RM1043.8 DIGITAL AGENCY TO DESIGN AND DELIVER A NEW NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY COMMISSION WEBSITE INCLUDING CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Tender description

Pre-market engagement As part of Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) the IS Office and Communications Office carried out independent research to inform the planned redesign and redevelopment of the corporate website considering user needs, new technologies and to benchmark costs. An information session was held on 18 November 2024 with follow-up one-to-one meetings held with participants week commencing 25 November 2024 using the following brief: a. Can you show us the ‘Art of the Possible’ across previous websites you have delivered, that would factor detailed rich content, advanced search and interactive material such as video content and how it might interact with social media and live news stories. b. Can you share with us your preferred Content Management System and demonstrate it in practice, highlighting its key features and if it has any ability to, for example, integrate using Rest APIs to publish to the website. c. Indicative budget range: we estimate this to be £200k to £300k for the duration of the contract where we intend to use the maximum permissible period for DOS6 i.e. 2 years with an optional one-year extension. Recommendations produced and information gathered from the PME exercise and further discussions with the participating suppliers helped to inform the business case, specification, associated services and the procurement strategy. This engagement provided a wealth of insights into CMS capabilities, advanced features, and project approaches. These have been incorporated into the specification to help ensure that the new corporate website will meet the NI Assembly Commission’s needs for performance, accessibility and user engagement whilst accommodating future scalability. Work done so far In 2024, a supplier completed the ‘Assembly Commission Website Discovery: Research Results Report’. This report was commissioned to support the discovery phase of the Assembly Commission’s website redevelopment and redesign. The study defined six recommendations for improvement. 1. Simplify and optimise information architecture Make use of card sorting and tree testing exercises with a representative sample of stakeholders to facilitate data-driven amendments to the existing information architecture. 2. Develop a robust search functionality Such functionality should provide users with greater control over search parameters and should include the ability to search within video content. 3. Establish a consistency in branding, navigation and content Guidelines should span all Assembly Commission websites, and should place an emphasis on visual hierarchy, reduction of content density, and increased use of imagery. Content guidelines should be created to ensure comprehension by the public where appropriate. 4. Streamline and support key user journeys Review key user journeys to identify opportunities to shorten and reduce the number of steps required and provide clear signposting throughout. For repetitive actions conducted by power users, seek opportunities to streamline these journeys. 5. Foster public engagement Use the redesigned website as an opportunity to educate and enthuse the public by providing transparency about the impact of the Assembly on communities and creating opportunities for the public to become involved. 6. Procure a modern, simplified CMS This CMS should automate manual processes and streamline the content creation and management process, which will contribute to efficiencies in staff workflows, and increases in the quality and consistency of website content. Which phase the project is in Alpha Existing team A discovery phase has been completed, however we need a supplier to move into design and implementation. The modernisation project has a delivery organisation established to delivery four distinct but interrelated strands including the new website delivery. The project structure in place includes: • A project board composed of key Assembly Commission Staff. • A dedicated project manager overseeing the multiple project strands including the website redevelopment. • A website redevelopment dedicated project lead. • Representation from the communications office to provide insight and user feedback. • An In-house development Team – Principal Developer, Senior Developers, Developers, Infrastructure Engineers working on all project strands. • A Microsoft network partner consulting on cloud technologies and security. Address where the work will be done The NI Assembly Commission is located at: Parliament Buildings Ballymiscaw Stormont Estate Belfast Co. Antrim Northern Ireland BT4 3XX Workspace will be provided onsite for a delivery team. Project work may also be done from the supplier place of work [remote] with regular meetings, workshops, progress reviews held jointly on site or in supplier offices. Working arrangements The supplier is free to define their work schedules within the limits of sufficient access to the project team for updates, meetings and required team dialogue. For team efficiency, we will prefer suppliers that can fit working hours and days consistent with the standard Assembly Commission work schedule. Assembly Commission core working hours are from 10.00 – 12.00 and 14.00 to 16.00, Monday – Friday. For project efficiency, we would like to have team lead representation on site two days per week. There will be dedicated workspace for a website team. Provide more information about your security requirements: Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Provide more information about your security requirements (optional): All project involved personnel must have Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) as a minimum and Access NI Clearance for all staff is required. Latest start date 2025-08-18 Enter the expected contract length: 2 years Extension period: 1 year Special terms and conditions None. Write the term or acronym: AIMS Write the term or acronym: CMS Write the term or acronym: NIAC Write the term or acronym: API Write the term or acronym: OWASP Write the term or acronym: W3C Write the term or acronym: WCAG Write the term or acronym: ISO Are you prepared to show your budget details?: Yes Indicative maximum: £150,000.00 Provide further information: We can supply an indicative budget of £150,000 which should include all requirements for an initial 12-month term delivering • Any additional discovery • Design • Configuration • Testing • Support We would expect the annual support, and maintenance will not exceed £80,000. 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 The Northern Ireland Assembly Commission (Assembly Commission) is seeking to engage with a Digital Agency to design and deliver a new public facing corporate website and to supply a user-friendly Content Management System (CMS). In addition to supplying a user-friendly CMS, the Digital Agency must also have the technical capability to interface with the Assembly Commission’s in-house applications that provide content to the website via a series of methods, including Rest API. The Digital Agency will be expected to commit, through the delivery of a new website and CMS, to improving and upgrading the Assembly Commission’s digital presence, making the website more user centred, easier to navigate and visually appealing. This will also lead to better public engagement and ensure compliance with statutory/regulatory accessibility requirements. The new website will include features such as an effective, intelligent, and results relevant search engine or AI solution capable of scanning high levels of documents and web pages to provide users with offerings relevant to their search. Web accessibility is essential, and any successful digital agency should, as a minimum, ensure that all individuals, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, can navigate and interact with online content effortlessly. Full compliance with Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to an appropriate standard will be an essential aspect of the project. Where the supplied staff will work Northern Ireland Who the organisation using the products or services is The Northern Ireland Assembly Commission, Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLAs), constituents and stakeholders. Workspace will be provided onsite for a delivery team. Project work may also be done from the supplier place of work [remote] with regular meetings, workshops, progress reviews held jointly on site or in supplier offices. Why the work is being done The Northern Ireland Assembly (Assembly) is the legislative body established by the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 as the seat of representative politics in the region. Its role incudes making and scrutinising laws, holding Executive departments to account during Plenary meetings and committee meetings, hosting Very Very Important Persons (VVIPs) to better the reputation of Northern Ireland and nurture democracy through the ordered facilitation of debate by elected representatives. It is essential for the generation of confidence in the political process, that the work of the Assembly is seen, understood and engaged with by voters and key stakeholder groups to build the reputation and acceptance of the Assembly as a body bettering the lives of citizens. A range of communication channels are used in support of this including a website which covers a large range of subject areas. The website for the Assembly is the primary first impression for accessing information regarding government and should compare well to other similar websites in terms of visual appeal, active content and ease of access. The site is aging and inflexible and no longer appropriate in terms of providing easy or enjoyable user journeys. A professional analysis of the site has highlighted that whilst the site is trusted, it is below the level of what users would expect in terms of navigation simplicity and searchability. The Assembly Commission is currently implementing an IT modernisation project that addresses the security, speed, hardware standards and workflow efficiencies of data management and dispersal across the Assembly Commission and its stakeholders. The current cloud focus strategy makes it synergistic to include our planned work on the NIA website into the project. The Assembly Commission seeks to have a replacement website, CMS and allied modern search tools in place in a project of 18-24 months duration. The business problem you need to solve An attractive, useful and helpful website is an essential tool in enabling the public to engage with the Assembly, its' work, ancillary activities and archive. The present site has many limitations and is not user or search friendly. There are wide areas of accessibility that need addressing. Challenges include integration with the Assembly Commission's central CMS which handles hundreds of documents relating to parliamentary activity which is being modernised in parallel with this business need. Present under delivery areas to address are; poor user-centric design, a lack of multi-language support, a poor return on search and no SEO, inability to provide an integrated video player and editor in relation to streamed outputs from Assembly TV. The present CMS in use is limited in its dynamism and publishing is limited solely to web format rather than mobile publication. The business faces the problem of a change in user information sourcing since the present website was developed and does not have a mobile first focus at the heart of how it projects the material published to its website. Any change must be fully integrated with our present and developing source feeds, consider archiving, meet all legal accessibility requirements, demonstrate an effort to meet relevant requirements with the Identify and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022. There are numerous micro sites which have grown because of the inflexibility of the main site and bringing them together in a logical and searchable way is an issue to solve. We need to solve how to centralise the control and management of all sites to ensure any updates or changes are applied uniformly across the entire system. First user type: Typical user profiles would include community workers, political lobbyists, students studying politics or international relations, party staff officers, political journalists, a civil servant in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, a pensioner planning to visit Parliament Buildings. A collection of typical user personas can be provided. Content Editors in the Assembly Commission First user type: Assembly Commission staff First user type: Members (MLAs) and all staff First user type: Departmental staff First user type: Journalists First user type: Members of the public