupal 7 to a LocalGov Drupal platform so that it can better meet the needs of its users and work with technology that is better suited to the capability and skills of the digital and technology teams. We have identified user experience issues and some inconsistency with online services that need to be addressed. The design refresh scope of the website will be informed by the usability interviews currently in motion. The goal of this work is to create an accessible, mobile-first website (through inclusive design approaches, GDS style principles, and compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA). The LocalGov Drupal project aligns to our strategic intent for the design of digital services and the current technology stack – Drupal 7. Haringey is looking to play an active role in this open-source project, LocalGov Drupal, contributing any new code back into the wider community as required. We want to work with the supplier as a mixed in-house team as there are several in-house resources already trained to work with the Drupal platform and working in a collaborative manner with agencies with Drupal expertise. These include content designers and developers. Problem to Be Solved Our current Drupal version (7) is reaching end of life in November 2023 so we’re looking for a partner to help us upgrade the haringey.gov.uk website and publishing platform to Drupal 9 using the LocalGov Distribution. As well as delivering a fresh website design, the partner will create a new set of design standards based on LocalGov Drupal/GDS principles we can use across other online services, to bring more consistency to the user experience. We also intend to build new microsites using the same platform and underlying open-source framework. New microsite builds are not part of this scope but we do expect the successful agency to help us build the capability to roll out new sites based on LocalGov Drupal ourselves. The council has recently published its digital strategy which reiterates its commitment to the Local Digital Declaration. The upgrade of the existing website will need to be done in line with these principles. See https://www.haringey.gov.uk/cms-procurement for list of requirements. Who Are the Users The new council’s website will need to meet a wide range of user needs for residents, businesses, and visitors. Some indicative high level user needs are: • As a resident/business/visitor, I need to quickly access the right information and services online, so that I can find what I am looking for and complete any tasks I came to the site to do, quickly and intuitively. • As a content publisher, I need a simple and intuitive interface with minimal need for re-training, so that I can easily create and manage accurate and accessible content. • As a developer I need to be able to quickly build functionality and integrations so that I can carry on implementing the roadmap set by our design authority. • As a third-party developer, I need to be able to refer to a set of design standards and brand guidelines when developing online services for Haringey so they have a consistent look and feel. Early Market Engagement n/a Work Already Done • A content audit was completed in January 2022 covering quantity and quality of content currently on the website. • Comprehensive Web Management Report covering channel use, analytics and customer satisfaction was published in April 2022. The Bruce Castle Museum microsite has already been built using the LocalGov Drupal distribution (which includes some functionality we would wish to re-use – for example a new events module). Copies of these can be found at https://www.haringey.gov.uk/cms-procurement Findings of user research currently being undertaken will be shared with successful agency. Existing Team • Project Manager • Business Analysts • Content Designers • Developers • Web editors Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Provide an agile multi-disciplinary team including development, user research, UX consultant, content strategist, content migration and service and UI design, demonstrating relevant qualifications and experience. • Have experience designing high volume digital services that meet a wide range of user needs using Drupal 9. • Have experience of delivering a product using Agile product/service delivery. • Have knowledge and expertise in inclusive, mobile-first design • Have experience developing digital services that are accessible for everyone using the WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility guidelines. • Have experience of working collaboratively with internal IT teams • Have knowledge and experience of delivering services that meet GDS Service Standards, and GDS Technology Code of Practice • Have knowledge and experience of working with third party hosting companies • Have knowledge and experience of data security and compliance (GDPR). • Have knowledge and experience of search engine optimisation. Nice to Haves • Have designed, developed and implemented a website using the LocalGov Drupal distribution • Experience of working on a Local Government website or willing to gain experience • Be an active contributor to the LocalGov Drupal community or willing to contribute with developed modules from Haringey • Have knowledge of headless and de-coupled Drupal installations • Have experience of creating design standards Work Location Haringey Council, River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green London N22 8HQ Working Arrangments The work can be done mostly remotely but there might be a need for some in person meetings/workshops in Haringey, London, N22. Security Clearance N/a Additional T&Cs None No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 6 Proposal Criteria • How the approach or solution meets user needs • Estimated timeframes for the work • Approach and methodology • Value for money Cultural Fit Criteria • share knowledge and experience, upskilling Haringey teams • a commitment to work collaboratively with the LocalGov Drupal community, other council suppliers and systems • commitment to inclusivity, accessibility and open data and code • be comfortable standing up for their discipline Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. It states that this is a 2 year long project – I was wondering if you would be open to a business if we can deliver on it faster? Two years is the maximum life of the contract to accommodate for any change requests post build and live, any functionality adjustments, etc. We are aiming to have the new site live within six months. As we mentioned in the budget area, we will be working agile and issuing several Statements of Work for shorter periods of delivery. 2. Would you consider a customisable Drupal 9 based managed service, such as https://councilplatform.com/ for this project? This uses the GOV.UK frontend, supports microsites, delivers on all of your user stories, is ready for content population immediately, includes automated content migration tools, and is already in production usage (e.g. https://www.north-herts.gov.uk/). It costs a fraction of your £245k 2 year budget, which would deliver significant savings for the council. Thank you for your question and interest. We are only looking at LocalGov Drupal-based solutions for this piece of work.As a signatory to the Local Digital Declaration we have committed to ‘working collaboratively with other organisations, and reusing good practice ‘. Having already successfully used LocalGov Drupal to develop the Bruce Castle Museum, and participating in LGD Working and Product Groups we believe this to be the best strategic fit for Haringey Council at this time. 3. Who built the Bruce Castle Museum microsite? The Bruce Castle Museum microsite was built by Zoocha Limited working in collaboration with the in-house team and Ixis/CTI the hosting agency. 4. Who is currently doing the user research? The user research agency currently carrying out initial research into site usage (user surveys and interviews) is Telltale Research. 5. Can you clarify what the hosting arrangements currently are and how they will be for this project? Our current contract is with Ixis. This is a separate contract covering hosting and support for our Drupal websites (security patches and core updates). The successful agency should be able to develop locally and push changes via Git to the Ixis hosted Staging server for client review before it gets moved to Production by Ixis. 6. Are you aware of any priority features the council has that are yet to be satisfied by LocalGov Drupal? The list of must have requirements and user stories are here https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/user_stories_haringey_cms_july_22_final.xlsxOn that we have marked what we believe is currently fully, partially or not currently available in Local Gov Drupal. I hope that helps. 7. What do you anticipate the role being of your in-house developers on the project? Our in-house developers will be part of the project team, and work closely with your developers to better understand what you are delivering and building for us, with a view to them being able to help support this and other Drupal 9 sites in the longer term. 8. What requirements do you have in mind that would benefit from a decoupled CMS? We have no specific requirements at the moment. As we aim to use Local Gov Drupal for microsites as well as the main website we may well ask the partner agency for any expert advice and guidance they can give us on the pros and cons of such an approach. At this stage all we are saying is that ‘knowledge of headless and de-coupled Drupal installations’ would be a nice to have skill. 9. “Findings of user research currently being undertaken will be shared with successful agency.” Please can you provide details of what type of outputs this research will deliver. We have commissioned an agency to carry out internal staff workshops, detailed interviews with residents about the current website and a report summarising the findings and with recommendations for further work and research. We have also recently run a website survey. 10. To confirm, UX does not form part of this tender and is there already a UX agency appointed for this build? No, we don’t have another agency working on Design and UX. We are expecting whoever wins this tender to have deliver UX design and development. 11. Are you open to working with agencies who have not previously worked on LocalGov projects but have experience with Drupal development and want to gain LocalGov experience? The “nice to have” questions seem to indicate that LocalGov experience is required. Yes we are very happy to work with an agency who does not as yet have direct experience of working with LocalGov Drupal (it’s only a nice to have, not essential). 12. Will your in-house development team be managed as part of our team, by us, or will there be multiple project managers involved? The Haringey Developers will remained managed by Haringey – their initial role will be mainly watching and learning from the agency that comes in to deliver this. 13. What local development environment is used by your in-house team? Would you be open to changing this if necessary to improve any project collaboration? The in-house developers currently have access to a dedicated Ubuntu server for Drupal development, and have also set up local dev environments on their Windows laptops. We are certainly open to reviewing and changing these to ensure things are optimised and aligned.Worth re-iterating here that the successful agency will be expected to use their own local dev setup for the initial design and build work. Work will then be pushed onto AWS Drupal servers (currently hosted and managed for us by Ixis) for us to review. 14. What is the expectation in terms of project management methodology? do you expect to have constant deliveries? every 2-4 weeks? in an agile methodology? We are open to suggestions here. In the second stage of the procurement we’ll be asking shortlisted suppliers to recommend their preferred project delivery approach that best fits the size and scale of the project. 15. How do you expect both teams to work together? considering that you have a team of developers, PM, and designers, how is expected to flow the work between the two teams? what are the responsibilities for each? will you manage the project or is the project management done on the supplier side? Project management, design and development would primarily be provided by the supplier. We have some web developers we’d like to upskill in Drupal 9 as part of this, and we will have our own content designers working on content. We currently have no dedicated in-house UX designers. 16. What special features will the website have? Should we consider the same features as the current website? The list of essential requirements for the new website are here https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/user_stories_haringey_cms_july_22_final.xlsx