Delivery Capability Partner

Tender description

Summary of the work ONS is developing its survey data collection service which will enhance digital products for collection and ingestion of surveys, building on the success of the first digital census in 2021. ONS requires access to specialist digital services to conduct discoveries and alphas in order to complete this work. Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Tuesday 3 January 2023 Budget Range There is no commitment to minimum spend over the term of the contract. The maximum spend is limited to £4 million per annum over the duration of the contract, excluding VAT. Statements of work shall be agreed so that we can ensure we’re delivering discrete projects or activities that meet user needs and value for money. The payment approach will vary dependent on the statement of work, this will be agreed in advance. For example, fixed price or capped and time and materials etc. Why the Work is Being Done The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics, recognised as a national statistical institute. We are responsible for collecting and publishing statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels ONS digital products for collection and ingestion of surveys are building on the success of the first digital census in 2021 by developing its survey data collection service to: Make it easier and quicker for respondents to complete surveys Support staff to work as efficiently and effectively as possible Maximise the use of digital and data opportunities in line with the government roadmap for digital and data and ONS’s strategy and business plans Replace legacy systems and develop new solutions which will improve efficiency and better meet user needs Improve data and performance through better information and decision support, improved insights from data, track performance and progress of the ONS’s digital surveys, as well as improved data flows across the end-to-end statistical process Improve value for money and user experience. Detailed SoR can be found by expressing interest on ONS’s e-tendering system – https://in-tendhost.co.uk/ons/aspx/ProjectManage/3466 All downselect and award criteria is in-line with the Gov.UK service manual - https://www.gov.uk/service-manual Problem to Be Solved There are surveys that are not currently delivered online and are missing the benefits that digital surveys realise. Additionally, some online surveys require technical skills to build and simplifying our survey estate and improving our processing and production of statistics will reduce operational costs. The ONS needs access to specialist digital services to: Conduct discoveries – learn about users and what they’re trying to achieve, identify constraints, challenge assumptions, identify opportunities to improve and decide whether to move onto alpha. Conduct alphas – try out different solutions, build prototypes, prioritise and test different ideas and decide which of the ideas tested to take forward to beta. Due to the variety of digital services and technologies a flexible approach is required to allow Statements of Work to be appropriate for any given project and we envisage that capability will be supplied within two weeks of request to deliver digital outcomes, so that we can: Quickly flex delivery capacity up and down to meet the scale of change for each activity, getting the right skills for the right duration Bridge existing gaps in capability/capacity with the right experienced resource Ensure that quality industry digital and data thinking is embedded within the ONS Who Are the Users External Users: As someone taking part in a survey, I need to be able to provide an online response to a request for information from ONS (in the form of a survey) so that I can contribute to UK government decisions. Internal Users: As an ONS survey manager I need to be able to setup and manage a survey for completion online by a user so that I can ensure quality data is collected and processed in a cost-effective way with minimal burden on our users. Digital Services & Technology team: I need to run discoveries and develop digital services and solutions so that they meet user needs. I may need a full team, or individuals to complement a team I have. Early Market Engagement There has been no early market engagement. Work Already Done The survey data collection service has developed the following products that require new features and functionality: Author: Designs and builds surveys online. Electronic questionnaire: Runs online surveys built in Author and submits responses. Respondent account service: Lets respondents sign into and complete their surveys Response management: Manages and tracks survey responses & case management. Response operations: Allows ONS staff to manage survey status and ensure compliance. Survey response management/Respondent Home: our survey lite product for ad-hoc quick response surveys. Survey data exchange: Validates, receipts, transforms, and presents survey data. Existing Team The survey data collection service teams have a number of permanent staff across most of the government’s DDaT capability framework, supplemented by contractors. Where required, internal team members and existing contractors will work with supplier teams to deliver outcomes in statements of work. Where required, collaboration with other suppliers may be necessary. This contract will not prevent us from using other commercial arrangements. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Evidence of developing an understanding of users and the problem you were trying to solve-9% • Evidence of working towards creating a service that solves a whole problem for users, working with other teams and organisations where necessary-5% • Evidence of making prototypes to explore, share and test different designs-7% • Evidence of recommending and choosing technology, keeping up to date with latest technology developments, minimising total-cost-of-ownership, using standard technology components and software that others have built-5% • Evidence of setting up a multidisciplinary team of a similar capability and capacity contract for discoveries and alphas, working with other teams and the key considerations for successful delivery-9% • Evidence of delivering a similar contract to quickly stand up a team, flexing for the right capability and capacity for the right duration and including team members from other organisations-9% • Evidence of running a discovery-setting clear goals and scope, identifying constraints, users, improvements, performance indicators and sharing learnings via reports, show-and-tells and blogs, recommending options to take forward into alpha-7% • Evidence of running an alpha - recommending the options to take forward, working in the open, writing beta business proposals-7% • Evidence of sprint planning, show and tells, retrospectives, user stories, backlog management, communicating progress to the team and wider organisation-7% • Evidence of showing clear progress, demonstrating value for money and utilisation of the team-7% • Evidence demonstrating how you have allocated resources based on uncertain demand, including your business model and how you resourced teams-5% • Evidence of certification/alignment to recognised information security standards (e.g. ISO27001,CyberEssentials,NCSC guidance/principles,etc.), how you ensured compliance with GDPR (including ICOregistration number), IR35 and other policies/procedures when delivering outcomes-5% • Evidence demonstrating how you have delivered value-added contracts-5% • Evidence demonstrating your approach to maintaining standards whilst delivering at pace-5% • Evidence demonstrating how you have engaged with a client to understand outcomes and deliverables-5% • Evidence of considering the barriers different groups of users might face-3% Nice to Haves • Evidence of using the government Technology Code of Practice-25% • Evidence of applying the government Service Standard-25% • Evidence demonstrating your understanding of government's approach to digital and data-25% • Evidence demonstrating when you have transferred skills to a client-25% Work Location The primary site for the Contracting Authority for this project is: Office for National Statistics, Newport Working Arrangments A flexible agile approach is required to meet the outcome-based needs of each SoW. Individual SoW’s (clearly defining working arrangements) will be agreed and aligned to discrete delivery phases, with robust onboarding and contract management practices in place. We anticipate a maximum of 3-5 concurrent Statements of Work All resources must be on-shored. Current working arrangement allow for home working which is subject to agreement. The supplier must be available to visit the Contracting Authority’s offices to undertake work and for face-to-face meetings when required All expenses to be agreed in advance inline with ONS’s Travel and Sustenance Policy Security Clearance Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) as a minimum with possible SC clearance required on a SoW’s basis No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Understanding of the requirement-15% • Implementation plan to mobilise the contract-10% • Proposed onboarding process for resource allocated to the ONS-15% • Approach and ability to provide resource to meet our requirements-15% • Proposed contract management methodology, including how the days worked by resource provided and then charged to us will be processed-10% • Understanding of the Digital Service Standard and Government Design Principles-10% • Approach to remote working-5% • Identification of risks and plan to mitigate them-10% • Dependencies on the ONS to enable successful delivery-10% Cultural Fit Criteria • Approach to working as a team with the ONS and our other suppliers-10% • Approach to transparency and collaboration when making decisions-10% • Approach to embedding a team or individuals quickly establishing working as a team with the ONS-7.5% • Approach to taking responsibility for their work-7.5% • Approach to sharing knowledge and experience with team members and the wider ONS-7.5% • Social values and how they align with the ONS's, including our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy-7.5% • Social Value- Support health and wellbeing in the workforce Activities (MAC7.1)-25% • Social Value - Influencing support for health and wellbeing Activities (MAC7.2)-25% Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method • Work history • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you elaborate on how you would like the ‘clear progress’ part of this evidenced? “Evidence of showing clear progress, demonstrating value for money and utilisation of the team” We will be placing statements of work with the supplier which will define the outcome we require and so want the supplier to show how they are progressing towards delivering the outcome. We are looking for you to provide evidence where you have demonstrated progress towards delivering an outcome to a supplier and how you demonstrated value for money and utilisation of the team. 2. can you confirm who the incumbent is please? This is a new requirement with all scoping conducted by ONS employees - there is no incumbent 3. What is the frequency of travel to Newport required per week? Is the whole team required to attend or just key team members? The supplier must be available to visit the Contracting Authority’s offices to undertake work and for face-to-face meetings when required and we will agree the arrangements for each discrete statement of work. 4. You mention “Evidence demonstrating how you have delivered value-added contracts”, can you elaborate on this, is this delivering value over and above contractual commitments, or is this a question about risk share? We are looking for you to provide evidence where you have added value to contracts you have delivered before. For example, this may be in the way you worked with the client, the service you provided or innovation delivered. This is not an exhaustive list and we welcome any examples on how suppliers feel they have added value" 5. What technologies are existing products developed on? Are there preferred ONS technologies? "The technologies below are used in our existing production products and systems. We would expect one of the outputs of an alpha phase (as per the government service design manual) to be the technical considerations when moving to beta (e.g. the rationale for changing technologies/utilising existing technologies/introducing new technologies)Python (Flask)Linux / Docker / KubernetesGoogle Cloud PlatformTerraform IaCMonitoring and Alerting (Stackdriver / Grafana)CI/CD inc Concourse and SpinnakerGithub PlatformNode / JavascriptReact / ApolloGraphQLAWS and GCP Cloud PlatformTerraformJava (Spring)GolangPostgresc#" 6. Will ONS pay for expenses to visit ONS offices if/when required? The main location for work is ONS Newport and therefore expenses will not be paid. Currently remote working is in place at ONS. 7. How will Price be evaluate at the next stage please? Will it be scored against a set rate card and day rate? Or on the supplier proposal of team/rate in response to a SOW. Price will be evaluated against a weighted rate card for identified "core" posts with a nominated SIFA levelPlease see attachment on In-Tend showing core roles 8. Please list the roles that would be provisioned from the Delivery Capability Partner? "Roles to be agreed on a SoW basis, however ONS see the below list as core rolesUser researcher (user research capability)Business analyst (business analysis capability)Service designer (service design capability)Performance analyst (performance analysis capability)Interaction designer (prototype development and user experience design capability)Front end developer (prototype development capability)Delivery manager (delivery management capability)Technical architect (technical architecture capability)Data architect (data architecture capability)Data engineer (data engineering capability)These will be published on In-Tend as an attachment" 9. You have given specific weightings against each of the Essential Skills. However, DOS guidelines require a score for each skill between 0-3. How will you apply these weightings? "As per DOS Guidance - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-score-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-suppliers(2. If you published points with your evaluation criteria, give points to each one) weighted scores will be multiplied by weighted score. I can confirm that the scoring will remain 0-3." 10. Under ‘Budget’ you state that the payment approach will vary per SoW but under ‘Payment Approach’ you state Time and Materials. Can you please clarify? DOS platform only allows to pick one option. It is agreed that a rate card will be used to evaluate (T&M) However ONS retains the right to agree per SOW on the payment approach with the winning supplier. CCS have confirmed this is appropiate. 11. On Digital Marketplace the deadline for this tender is 09 Nov. On ONS in-tendhost.co.uk portal the deadline is 07 Nov. Please confirm which is correct. The deadline is 9th November via DOS. In-Tend has been amended accordingly 12. Is the tender documentation complete? Do you plan to upload any additional tender documents? The tender documentation has been finalised, this will be issued to the down selected suppliers 13. "Section Nice-to-have, question 4: Evidence demonstrating when you have transferred skills to a client-25%Is this asking for evidence about training client’s staff? or it is about transferring skills and our staff to the client, under TUPE?" This is evidence of transferring skills and isn't related to TUPE regulations (transfer of undertakings, protection of employment) which isn't applicable to this contract 14. Please can you confirm whether Stage 1 scores will be carried over and used as part of the evaluation at Stage 2? No they will not be carried over 15. Regarding the response criteria at Stage 2, please can you confirm that the Work History, Presentation and each of the 9 points listed in the Proposal Criteria section will be equally weighted within the 50% allocated to Technical Competence within the evaluation? "Work History will be scored separately with a weighting of 5%All questions in Proposal has its own weighting which will be provided in the ITT to the down selected suppliers.The presentation will be used to score along with the written proposal to score." 16. Please could you confirm what scoring methodologies will be applied at Stage 1 and Stage 2? "The standards DOS Scoring Methodology will be adopted.0 - Not Met1 - Partially Met2 - Met3 - Exceeded" 17. Please can you provide a timeline indicating the dates on which you intend to notify suppliers they have been shortlisted, the submission deadline for Stage 2, and the date of award etc.? "Anticipated timeline - subject to change25/11/22 - Shortlisted outcomes notifications06/12/22 - Proposal submissions16/12/22 - Presentations21/12/22 - Tender outcome notifications03/01/23 - Contract Start" 18. Is this resource augmentation or whole teams to deliver outcomes? "Depending on the statement of work, we will require whole teams or one or more specialists to work with an existing team to deliver specific outcomes, using the below format as per the DDaT PlaybookOutsource = Sole ResponsibilityBorrow = Self Directed TeamsBridge = Rainbow TeamsTeams may be purely made up of workers provided through the service contract or mixed with the employees from the ONS (and our other suppliers)" 19. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold? "ONS do not share names of evaluators, the roles of evaluators are;Deputy Director, Digital DeliveryProgramme Delivery Manager for Service DesignHead of ProductONS reserves the right to change evaluators as necessary, however ONS will endeavour to keep to the same evaluators throughout the tender" 20. "Hi...you state...”“Evidence demonstrating your approach to maintaining standards whilst delivering at pace”.Are there any particular standards you were looking for or particular areas of delivery which currently lack specific standards?" In additional to the essential information security standards examples, our digital public surveys are subject to the GOV.UK service standard (https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-standard) and technology code of practice (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-technology-code-of-practice). We have specified these as supplier nice-to-have skills and experience 21. Regarding the requirement that ‘capability will be supplied within two weeks of request to deliver digital outcomes’, is this two weeks in working days or calendar days? Working days 22. With regard to nice-to-have Q3 are you looking for a specific case study answer, or a broader response on our understanding of the Government digital and data strategies? We are looking for you to provide an understanding of the governments approach to digital and data which could use an example 23. Can you please clarify how the additional Work History and Presentation assessments will be weighted and scored. We see that CQ#15 says you will allocate 5% to Work History but that means the currently published totals do not add up? "Please find breakdown below;""2nd Stage Proposals/Technical competence"" Proposal 45%Cultural Fit 10%Social Value 10%Work History 5%Financial (Commercial) 30%Please note that Proposal and Cultural Fit will be scored by your written proposal and presentation" 24. Is this tender connected to Software Engineering Services Partner or they are different projects with different budgets? "These tenders are for the survey data collection service and will be used for outcomes for range of projects and budgets.Both tenders are being completed in their own right." 25. R.e criteria 11 Evidence of certification/alignment to recognised information security standards. Does this refer to our internal certification or applying it to deliver outcomes? This is evidence of supplier alignment and certification which includes when delivering outcomes for a client