National Fire Data Collection System (ref C22219)

Tender description

Summary of the work Build, host and support a system that will enable data on incidents attended by FRSs to be collected electronically and transferred securely between the HO and FRSs for full system ‘Go Live’ within 12 months. The system will be extended in the second year with further new datasets. Expected Contract Length 2 years + optional 6 months. Latest Start Date estimated at 01/05/23, but may be subject to change. Latest start date Monday 1 May 2023 Budget Range The current maximum budget for the system build is £2m ex VAT. Hosting and support charges shall be separate. This maximum figure is for information only and does not represent a commitment to spend up to that value, the HO expects to receive optimum value for money proposals. Individual SOWs shall be developed and costed on the basis of the overarching Contract requirements, terms, and prices. Contract spend from April 2025 onwards may be subject to HO budgetary approval. Different charging mechanisms may apply to SOWs depending on the type of work involved (e.g. Fixed Price, Capped T&M, T&M). Why the Work is Being Done The current Incident Recording System (IRS) has been used 24/7 by all GB Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) for the collection and recording of record-level incidents attended data over the past 15 years. There are 48 FRSs in England, Scotland, and Wales. Following a review, it was decided that the current system should be replaced. The HO has a requirement to ensure that any replacement solution for the IRS follows industry standard best practice and can be easily extended with minimal cost of change to collect other record-level operational workforce, prevention, and protection fire datasets from FRSs. The data is used for the production of National Statistics, as an evidential foundation for policy development, and to respond to Parliamentary Questions, as well as research, queries from academics, journalists, and the general public, and forms a legal record of an incident. For further details of the type of data please consult the Fire Statistics Guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-statistics-guidance A Discovery project was undertaken and completed in spring 2021 to determine the HO requirements, identify a high-level architectural design framework (neutral of technology) and examine the anticipated costs and timescales to deliver a new, modern National Fire Data Collection System (NFDCS). Problem to Be Solved A new system that will enable multiple fire datasets to be collected electronically via multiple channels (forms and services APIs) and transmitted securely between the HO and FRSs. The system will also be capable of producing reports, downloads, enable quality assurance workflow and benchmark type analytics. The HO is seeking a total solution; consisting of system build, hosting and support. The replacement incident data collection must be live within the first 12 months (Alpha, Beta, Live) enabling decommissioning of the current IRS. The second 12 months will be the Transformation phase with expanded dataset collection to include record-level data on operational workforce, prevention and protection activities. Dataset definitions will be provided by the HO to enable the web forms, workflows, and service APIs, etc. development at the relevant project stages. The HO is looking for a solution where most, if not all, of the application development is formed of Specially Written Software and New IPR, that will operate as Open-Source Software. As such any solution, including any SaaS based COTS elements, must be freely available to HO, other Government departments and all FRSs (or their developers) for local specialisation implementations, without any future Supplier restrictions or costs. Who Are the Users Approximately a third of GB FRSs will transition from the current IRS to the new NFDCS. The others may continue to use FRS local third-party systems that will need to interface into the new system. FRSs will use the system to record data, quality assure and download data and reports at an FRS level. Some FRS users will require administrative rights to enable user management such as assigning users to stations, onboarding users, removing users, etc. The HO will use the system to extract datasets for analysis and publication. Other Government and Fire Sector organisations have interest in the data collected by the system. The general public will not have access to the system. Appropriate user authentication must be implemented to prevent unauthorised access and use. The new system anticipates up to 20,000 users with 250 concurrent users on the system at any given time. The system would expect to capture about 2 million records per annum. The number of records collected is expected to increase by at least 10% per annum. The new system will retain all historic incident data, which will be available on a real-time basis. Early Market Engagement An Early Market Engagement exercise was conducted in April, to introduce the project and high -level requirements to the marketplace and invite suppliers to submit responses to an RFI questionnaire to help develop the HO's position and procurement strategy. All DOS5 Lot 1 Suppliers were invited to participate. The Presentation Slides and Q&A log from the associated market engagement event are available for information only, subject to signing an NDA, by contacting FireSystemsCommercial@homeoffice.gov.uk. Suppliers should note that some of the information contained therein may no longer be valid and Suppliers rely on these documents entirely at their own risk. Work Already Done Discovery was conducted to identify 260+ functional and non-functional requirements, and to develop an initial high-level technology agnostic architecture and a delivery plan approach for the project. Initial User Research to develop users’ wants and needs for the new system has been undertaken. The output for the Discovery and the initial User Research has been used to inform the procurement and requirements. A DRAFT Requirements List is available for information only, upon signing a Competition specific NDA by contacting FireSystemsCommercial@homeoffice.gov.uk. This document may be subject to change at any time and should not be taken as definitive at this stage. Existing Team The HO currently has a Business Product Owner, a Delivery SME, Technical Architect and PMO support. In addition, there will be a Project Manager; a Change, communication & training delivery lead, and a business analyst. The HO will also provide some quality assurance aspects as identified in the requirements catalogue e.g. ITHC testing. Please note that at this stage the HO team will NOT answer any questions directly relating to the detail in the Draft Requirements List, which is made available for information only (see the ‘Any work that’s already been done’ section above). Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Evidence your recent experience in successfully delivering data collection solutions that are: multi-channel permissions-based; adaptable (forms and web services APIs); and that support multiple organisations with a single implementation. • Evidence your recent experience of successfully providing: agile project management; delivering to multiple stakeholders; and users with complex dependencies • Evidence your recent experience of successfully developing a solution allowing: Buyer access as required to version control: and continuous integration/development/deployment capabilities. • Evidence your experience of successfully: building and delivering open-source digital services; developing re-usable Microservices/components shared with other organisations/projects outside your organisation for free • Evidence your recent experience in successfully using, maintaining, and improving continuous integration/development (CI/CD) pipelines, including automated testing • Evidence your recent experience of successful: mobile first design; Single Page Application/Progressive Web App/Progressive Enhancement approaches using HTML5, CSS, Node.JS and JavaScript frameworks or demonstrable equivalent • Evidence your recent experience of successfully: using open-source development technologies for web forms; web services; and database storage for similarly sized projects requirements. • Evidence your recent experience of successfully: building and delivering cloud platforms on AWS/Azure; container development/deployments; and managed containers/serverless orchestration - examples such as Docker, Kubernetes, AWS ECR/EKS, etc. • Evidence your recent experience of successfully developing secure/best practice web services APIs; (SOAP/XML/WSDL); (REST/Json); using PostgreSQL Data Storage in the cloud. • Evidence your recent experience in successfully: implementing/configuring Identity Access Management technologies e.g. Active Directory/AWS IAM; other industry standard cloud PaaS agnostic federated identity management technologies e.g. Okta, Auth0 etc. • Evidence your understanding of how to effectively deliver services using the Government Digital Service Standards and Guidelines Nice to Haves • Evidence your experience in successfully: developing and delivering incident data collection; solutions for Blue-Light Services (Police, Ambulance and/or Fire & Rescue Services); and Fire & Rescue Services specifically. • Evidence your recent experience in successfully designing and implementing data collection solutions for Fire and Rescue Services: Fire Incidents attended; Fire Prevention activities; Fire Protection activities; Operational Workforce details . • Evidence your recent experience of successful: rapid deployment of Microservices to support web form data capture; web service APIs for system-to-system data capture; and database storage (for analytical purposes) • Evidence your recent experience in successfully: implementing reporting/analytical tools (e.g. PowerBI (preferable), QuickSight, Tableau, etc) to summarise data as reports/dashboards; from complex data sets used by multiple organisations/business-units • Evidence your recent experience of successfully implementing developed systems to incorporate Security by Design, ITHC, OWASP for application and services and handling Official Sensitive information. • Evidence your recent experience of successfully: delivering and testing user interfaces that apply appropriate Government standards for web accessibility; and suitably apply Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Double-A. Work Location Supplier Staff shall work the majority of the time remotely / from their own premises. Key Supplier Staff shall be expected to attend the HO locations listed below as and when appropriate. This is anticipated to be no more than one day a fortnight on average . • 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF • High Trees, Hillfield Road, Hemel Hempstead, HP2 4XN • Other specified locations within the M25. Any related travel expenses must be agreed in advance and comply with the HO T&S Policy For security purposes, all data must be hosted in the U.K . Working Arrangments It is not anticipated that any IT equipment will be provided by the HO. There is a requirement for use of cloud-based collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams/SharePoint/Outlook/Jira/Confluence. Project Management - The supplier is expected to engage regularly with the HO, this may include: 1. Written weekly reporting 2. Sprint reviews to enable the HO to review the output of each sprint 3. Project Board attendance to present progress updates to board members when required The ongoing support will need to work with an ITIL based system for support processes and management. Security Clearance Staff must have SC level clearance to access Pre-Production (Training) and Production (Live) environments data and/or logs. Staff requiring security clearance must be identified at least 3 months in advance of needing access. The HO shall perform the SC clearance process, subject to timely receipt of all necessary information. Additional T&Cs Including, but not limited to: 1. Expenses must be pre-agreed and comply with HO T&S policy. 2. Maximum/capped day rates by profession shall be applied to all resource roles at all SFIA levels, and will be shared with shortlisted Suppliers at RFP stage. 3. Shortlisted Suppliers must sign and return a Competition specific NDA to participate in the subsequent RFP stage. 4. Shortlisted Supplier’s must register on CCS’s e-Sourcing system to participate in the subsequent RFP stage: https://crowncommercialservice.bravosolution.co.uk/ 5. The Call-Off Contract may be supplemented by additional special T&Cs. Further details shall be available to shortlisted Suppliers at RFP Stage. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • Demonstrate how you will ensure robust and efficient mobilisation of the project, and effective management of all project build activities in a collaborative and transparent manner. • Describe how you will ensure your nominated team with experience of delivering services similar to the requirements outlined will deliver the project successfully • Describe the proposed operational solution architecture and software you will deploy to deliver the requirements • Describe the delivery approach, methodology and software/tools you will apply, including user-centric design, data design, development, deployment, testing, etc. • Describe how the proposed support service and continuous improvement approach will achieve the objectives, required service levels, change management requirements, whilst minimising risks and delivering benefits for the overall service. • Describe how you will ensure training and knowledge transfer throughout the lifetime of the contract and on exit. • Provide up to two Case Studies that evidences your ability to deliver a demonstrably comparable and relevant service to the NFDCS in terms of capability, features, scale/criticality and operational environment. • Describe how you will identify and implement value-add opportunities to reduce the Authority’s costs and/or improve the quality and efficiency of the Deliverables. Cultural Fit Criteria • Social Value Policy Outcome: Improve Health and Wellbeing - Describe the commitment your organisation will make to ensure that opportunities under the contract deliver the Policy Outcome & Award Criteria. • Policy Outcome: Increase Supply Chain Resilience and Capacity. Please describe the commitment your organisation will make to ensure that opportunities under the contract deliver the Policy Outcome and Award Criteria. Payment Approach Fixed price Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 55% Cultural fit 10% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. Was the discovery project delivered using a third party supplier? If so, who were they, and would anything prevent them from applying for this opportunity? Yes, Discovery work was delivered by CapGemini Plc, and this stand-alone project work was completed in April 2021. This supplier is not prevented from applying for this opportunity, which is open to all suppliers listed on the CCS DOS5 Framework (Lot 1). Relevant details of the Discovery outputs will be shared with Shortlisted suppliers at Stage 2 / RFP Stage. Key details are reflected in the information provided within this opportunity notice and the Draft Requirements List which is available on request, subject to signing an NDA. 2. Re. Nice-to-Have 1 and 2 – would experience with other organisations be acceptable evidence here? If so, what other organisations would the Authority deem to be comparable? Examples for these Nice-to-Have criteria should relate to Blue-Light Services and Fire and Rescue Services experience, as set out in the criteria. 3. Are Home Office able to share the outputs from the discovery? Relevant details of the Discovery outputs will be shared with Shortlisted suppliers at Stage 2 / RFP Stage. Key details are reflected in the information provided within this opportunity notice and the Draft Requirements List which is available on request, subject to signing an NDA. 4. Will the service be subject to GDS assessments? We do not anticipate the service being subject to GDS assessment. However, as part of the shortlisting exercise Supplier's must evidence their understanding of how to effectively deliver services using the Government Digital Service Standards and Guidelines. 5. Where does the budget and delivery accountability (if different) for this system sit within the Home Office? Ultimate responsibility for this Contract sits with the Fire Resilience and Major Events Unit, with service delivery led by the Police and Fire Analysis Unit (Home Office Analysis and Insights Directorate). 6. 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.? Indicative timescales are set out below. These timescales are based on a range of assumptions, and may be subject to change at any time at the Authority's discretion: • End Jan '23 - Shortlisting results notified / RfP issued to shortlisted suppliers • End Feb '23 - RfP Supplier response deadline (approx. 4 weeks) • May '23 latest - Contract Award / CommencementThe Authority shall endeavour to provide an update on anticipated timescales prior to the Christmas period. The Authority's intention is to award the Contract as soon as reasonably possible, whilst maintaining a fair and robust procurement process. 7. With the payment approach being “fixed price”, are you preferring a waterfall approach to delivery rather than agile? The project shall adopt agile project management and methods, including: joint sprint planning ceremony, daily stand-ups, sprint review, sprint retrospectives and backlog refinement. The Authority also needs to ensure total Contract costs are realistic and affordable. The 'Payment Approach' field states 'Fixed Price' due to DMP single input restrictions, however individual SOWs shall be costed and agreed on the basis of the overarching Contract Price Schedule, and therefore different charging mechanisms (e.g. Fixed Price, Capped T&M, T&M) may apply depending on the types of service involved. Contract Price Schedule requirements shall be available to shortlisted suppliers at the next stage. 8. Can the Authority provide high-level details on why the system is being replaced? The current IRS system was originally built in 2007 for the Department for Communities and Local Government (now The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities). The current IRS system does not support the Home Office and NFDCS requirements. The Home Office and FRS now require a new system that takes advantage of the latest technologies and industry standards, based on open-source software, and which can be cost-effectively scaled and adapted to meet evolving user needs over the longer term. 9. Is this intended to be a centrally hosted application used by multiple Fire and Rescue Services or deployed on a per Service basis? A centrally hosted application used by multiple Fire and Rescue Services. Further details shall be available to shortlisted Suppliers at the next stage. 10. Are there NFRs for how “real-time” the reportable data must be? Yes. Further details shall be available to shortlisted Suppliers at the next stage. 11. How do you envision the roll-out of NFDCS for the Fire and Rescue Services that will transition? Will there be a phased migration of Fire and Rescue Services, starting with those identified as Implementation Services? There will be a phased transition of FRSs to the new NFDCS, currently anticipated to take place over a 3 month period. Further details shall be available to shortlisted Suppliers at the next stage. 12. Will NFDCS need to provide an existing API for compatibility with existing Fire and Rescue Service systems? Is that the purpose of the SOAP/XML APIs? Yes to both questions 13. Will the Fire and Rescue Services submit standardised Data Sets to the NFDCS? Yes - One set of APIs and data definitions. 14. Will HO, Government and Other Government organisations extract datasets through the NFDCS user interface, or through service APIs? Possibly both, subject to review with the various parties. 15. PowerBI is stated as preferable for reporting/analytical tools. Is there existing Microsoft 365 investment and licensing that can be leveraged across Fire and Rescue Services? The current assumption for the procurement is that the Supplier shall provide stand-alone licencing. Should the Home Office identify any opportunities to leverage existing licensing, these will be considered accordingly. 16. Question 2 refers to providing “agile project management” please can you clarify if this differs to “agile development”, and if so how. The term "agile project management" is not considered to differ from "agile development", i.e. they are considered to be one and the same. 17. If the supplier uses COTS or SaaS software to produce an open-source output that can be shared and used by anyone would this be acceptable? The question is unclear as to the degree of COTS or SaaS software use envisaged. Regardless, the HO is looking for a solution where most, if not all, of the application development is formed of Specially Written Software and New IPR, that will operate as Open-Source Software. As such any solution, including any SaaS based COTS elements, must be freely available to HO, other Government departments and all FRSs (or their developers) for local specialisation implementations, without any future Supplier restrictions or costs. 18. Would you be prepared to consider COTS software where the rules are open source and shareable? The question is unclear as to the degree of COTS software use envisaged. Regardless, the HO is looking for a solution where most, if not all, of the application development is formed of Specially Written Software and New IPR, that will operate as Open-Source Software. As such any solution, including any SaaS based COTS elements, must be freely available to HO, other Government departments and all FRSs (or their developers) for local specialisation implementations, without any future Supplier restrictions or costs. 19. Does the Discovery output detail what the current IRS does and doesn’t do well? The final Requirements List and full Technical Specification, provided to shortlisted Suppliers as part of the next stage of the procurement, shall describe what is required. Further information to aid the understanding of the current IRS will also be provided as part of the next stage. 20. Do all Fire and Rescue Services have an existing and consistent cloud presence? Does the NFDCS need to be cloud-agnostic? No, not all Fire and Rescue Services have an existing and consistent cloud presence.The NFDCS will be a multi-tenant shared service. It is desirable for the application to be cloud-agnostic. 21. Is there a standard user management solution in use by all Fire and Rescue Services (e.g. Active Directory) No 22. ADMINISTRATIVE CORRECTION: Please note that the e-Sourcing system referenced in point 4. of the Additional Information section is incorrect. Shortlisted Supplier’s shall be required to register on the Home Office e-Sourcing Portal prior to participation in the subsequent RFP stage, NOT the CCS e-Sourcing Portal. Correct link as follows: https://homeoffice.app.jaggaer.com/web/login.html