National Access Point Beta & Support

Description

Summary of the work Transition the Find Transport Data from private beta into public beta ensuring compliance with the Technology Code of Practice, DfT’s Architectural Principles & Standards and the Digital Service Standard. They will ensure continuous improvement activity during the public beta phase which leads to a successful GDS Live Service Assessment. Expected Contract Length 2 Years Latest start date Monday 1 November 2021 Budget Range Up to £300k from contract start to 31 March 2022. The budget for supporting the service (continuous improvement) from April 2022 to March 2023 is £500k. Why the Work is Being Done The Department for Transport wants to provide the right digital infrastructure and enable easier access to the UK’s transport data through the Find Transport Data service. Find transport data is a metadata catalogue that serves as a single place for users to be signposted to road-based data, both public and commercial (with a view to broadening out to all transport data once we have achieved our aims on road data – which covers data relating to the use of roads and the road infrastructure). This will help improve the discoverability of transport data, which is currently scattered across dozens of hosting sites. Find Transport Data has been in private Beta phase for several months and recently passed a Beta GDS assessment. It now needs to move to public Beta with ongoing continuous improvement. Problem to Be Solved Transport data could be used more effectively to help organisations of all sizes work better. UK transport data is hard to locate and access because it is hosted on a variety of platforms with different standards for data cataloguing. Poor signposting to data makes it difficult for users to know if it exists at all, and if it does, where to find it and how to access it. Discovery, Alpha and private Beta stages have successfully delivered a digital solution to address the problem. We do not expect any rework of the existing solution which now needs taking into public beta and then supporting through continuous improvement. CI will include engagement with users to encourage use of the service. Who Are the Users The core users of the are those in roles and teams that use and publish transport data. Including: ● Data analysts ● Data architects ● Traffic managers ● Logistics, parking, taxi, road freight teams ● Smart city programme teams ● Technologists ● Data scientists ● Data consultants ● Waste service teams ● Software developers And across sectors: ● Central Government ● Local Authorities ● Commercial sector ○ Data consultancy ○ Data companies that create, use, provide data ○ Those that offer and create products and services that use transport data or create data via operations ● Research Although the public will have access to a Find Transport Data, we do not expect them to be users of service. Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done Find Transport Data has been through discovery, alpha and recently passed a beta service assessment. The previously supplier has exited from the work. Existing Team The existing team includes: Tom Westlake, DfT Head of Developing Data Unit as Service Owner. Ian knowles, Deputy Director, Analysis and Data Division, as Senior Responsible Officer. John Cooper – Senior Engineer, Product Owner/Project Manager Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • • Demonstrable experience of delivering a digital service for central government that adheres to the Technology Code of Practice. • • Experience of successfully continuously improving a digital service and creating a CI culture. • • Experience of conducting user research and stakeholder analysis where knowledge gaps were identified, and plans were produced and implemented to address the shortfall. • • Experience of delivering “data” based digital services. • • Experience of data/metadata management/cataloguing. Nice to Haves • • Experience of delivering a service across different government organisations, for example both a central department and local authorities. • • Experience of passing GDS service assessments. Work Location Most of the work should be conducted at the supplier’s own site. However, we would expect the supplier to work at our offices when agreed and required, which could be 1 to 2 days per week. Exact days will be decided with the supplier at contract stage. Most engagement is likely to be over TEAMS. Address: Department for Transport, Great Minster House, Horseferry Road, SW1P 4DR Working Arrangments The supplier should be available and contactable during core hours of 9.30am to 4pm Monday to Friday. We expect the supplier to suggest a team to transition the service from private to public beta in no more than 10 weeks. Then provide flexible resource to deliver the continuous improvement phase, including scaling up and down the team/part-time working when appropriate. Further detailed working arrangements provided upon appointment of a supplier Expenses must align with DfT Travel and Subsistence policy, with no expenses incurred within the M25 corridor and with all other proposed travel approved by the buyer prior to mobilisation. Security Clearance All team members will hold BPSS clearance. Evidence of clearance can be requested at any point leading during the contract. Additional T&Cs Statements of work will be defined for the introduction into public beta and continuous improvement thereafter. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • • Approach and methodology for successful transition of existing private beta service to public beta and continuous improvement with project and delivery plans identifying the main stages and activities proposed. • • Identification of risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • • Team structure and resourcing plan for transition to public beta and CI phases • Value for Money Cultural Fit Criteria • • Experience of transparent and collaborative decision making • • Experience of taking responsibility for their work and resolving problems effectively • • Experience of sharing approach, knowledge and skills with other team members and with the department by example • • What provisions are undertaken to support and encourage in work progression/ development to acquire new skills relevant to the contract Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Case study Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold? The Panel is yet to be finalised but they will be from the team who have been working on this project to date 2. Who was the existing supplier and how long they have been involved? FutureGov Limited. Involved in Discovery and Alpha phases (October 2019 to May 2020) and in Private Beta (October 2020 to April 2021). 3. Can you please advise the timelines of this procurement (e.g. shortlisted companies notified, anticipated contract award)? Also, can you confirm if shortlisted suppliers will have the opportunity to present? The indicative timetable is set out below but be aware this is subject to change. We are not looking at holding presentations for shortlisted suppliers.Publish requirements on DOS 5 CCS Framework 24 September Stage 1 Clarification period ends on 1 October Stage 1 Bids received by 8 October Stage 1 Moderation/Consensus completed by 15 OctoberInvite suppliers to 2nd Stage (Max 5) 15 OctoberStage 2 clarification ends on 19 October Stage 2 Bids received by 21 October Stage 2 Moderation/Consensus completed by 28 OctoberContract Award by 29 October Contract Start 1 November 4. Can you please provide a list of technologies. The proposed solution is a web-based application hosted on Google Cloud using the open-source solution CKAN (https://ckan.org) provided by the CKAN Association part of the Open Knowledge Foundation. It is widely used around the world by lots of different government bodies including being the backend system to data.gov.uk and York City council for example. 5. Question 3 continued CKAN describes itself as a powerful data management system that makes data accessible – by providing tools to streamline publishing, sharing, finding and using data. (https://ckan.org/features/ ) CKAN has a large community and is actively developed and maintained. CKAN is written in Python but has been designed to be extensible through the use of extensions. CKAN database is Postgres and search is provided by Solr. Theming is extensible through the use of JINGA templates. CSS/JavaScript extension is provided by the use of web assets and JavaScript modules as jQuery. 6. Error made in the last supplier question. It is a continuation of Q4 and not Q3. This is a further continuation to answer Q4 The beta Nap will be based initially on the default functionality provided out of the box by the CKAN system with the addition of 2 extensions. The utilisation of an open extension called Harvester written by CKAN which allows the harvesting of dataset from compatible resources such as data.gov.uk this will allow automatic update of the catalogue. A custom theme extension written by the team which will add the GDS design system to CKAN The default functionality will allow: (See https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.9/user-guide.html for more detail.) The management of datasets with the following features: 7. Q4 continued CRUD of datasets Categorisations(Groups), Tagging and filtering by both. Standard DCAT metadata standard Search across all metadata fields including simple and advanced searching Unlimited custom fields if required. Management of resources such as sample data. (Note the NAP with not host datasets but during the Alpha phase the addition of sample data would help with the visibility of the data with datasets. Data visualisation tools. 8. question 4 continued Management of publishers (CKAN calls them organizations) CRUD of publishers Listing of datasets by Publishers Search of Publishers Management of access for users (account management) System Admin functionality User Accounts (Username, Name, Email, Password) for each Publisher. Newsfeed All activity of followed datasets for each user can be seen. The source code has been version-controlled and put on a private Github 9. 1) Please confirm who the previously supplier was.2) Please confirm why they exited from the work. FutureGov Limited. Involved in Discovery and Alpha phases (October 2019 to May 2020) and in Private Beta (October 2020 to April 2021). FutureGov left the project because at the end of Private Beta because work was only commissioned up until that point. 10. Is the previous supplier who has exited the work still allowed to bid for this new opportunity?Can you say anything more about the circumstances of their exit which might impact delivery of this new requirement, e.g. was it due to underperformance? Yes, the previous supplier is allowed to bid for this opportunity. See answer to previous question 11. Can you advise what you’re looking for with the question “Experience of delivering “data” based digital services” Examples where the supplier has delivered data services such as data catalogues, data warehouses, dashboards, data hubs, discoveries, etc... 12. We would like to ask some questions about the National Access Point Beta & Support opportunity.• What is the relationship between the Find Transport Data Service and data.gov.uk?• Is the previous supplier eligible for this phase of work?• Did the previous supplier exit the work as the previous phase of work had concluded or for other reasons?"" "Find Transport Data is wider than just government data, but does not host the data, unlike data.gov.uk - so Find Transport Data may well link to datasets on data.gov.uk, but the scope is wider.Yes they are eligible and they left as previous work had concluded. 13. We would like to ask another question about the National Access Point Beta & Support opportunity please.• Where you have asked for “Experience of delivering a service across different government organisations, for example both a central department and local authorities” – are you asking for experience of one service delivered to central government and local authorities at the same time (for example, as one project) or experience of delivering the same service to different organisations (for example a service delivered to a central government department and, separately, the same service delivered to a local authority)? Either is acceptable, but the former is likely to be looked upon more favourably. 14. Can you tell us about the technology landscape & the role of main components being used for the project? See response to question 4 and the trail of answers related to this 15. Can you please provide the Beta GDS assessment Service Report please? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l7hnHUYl6r71BQAEtStbaVL-UzSb3yEm/view?usp=sharingThis should provide access to the report. If it does not, it will be handed to those suppliers who are shortlisted for stage 2