Outcome for a skilled digital team to enhance the Book a video link service

Tender description

Pre-market engagement not applicable Work done so far Prisons Digital built the existing BVLS digital service for court users to book video court hearings by adding features and functionality to another service, Whereabouts. The Whereabouts service is currently used by the majority of prisons to book and manage appointments for existing video conferencing centres, as well as for managing many other types of appointment and movements in prisons. It solves part of the problem but does not address all the user needs and business priorities. Whereabouts also relies on data from Nomis, a legacy system that Prisons Digital are working to replace. Work on replacing the non-BVLS parts of Whereabouts (eg appointments, unlock lists) has already been undertaken by another supplier and is ongoing, to be shortly be rolled out to prisons. This leaves the BVLS part of Whereabouts standing alone. An assessment of whether to enhance the existing service, rebuild part, reuse or integrate with recent Whereabouts replacement work is within scope of this contract. Which phase the project is in Not applicable Existing team The existing BVLS service is in basic support mode with a digital team. The supplier team will take over to enhance and extend the functionality and ensure the service aligns with the latest MOJ standards and tech approaches. . The supplier team, supported by others in MOJ Digital, will ensure the smooth rollout of enhanced software to prisons. The supplier will be working with MoJ stakeholders across the prison, probation and courts organisations. Subject matter experts and an operational delivery lead will be available to work with the team but all other digital delivery roles are expected to be supplied by the managed service provider. Address where the work will be done No specific location, supplier can work remotely, with expectation to travel to specific locations for meetings, likely London and Sheffield where digital teams are based, and to justice locations across the country for user research purpose. Working arrangements There will be a requirement for visits and interviews to take place prisons, courts, regional offices and teams in London headquarters. There may also be a requirement to travel for meetings in MOJ offices eg Sheffield, London. Outside of these visits and any meetings, there is no requirement to be office-based and individuals can work from home. The supplier team will be supplied with Justice Digital provided devices. Provide more information about your security requirements: Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Provide more information about your security requirements: Security Check (SC) Provide more information about your security requirements (optional): A minimum of Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) standard is required. Where access to live production data and systems is necessary, Security Clearance (SC) will also be required. Latest start date 2023-12-18 Enter the expected contract length: 2 years Extension period: 1 year Special terms and conditions N/A Are you prepared to show your budget details?: Yes Indicative maximum: 2000000 Confirm if you require a contracted out service or supply of resource Contracted out service: the off-payroll rules do not apply Summary of work Work to improve and extend the digital Book a Video Link Service to fully meet the needs of users involved in delivering official prison to court video activities and other official video and visit activities. This will involve work to significantly enhance the software used for organisation and oversight of prisons’ high-capacity video conferencing facilities and other facilities which are used for court hearings and preparatory briefings, parole hearings, probation meetings and potentially other justice related activities. Where the supplied staff will work London Where the supplied staff will work No specific location (for example they can work remotely) Who the organisation using the products or services is Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Why the work is being done The Book a video link service (BVLS) is an existing live digital service that enables courts to book hearings with prisoners in video conferencing facilities in prison. The service has been operational for 2+ years and is used in 14 Prisons and 200+ courts with new prisons and courts coming online as video equipment is installed. Together with video, BVLS is a key enabler to help the justice system to be more productive, which in turn helps court backlogs and the prison population. However, to continue to scale and support new demand and improve the efficiency of the booking service and allow it to be extended to support other official appointments and visits, enhancement and new features and functionality are required that will unlock significant user experience improvements, and allow spare capacity that is unused by courts to be used by other justice professionals. The new service will support delivery of our strategic digital objectives (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1064860/moj-digital-strategy-2025.pdf) to reduce reliance on legacy systems, be driven by data and led by users. Removing dependency on legacy systems will enable the automation of many manual processes to support a reduction in errors and provide time saving for staff enabling them to focus their efforts on higher value work. The business problem you need to solve To improve the Book a video link service for users, MOJ needs a team to break the service away from legacy systems (Nomis and DPS Whereabouts) which now constrain user experience and improvement to data. The team must frequently and regularly research, design, release and iterate new features that enhance the existing live product. The team may conduct a short appraisal of the existing service, tech landscape and constraints, existing user research and business insight to inform plans for how they will research, design and implement enhancements to digital service at pace that allows prisons and courts, and in future other suitable justice professionals to easily and intuitively book time with prisoners and help staff effectively manage and run the video conferencing facilities and other facilities in prisons. An assessment of whether to rebuild parts of the service is within scope of this contract. Examples of enhancements may include: ● implementing and concluding a small number of existing planned priorities eg adding sentencing types ● improving the management (booking, editing, cancelling, searching options etc) of the hearings and other appointment types, ensuring offline work-arounds are no longer required ● handling changes in circumstances in prison or court, eg prisoner location changes ● Improving capacity use and management ● capturing management information to improve service over time ● Identifying and evaluating new opportunities across 'video' and booking appointments with prisoners in prisons and court for justice related matters and developing the service to deliver these Other problems and needs to address may be identified and prioritised for development during research and investigations that the supplier team will undertake. The new service should be built to MOJ’s technology standards: ● front-end server-side applications in Typescript/Node.js using the GOV.UK Design System ● back-end services in kotlin/java (integrated with authority systems via existing internal APIs) ● Use of AWS service i.e RDS (postgres), S3 and SQS ● Github to store and manage our code and CircleCI to build our software ● Kubernetes and Docker to schedule and run our services hosted in MoJ Cloud platform (built on AWS). First user type: The video conferencing facility Team in Prisons who need to: First user type: Court staff: Court admins at Crown court Legal advisor at Magistrate First user type: Other appropriate justice professional users First user type: Prison staff who: First user type: Regional & National Headquarter Staff who: Enter more details about this user type: ● Search for and view video facility availability, book, delete, amend appropriate slots with prisoners on behalf of other users ● Set up, manage and oversee the performance of video hearings and other official appointment types. ● Generate schedules and professionally manage the operation, safety and security of the capacity of video conferencing rooms, equipment, staff etc. ● Ensure prisoners are presented in a timely and professional fashion and supervised throughout. ● Manage the operation, safety and security of the capacity of video conferencing rooms, schedules, equipment, staff etc. ● Be aware of and respond to current and upcoming prisoner location changes and other related justice activities ● Record attendance information for records and management information. ● Measure the performance of the processes and utilisation of the video conferencing facilities as a resource. Enter more details about this user type: ● View video facility availability, book, delete and amend appropriate slots with prisoners ● Be able to share joining information with relevant justice professionals ● Be notified when a prisoner moves location ● Get help with their account ● Manage complexity as the two types of courts have different processes for booking video links. Enter more details about this user type: ● Need to book, delete and amend appropriate slots with prisoners. ● Be able to obtain relevant joining or attendance information. ● Be notified when a prisoner moves or if there are any changes to their bookings ● Get help with their account Enter more details about this user type: ● Escort prisoners to and from their locations to video slots ● Set up, join and maintain the correct video hearing or other appointment type safely and securely ● Manage other official visit activities and appointments Enter more details about this user type: ● Collate and report regional and national statistics ● Assess the performance & utilisation of the video and other facilities ● Creating and managing accounts and entities Questions and Clarifications 1. What is the existing video conferencing service / platform based on? Current hardware is supplied by Poly. The infrastructure is supplied by Vodaphone. Cloud Video Platform is supplied by Kinly (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-join-a-cloud-video-platform-cvp-hearing/how-to-join-cloud-video-platform-cvp-for-a-video-hearing) Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 15:02 2. Any specific security/encryption measures/specification for setup, managing video court hearings/prison meetings over video? MOJ services comply with government security principles and is regularly reviewed. Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 15:01 3. Video Communication Services / Booking Services – cloud or on premise strategy from Moj It is currently a combination of cloud and on-premise. We are aligned to the government cloud-first strategy https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-cloud-first-policy and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministry-of-justice-digital-strategy-2025/ministry-of-justice-digital-strategy-2025 Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 14:57 4. What measures do MoJ have in place to retain / routing video conferencing participant data / traffic from its current solutions and proposed enhancements on premise and not outside of the MoJ network or onto 3rd party providers outside of the UK? What is MoJ strategy on Schrems II? We have UK data residency requirements. All processing of data needs to be within GDPR compliant data centres. This is outside the scope of this opportunity. Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 14:56 5. Details of all ‘software’ used to facilitate BVLS? "BVLS service uses gov.uk Notify to send emails about bookings to court and prison staff. Staff use MS Office software, eg Excel and Outlook to facilitate, collate and manage information not able to be managed within the existing BVLS product. Justice Video Services, provided by vodafone managed service and Cloud Video platform" Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 14:55 6. OEM vendor details of existing video conferencing ‘hardware’ provider Current hardware is supplied by Poly. The infrastructure is supplied by Vodaphone. Cloud Video Platform is supplied by Kinly (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-join-a-cloud-video-platform-cvp-hearing/how-to-join-cloud-video-platform-cvp-for-a-video-hearing) Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 14:54 7. Current Maintenance/Support terms on existing video conferencing ‘hardware’ This is outside the scope of this opportunity Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 14:53 8. How many concurrent users using existing video conferencing service and what is the anticipated forecast both short term and long term on concurrent calls for the existing albeit new video conferencing service? In the MOJ as a whole from Aug 23 report, 60k+ calls were made totalling over 6million minutes Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 14:52 9. When identifying and evaluating new opportunities – how does MoJ address secure encrypted and authenticated video conferencing services? Authentication should use MOJ IDaM service. Encryption and security follow government NCSC guidelines https://www.security.gov.uk/guidance/ Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 14:51 10. Any specific security/encryption measures/specification for setup, managing video court hearings/prison meetings over video? Video conferencing software is outside the scope of this opportunity. Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:51 11. When identifying and evaluating new opportunities – how does MoJ address secure encrypted and authenticated video conferencing services? Video conferencing software is outside the scope of this opportunity Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:50 12. New prisons are anticipated to come onboard, what is the forecast on number of new prisons above and beyond the existing 14 and a forecast to the number of court rooms which is currently circa.200? The ultimate ambition is to roll out BVLS to all reception prisons in the male and female estate, including all corresponding court jurisdictions. Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:41 13. How many concurrent users using existing video conferencing service and what is the anticipated forecast both short term and long term on concurrent calls for the existing albeit new video conferencing service? Video conferencing software is outside the scope of this opportunity Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:39 14. How many users use BVLS and the video conferencing service across MoJ? "At this current time approx 2000 HMCTS staff hold BVLS roles/accounts. Video Conferncing Services is in every court and prison in England and Wales. The number of prison video calls facilitated in 2023 (to August) is approx c240k. This is an increase from the same period in 2022 although all are not booked using BVLS (many reply on manual processes). Please note, HMPPS users (tens of thousands) interface with the BVLS product via HMPPS Digital Services/Whereabouts (i.e. internal appointments)." Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:38 15. Any co-termination dates on existing contracts and what term is needed on potential new support/service contracts? This is outside the scope of this opportunity Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:37 16. An Install base report by location/facility of all video conferencing ‘hardware’ This is not obtainable at this time Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:36 17. Highlight Video Conferencing facilities "Video Conferencing Centres (VCCs) exist in the following prisons (although all prisons have some video conferencing): 1. Durham 2. Wandsworth 3. Leeds 4. Peterborough 5. Elmley 6. Forest Bank 7. Bullingdon 8. Doncaster 9. Hewell 10. Thameside 11. Nottingham 12. Birmingham  13. Norwich 14. Preston 15. Bronzefield 16. Exeter" Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:35 18. Video Communication Services / Booking Services – cloud or on premise strategy from Moj Cloud Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:34 19. What measures do MoJ have in place to retain / routing video conferencing participant data / traffic from its current solutions and proposed enhancements on premise and not outside of the MoJ network or onto 3rd party providers outside of the UK? What is MoJ strategy on Schrems II? Video conferencing software is outside the scope of this opportunity. Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:32 20. Details of all ‘software’ used to facilitate BVLS? "BVLS service uses gov.uk notify to send emails about bookings to court and prison staff. Staff use MS Office software, eg Excel and Outlook to facilitate, collate and manage information not able to be managed within the existing BVLS product" Last Updated: 28 September 2023, 12:29 21. Is your expectation that the successful supplier would be responsible for supporting and operating the current service as well as enhancing it? Or would the supplier only be responsible for future service development? 2. Are you able to describe how the current service is performing? For example, how many incidents has the service had in the past 12 months? "The supplier would be responsible for supporting and operating the future service The current service performs well with minimal support required in the last 12 months, no incidents" Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:33 22. Does this opportunity include the support / incident management of the new service? yes. The supplier would need to be available in core hours for incident response Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:32 23. What arrangements will be put in place to avoid the incumbent working on Whereabouts having an unfair advantage? The MOJ will treat each submission on the merit of that individual submission Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:32 24. Digital Delivery Roles have been identified as part of this team, could further details / Job Description be shared of the Digital Delivery resource(s) The MOJ expects that the supplier will propose this. Examples of types of roles can be found in the govuk service manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/the-team Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:31 25. What specific enhancements are MoJ seeking from whereabouts? Examples of these are set out in the 'Problem to be solved' section. Investigation by a supplier or work with users may uncover further enhancements or opportunities Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:30 26. Could we gain access to a draft SoW of the replacement plan of Whereabouts? The MOJ cannot supply this Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:29 27. Another supplier is understood to be selected on replacing parts of BVLS, could the scope of those replacements be shared and any details of the software/OEM vendor details? Please refer to "Any work that’s already been done" section Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:28 28. Technical Specification of the Whereabouts platform/service? "The book video link service is a service that allows people to request and create appointments with prisoners for remote court appearances. It consists of: - a court user facing frontend service written in javascript/typescript (hmpps-book-video-link) - part of a prison user facing frontend service written in javascript/typescript (digital-prison-services) - part of a backend API written in java/kotlin (whereabouts-api) Prison and court staff access the service by authenticating through the HMPPS authentication service. It communicates with a small number of APIs including the prison-api to retrieve data and to make prisoner appointments in the NOMIS database. It also consumes events that are published from NOMIS via AWS, in order to keep it's appointment data consistent. It uses gov.uk notify to send emails about bookings to court and prison staff." Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:27 29. Appears requirement is to improve or ‘rebuild parts’ of existing BVLS but would MOJ plan a complete change of the existing setup? Please refer to the title and problem to be solved section Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:26 30. Service in operation for 2 years, what are current weaknesses and strengths of existing service? These are set out in the "problem to solve" section Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:25 31. Indicative Budget, can details or a forecast be shared on anticipated budget by innovation, consulting, advisory, hardware, support/maintenance, other professional services The MOJ expects that the supplier will propose this. Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:22 32. Provide technical specification of BVLS? "The book video link service is a service that allows people to request and create appointments with prisoners for remote court appearances. It consists of: - a court user facing frontend service written in javascript/typescript (hmpps-book-video-link) - part of a prison user facing frontend service written in javascript/typescript (digital-prison-services) - part of a backend API written in java/kotlin (whereabouts-api) Prison and court staff access the service by authenticating through the HMPPS authentication service. It communicates with a small number of APIs including the prison-api to retrieve data and to make prisoner appointments in the NOMIS database. It also consumes events that are published from NOMIS via AWS, in order to keep it's appointment data consistent. It uses gov.uk notify to send emails about bookings to court and prison staff." Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:19 33. Could we get a detailed overview of BVLS? "The book video link service is a service that allows people to request and create appointments with prisoners for remote court appearances. It consists of: - a court user facing frontend service written in javascript/typescript (hmpps-book-video-link) - part of a prison user facing frontend service written in javascript/typescript (digital-prison-services) - part of a backend API written in java/kotlin (whereabouts-api) Prison and court staff access the service by authenticating through the HMPPS authentication service. It communicates with a small number of APIs including the prison-api to retrieve data and to make prisoner appointments in the NOMIS database. It also consumes events that are published from NOMIS via AWS, in order to keep it's appointment data consistent. It uses gov.uk notify to send emails about bookings to court and prison staff." Last Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:17 34. who is the incumbent that has replaced the non BVLS parts of the service? Farsight Consulting have worked to replace other parts of Whereabouts Last Updated: 21 September 2023, 11:09 35. Please could you advise: 1) Are we permitted to use our own template for submission or are we to use the template contained within attachment 3 2) Are we permitted to convert response to a PDF 1) For consistency could you kindly utilise template contained within attachment 3. 2)Yes this is acceptable. Last Updated: 20 September 2023, 16:55 36. On the final nice to have question, can you clarify whether the question asking for an example of assisting clients to manage business transition working with 'other civil service teams' is looking for delivery examples within the department or specifically across departments/agencies? Either of these interpretations would be acceptable if the example demonstrates business change that required supporting multiple teams/business areas/departments/agencies with diverse needs Last Updated: 20 September 2023, 16:53 37. Please can you confirm if the 750 character count includes or excludes spaces? This includes spaces Last Updated: 20 September 2023, 16:49 38. Could you please elaborate on what you might consider to be 'public policy' or 'service' environments in NTHQ2? These are environments and services in public sector that go beyond simple transactions, made of multiple parts and relationships, defined by policy, laws and regulations Last Updated: 20 September 2023, 16:48 39. In the final nice to have question, does civil service teams mean external to MOJ? Civil service teams here means teams that internal to MOJ Last Updated: 20 September 2023, 16:45 40. Please can you confirm the following questions: 1) Is the Authority able to sponsor suppliers acquire SC clearance. 2) Your requirements set out that while much of the work will be conducted remotely there will be travel to various aspects of the Justice estate. Can we confirm if expenses need to be considered within the price envelope or separately. If within the supplier’s price, can the Authority provide an estimate of required visits numbers - this supports provision of a competitive price that meets expectations. 3) Noting Prisons Digital Services led work to date, can the Authority confirm which, if any, incumbent suppliers supported PDS in design and delivery to date? 1) Yes 2) A supplier will be able to claim expenses in-line with MOJ's travel and subsistence policy. Travel, for example for user research in a prison or court, or a stakeholder workshop should be included in the price. The approach taken by the supplier would determine what would be required and frequency. If regular check-in / team meetings are required, then these should not expensed. 3) Prison Digital Service developed the current BVLS product. Last Updated: 20 September 2023, 16:41 41. Attachment 3 (responses to essential and nice to have criteria) only seems to include one response box per section (essential/nice to have) rather than one per question, and the response boxes say they are limited to 750 characters. Can you please either confirm that you are happy for us to enter more than 750 characters in the response boxes and indicate which question they relate to, or alternatively provide a revised response template? Re responses to essential and nice to have criteria, could you utilise the response box per section and indicate question you are responding to. Could you also ensure that each response per question does not exceed the 750 characters. Thank you. Last Updated: 19 September 2023, 15:53