UK-Emissions Trading Scheme (UK-ETS) Digital Services Development

Tender description

Pre-market engagement Not applicable Work done so far The UK ETS Digital Services are in public beta. For UK ETS Maritime, we have completed Discovery and Alpha based on UK MRV legislation. The beta phase is planned to cover the inclusion of the maritime services in the UK ETS which will impact the METS and the Registry digital services. The METS enhancements are documented in the backlog following the completion of the METS delivery for installation and the aviation sector in November 2023. The expansion of UK ETS to maritime, waste and other sectors was part of the Developing the UK Emissions Trading Scheme consultation; the UK ETS Authority’s response was published in July 2023. Which phase the project is in Not applicable Existing team Supplier to provide GDS team functions including but not limited to: Product Ownership Project Management Content Design Service Design User Research Business Analysis Test function Development Interaction Design Technical architecture and design Delivery Management Performance Analysis DevOps engineer Service ops Quality Assurance Test function Solution Architecture DESNZ to provide Assurance Function to oversee delivery. These roles could include: Product Ownership Project Management Programme Management Content SMEs (Policy & Regulatory SMEs) Business Analysis Delivery and technical assurance Test including User Acceptance Test assurance Address where the work will be done The majority of work will take place remotely. The supplier’s team would need to be able, on request, to travel to the UK office locations on occasion for meeting(s)/workshop(s) subject to project needs. Expenses for travel are to be included within the bid price. Working arrangements The supplier’s staff will be expected to be available during the typical UK workdays and working hours of the policy team (Monday to Friday 9am-5pm) in order to maximise knowledge transfer. The team will also work with teams across the department and external contractors in support of programme delivery and associated governance. Scope Management: The requirement for the new functionality is detailed in Annexes to this document. In addition, the supplier should make allowance for additional requirements emerging during iterative development of the system. These are expected to emerge following the publication of the UK ETS Authority’s next consultations on expansion of the UK ETS and the subsequent Government Responses. In terms of clarifications during development, an order of guidance proposal for iterative scope change is expected to account for half a sprint per quarter (out of 6.5 sprints per quarter), based on experience. The supplier should also make provision for the removal of technical debt, and necessary rewriting to facilitate modular re-use and ease of support and maintenance by 3rd parties. They will be required to provide support and maintenance until the end of the contract period. With the UK ETS Digital Services already providing services to installations, aviation and now maritime industries, extending the use of UK ETS Digital Services to other industries or alignment to other international policies is likely in the future, therefore designing for reuse is critical. Agile Ways of working: The supplier’s ways of working should be normal scrum agile best practise as interpreted by GDS Service Manual, https://www.gov.uk/service-manual. Specifically, there will be agile ceremonies including daily standup, backlog refinement, show and tell/sprint review and sprint retrospective. The website https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/ provides more information on the ceremonies for reference, though these will be interpreted appropriately. The developments should be carried out firstly as a complete end-to-end skeleton, with ‘stubs’ as necessary, so that additional completed functionality can be reviewed in context sprint by sprint. Change Control: The supplier should anticipate that changes and additional functionality required will emerge during development that are likely to be driven by the development of policy and legislation as part of the public consultation approach. The department's product owner and business analyst will be responsible for clarifying the requirement and the supplier must respond with an initial estimate of story points and reasoned feedback as to whether the requirement is regarded as outside the scope of the development or not. The supplier is expected to understand the scope of the development sufficiently to avoid there being repeated references to requirements being out of scope. The quarterly specifying of deliverables as defined under ‘special terms’ below, will further support unambiguous framing of required outcomes. Release Management: As well as appropriately sophisticated evolving automated testing to de-risk the release process, the supplier will be required to maintain a user acceptance test system that regulators will be able to trial at will and for the duration of the development to make the scheduling of testing as simple as possible, and incremental. Release should include extensions to/revisions of a product knowledge base designed to make product support simple, and self-service wherever possible. Collaboration: DESNZ will provide staff to assure product owner/business analyst functions. That member(s) of staff will be an integrated member of the team involved in all ceremonies, particularly leading the show and tell/sprint review. In addition, there will be a requirement for proportionate management reporting by the supplier, using collaboration tools as required by the Department. The incumbent supplier has a contract to 2026 and will be responsible for maintenance of the existing solution, so the new supplier will be expected to work with the incumbent, including release management and infrastructure development. Business Domain Knowledge: DESNZ expects those working on the project to have a good level of business domain familiarity. For example, be able to detail specific experience of regulated environments such as emissions trading. The supplier must commit to ensuring staff either have prior knowledge or are given appropriate training in the business domain. The department will assist in this. Staff: DESNZ reserves the exceptional right to require the substitution of staff whose abilities prove inadequate to the roles assigned to them. This would happen at the end of sprints in collaboration with the supplier. The supplier would be equally free to make an exceptional case for substitution of department staff unable to fulfil their roles. Provide more information about your security requirements: Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Provide more information about your security requirements (optional): Supplier personnel must be security cleared on the day they start working. Latest start date 2024-03-11 Enter the expected contract length: 2 years Special terms and conditions Deliverables will be agreed on a quarterly basis, i.e. in month 2 for months 4, 5 and 6. Payment timing will be subject to delivery to the Contracting Authority’s satisfaction. With the Contracting Authority product owner’s help, the development will be prioritised to take advantage of when requirements are clarified, and so that delivery of the services can be aligned to any ongoing changes to legislation and policy. At the moment the following events are anticipated during the project timeline: Jan to Jun 2024/Q1/Q2 – the new supplier is expected to work closely with the incumbent suppliers to ensure continuity of service and integrate and coordinate new development where required. This will include: handover of source code, design and architecture of the existing application to build the requirement stated in this tender application and infrastructure deployment pipeline for the new parts of the digital services agree process for provisioning and updating infrastructure with the incumbent DevOps provider and taking responsibility for the new requirements Agree process, roles and responsibilities for monitoring and remediation of security and performance related issues with the incumbent supplier Integrate with level 1 service desk to provide level 2 and 3 support and maintenance for the new work Also rolling delivery of UK ETS Digital Services work inc. the start of Waste discovery and alpha Jul to Sep 2024/Q3 – (rolling delivery of UK ETS Digital Services work) Oct to Dec 2024/Q4 – maritime consultation concludes, completed Installation Operators (‘IO’) and Aviation Operators (‘AO’) METS enhancements December 2024. Waste consultation concludes. Jan to Mar 2025/Q5 – maritime emissions monitoring plans to be ready i.e. system must effectively be live by Jan 2025, and Registry priority items Apr to June 2025/Q6 – (rolling delivery of UK ETS Digital Services work) Jul to Sep 2025/Q7 – waste MVP (UK ETS Digital Services) requires monitoring plans (like installations) by July ‘25 Oct to Dec 2025/Q8 – (rolling delivery of UK ETS Digital Services work) Jan 2026 – all other requirements to have been met e.g. full delivery of maritime and waste. The supplier is required to create an outline delivery plan with key deliverables and milestones for the duration of the contract saying how it meets our requirements and how the supplier will deliver it - this will include covering the need to deliver against different requirements in parallel. N.B. In responses, suppliers should propose what deliverables they would expect to produce during the first period of delivery (Jan to June 2024) which must include a more detailed delivery plan, which we expect to include start of discovery and alpha for the Waste work. There will also be a break clause between private and public beta to allow for assessment and the contracting authority to fully or partially terminate the contract and private beta phase should it not be successful. In addition (at the discretion of the Contracting Authority), 5% of each payment milestone will be withheld and payable at the satisfactory conclusion of the contract. Are you prepared to show your budget details?: Yes Indicative maximum: 7880000 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 To extend the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) Digital Services, which currently support industrial installations and the aviation industry, to include the additional sectors planned, proposed and subject to consultation and for enhancements as detailed below. 1) Extend and enhance the UK ETS Digital Services, ‘Manage your UK Emissions Trading Scheme reporting service’ (METS) and UK ETS Registry applications to support the planned UK ETS maritime service (Annex A). 2) Enhancements to the existing METS Service (Annex B). 3) Extend and enhance the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to reflect further development of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme including expansion to the waste sector (energy from waste and waste incineration) (Annex C). 4) Support and maintenance of all the above (1, 2 and 3) (Annex D). N.B. Annex A additionally includes non-functional requirements. Annex E gives a technical overview of the UK ETS Digital Services underpinning new developments. Timeline considerations The supplier will be expected to deliver at pace and be flexible to emerging policy developments. For instance, the supplier will need to manage the need for maritime operators to be onboarded and able to create their Emissions Monitoring Plans as soon as possible, whilst allowing for later changes to the content of plans and related workflows. Responses should therefore elaborate on how challenging timelines, delivering as far as possible in advance of events described under ‘special terms’ below, can be realistically achieved, including a high-level timeline plan for the overall project. N.B. Suppliers are required to produce an indicative delivery plan that will include covering the need to deliver against different requirements in parallel. Where the supplied staff will work No specific location (for example they can work remotely) Who the organisation using the products or services is Department for Energy Security and Net Zero The UK-Emissions Trading Scheme (UK-ETS) sits within the remit of the Government Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). DESNZ was created under a Machinery of Government process, from its former department name of BEIS (Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy). Any references to BEIS within the tender document shall be taken to mean DESNZ. The Contracting Authority will be DESNZ. Why the work is being done UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) was established in January 2021 with the aim was to align it with the UK’s world leading net zero commitment. In March 2022 the UK ETS Authority – made up of the UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland – consulted on proposals to develop the UK ETS, capping a greater proportion of UK emissions to further contribute to delivering net zero and UK carbon reduction targets at lowest cost for industry. The UK ETS currently includes installations and aviation, and it is to be extended to other sectors which include maritime, waste and other industrial sectors (e.g. venting of greenhouse gases from oil and gas). Subject to further consultation on the details of implementation, the UK ETS Authority intends to expand the scope of the UK ETS to include domestic maritime by 2026, and energy from waste and waste incineration in 2028 (preceded by a two-year phasing period from 2026-2028). The business problem you need to solve The intended UK ETS expansion to include additional areas and continuous improvements or enhancements of the existing functionality require development and extension of the digital services to support the new service requirements. First user type: Operator First user type: Emission Verifier First user type: Data Consumer First user type: Regulator (exact details of the role of the regulator for the maritime expansion of the ETS will be subject to the outcome of consultation) First user type: Registry Administrator First user type: The Authority First user type: Trading Account Holder Enter more details about this user type: I need to describe how I am going to monitor my emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases so that I can report verified carbon dioxide equivalent emissions data to the UK ETS Authority so that I can prove compliance with UK ETS regulations and remain operational. Goal – To comply with the requirements of the UK ETS reporting and surrender requirements; failure to comply may lead to civil penalties. Primary needs for emissions reporting: Comply with statutory obligations Connect their activities with their accredited verifier(s) Submit required carbon dioxide equivalent emissions data Resolve any submissions rejected by verifiers Comply with regulatory deadlines Comply with surrender requirements under the UK ETS Open and maintain registry account to Obtain, manage and surrender UK Allowances within the Registry Enter more details about this user type: I need to verify emissions data provided by operators (who are my client’s) so that I can facilitate their compliance with UK ETS regulatory requirements. Goal – To verify client's emissions data in line with the regulatory requirements and deadlines. Primary needs for verification Understand statutory obligations for operators Comply with statutory requirements for verifiers Gain and maintain accreditation with UKAS Confirm their relationship with operators as verifiers Audit data provided by operators Confirm verified emissions data reported to UK ETS is reliable for users Create verification report Comply with regulatory deadlines Enter more details about this user type: I need to access to emissions data so that I can analyse and interpret emissions data to support the shaping of climate change policy. Goal – To understand UK emissions and use data to inform my work towards decarbonisation. Primary needs for consuming UK Emissions data Access emissions data sets in a format that is useable for their own analysis Understand the structure and limitations of the emissions data sets Enter more details about this user type: I need to review and issue monitoring plans and emissions monitoring plans, receive and review verified emissions data and carry out associated compliance actions so that I can ensure operators comply with their obligations under UK ETS. Goal – to ensure that operators comply with their obligations under UK ETS. Primary needs for Regulators Operator account administration (create/close/disable/registration checks) Receive, return, review and approve monitoring plan submissions and changes Issue approved monitoring plans and emissions monitoring plans Generate annual emission report tasks Receive and review improvement reports and issue improvement actions Issue automated reminders before deadlines Audit information submitted by operators Record non-compliances and issue enforcement outcomes Determine emissions in cases of non-compliance Create and access an audit trail of actions and decisions Reporting on data Provide emissions data to Registry Administrator Enter more details about this user type: I need to carry out associated compliance actions so that I can ensure operators comply with their obligations under UK ETS and provide assurance activities on behalf of The Authority for UK ETS Registry. Goal – to ensure that operators comply with their obligations under UK ETS Primary needs for Registry Administrator: Perform Registry Administrator duties on behalf of The Authority and UK Regulators: Account & user registration Operator and Trader account administration Monitoring of UK ETS Compliance & Reporting To ensure accurate accounting of holdings (UK allowances) Management of Regulator compliance activities through the UK ETS Registry Support the operators with compliance obligations. Support Management Information (MI) reporting to The Authority Enter more details about this user type: I need to carry out associated compliance actions so that I can ensure operators comply with their obligations under UK ETS. Goal – to ensure that operators comply with their obligations under UK ETS. Primary needs for the Authority: Management of central government accounts To create, allocate, transfer, and retire UK allowances. Manage access and control to privilege Authority, Registry Administrator, and technical resources. To ensure accurate accounting of holdings (UK allowances). Management of public reporting portal on performance of UK ETS Enter more details about this user type: I need to hold, buy or sell UK allowances facilitated during the regulated financial UK ETS Primary & Secondary market Goal – to ensure market participants have access to trading account to facilitate market transactions. Primary needs for the Trading Account: Open and close a trading account. To be used for buying and selling UK allowances only, with compliance activities restricted to operator account types.