Data Specialist Capability

Tender description

Summary of the work Providing data specialists with experience to deliver and enhance the department's data and digital services, through a range of short and long-term projects in accordance with GDS standards. Expected Contract Length 24 Months Latest start date Tuesday 10 May 2022 Budget Range The Buyer will issue a range of work packages. A maximum budget of £2,000,000.00 for a 24 month duration, exclusive of VAT. This budget range excludes any extension options. The value of the optional extension period is £500,000 excluding VAT. Why the Work is Being Done The DIT Data team builds and operates a variety of services to support the department's objective to become a data-driven organisation. The team is constantly developing new services and infrastructure to meet emerging priorities. As our range of products grows, we need to supplement our in-house teams with data specialists able to deliver on our requirements, including: • Data architects • Data engineers Role descriptions are in line with the DDaT Capability Framework ‘Data Job Family.’ Details at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/digital-data-and-technology-profession-capability-framework. Problem to Be Solved We need to deliver both long- and short-term solutions , to meet emerging priorities for the department. At the same time, we need to ensure our existing services are maintained and enhanced to ensure they remain best-in-class. We have a range of services in discovery, alpha and beta phases of development. We would be looking for a supplier with extensive experience in this area, to support the Data team on a variety of projects, including for our in-house data platform, Tariff Application Platform and customer relationship management system. The supplier will work on a number of different statements of work across these platforms. Who Are the Users We are looking for a supplier to help our Digital, Data and Technology team deliver against its investment support priorities. DDaT is a growing function, and we need extra capacity to deliver new projects and transform existing services, identify gaps and build departmental capability as we help the Buyer to deliver against its priorities. We have a number of planned exploratory projects that would suit outcome-based teams. Our services include both staff-facing and public-facing products. Staff-facing services are used by ~4,000 of the Buyer's staff and partners around the world, enabling the Buyer to support UK investment and overseas investors and to inform UK trade policy. The Buyer's public-facing digital services are used by overseas investors and UK exporters to support them in their international trade journey Existing Team The DIT Data team consists of a range of multi-disciplinary product teams, working within a number of areas, including Data Science, Data Infrastructure, Tariffs and Data Hub (our customer relationship management system). The supplier will deliver work packages either by supplementing existing teams to deliver specific features/enhancements or by delivering new short- and long-term projects in teams together with in-house staff (for example a Product or Delivery Manager overseeing delivery). Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Experience in design and implementation of data intensive projects using industry standard, cloud solutions. (3%) • Proven experience delivering new services and components which are integrated into existing digital services, particularly including API integrations (2%) • Recent experience (last 2 years) of placing teams of SFIA level 3-5 Data and Data-Architecture professionals in government or critical national infrastructure and understanding how those roles work together (2%) • Evidence of supporting a Principal and Lead Data (analyst, scientist, engineer) professionals and Data Architects in shaping and leading the overall delivery for portfolios, programmes and projects (2%) • Evidence of collaboration with stakeholders to deliver Data and Data Architecture solutions in a clear and efficient, agile way (2%) • Experience in delivery of user centred, agile projects, following the Government Service Standard and Technology Code of Practice (2%) • Evidence of leading and managing multiple teams, helping them apply a range of techniques across Data Engineering and Data-Architecture, with focus on enabling the teams to improve and become self-sufficient(2%) • Experience and excellent technical competence developing Django applications using Postgres. (2%) • Experience and excellent technical competence querying data with SQL (2%) • Experience implementing ETL (or ELT) and data processing systems. (2%) • Familiarity with modern front-end development (HTML5, CSS, JavaScript) (2%) • Familiarity with CI/CD, DevOps approaches to delivery of data solutions. (2%) • Experience and excellent technical competence in data solution design using industry standard methods, techniques and products. (2%) • Experience in solving data problems in distributed systems (microservices) (2%) • Proven ability to engage with a range of different stakeholders and collaborators on all different levels of technical or business ability and understanding. (2%) • Proven experience or awareness of key data science, analysis and engineering skills, including natural language processing, sentiment analysis, machine learning and data visualisation (2%) • Familiarity with data security concepts, problems and solutions. (2%) Work Location Department for International Trade Old Admiralty Building Westminster London SW1A 2BL Working Arrangments Typically, a substantial portion of the work will be performed on-site at DIT’s premises in Westminster, London, unless otherwise agreed. However, at the time of publication, government measures to reduce Covid-19 are in operation and as such, work should be done remotely and in observance of social distancing and shielding guidance. DIT will continue to observe all government advice in the coming months aimed at reducing the spread of the disease Security Clearance Supplier staff will ordinarily be required to have SC clearance before they start. A copy of the clearance from the supplier will be required. It is the responsibility of the supplier to ensure clearance is received. Additional T&Cs All expenses must be pre-agreed between the parties and must comply with the Cabinet Office (CO) Travel and Subsistence (T&S) Policy. The initial SOW will be agreed with the successful supplier following award. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Explain how for the contract duration you will provide flexible resourcing, including your approach to onboarding and retaining key resources within changing market conditions. (5%) • Explain how you'll meet DIT's need for appropriately-skilled data-specialists - what internal tests/processing are undertaken to ensure these specialists meet our requirements? How will you measure/manage the quality/speed of delivery?(5%) • How can DIT validate skills of the specialists provided? (5%) • Provide three client focused case studies where your company have provided similar services, please identify any proposed team members that were part of the delivery team. (5%) • Present an example delivery plan for development and integration of a new microservice, which consumes data from multiple sources and applies data science and engineering techniques to produce new insights(5%) • Experience supporting in-work progression to help people, including those from disadvantaged or minority groups, to transition into or progress within DDaT roles. (10%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Demonstrate your ability to work with multiple teams on the same platform, sharing components, reviewing each other’s work and promoting a collaborative working environment (4%) • Demonstrate your experience with working securely in the open – by default all our code is open source (3%) • Demonstrate your ability to deliver in an open, collaborative, agile way according to the principles outlined in the Government Service Design Manual (3%) Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Do you have a current provider of these services? Part of the scope has been covered by existing contractors/suppliers. However, there is no existing provider that covers the entire scope of this requirement. 2. Please can you provide dates for; down selection, presentation, and award/initialisation? The procurement timescale for stage 2 will be confirmed with the shortlisted Suppliers. Presentations are likely to take place mid-March with award at the start of April. 3. What technologies are the DIT Data team looking to implement as part of this programme? We don’t have specific technology we want to implement as part of this programme, but we are always looking at expanding our capability. Our core technology includes: Python, PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, React, Design System, AWS cloud services, ReSTful APIs. We are looking at graph database technologies 4. What technologies are incumbent and will be decommissioned as part of this programme? We are not planning to decommission any technologies as part of this programme. 5. Will the resources required report to a DIT Project Manager? The supplier resource will be working within DIT teams, and will be accountable to a named DIT point of contact for the delivery of the agreed outcomes 6. Have the DIT Data team already established the CI/ CD pipelines and which technology? Yes. We use GitHub actions, CircleCI and Jenkins. 7. What code repo’s are used? Github and GitLab 8. What are the bounded domains for the data serviced via the DIT services (Customer, Contracts etc) Those are evolving and can be seen in our open source projects https://github.com/uktrade 9. What are the volumes and frequency of datasets? (e.g. 1TB per day, Real-time services) Our biggest dataset is about 1TB, many are significantly smaller. We don’t have currently any real-time services and most of data is processed daily, weekly or monthly 10. Whilst you state ordinary before they start; is it a requirement that should somebody start without SC they then will be required to gain this during the engagement? If so, are you willing to sponsor the applications? We will sponsor SC, at the supplier's expense.