HMCTS Civil, Family and Tribunal Services – QA, Architecture and Software Engineering Services

Description

Summary of the work Flexible, outcome based Managed Service, meeting outcomes to timescales, budget and government service standards, delivering agile Quality Assurance, Architectural and Software Engineering services to the CFT Programme. Will include initial transition to new supplier and staged transition into business as usual as projects complete. Expected Contract Length 24 months with option to extend for further 25% as per DOS terms. Latest start date Thursday 30 September 2021 Budget Range The budget range of the contract is £9.7m for the 24-month contract period split £7.2m in year 1 and £2.5m in year 2. Budget ranges for the extension period will be agreed if required. HMCTS does not guarantee volume or duration of work for the winning bidder. Pricing will be evaluated out of 35% and pricing submission documents will be issued to suppliers who pass Round 1. Suppliers will be evaluated as per DOS criteria. The initial Statement-of-Work and Roadmap is available upon request from HMCTSCommissioningandCommercial@justice.gov.uk. It is recommended that interested parties request this document. Why the Work is Being Done The HMCTS Reform Programme is responsible for delivering the future HMCTS operating model through a portfolio of programmes aimed at delivering pioneering judicial services that better serve the public. The Reform Programme includes modernising the court estate, utilising the latest technology to digitise services where appropriate, speeding up and streamlining working practices, refurbishing buildings to reduce maintenance costs and providing much improved services for users, especially vulnerable witnesses and victims. The Reform Programme includes the CFT Programme, which aims, with its partners, to transform the Civil, Family and Tribunals jurisdictions through the design and delivery of new digital services. These digital services are being developed within a coherent architecture which maximises reuse, and to support the resolution of Civil, Family and Tribunal cases fairly and speedily, providing new routes to justice that fulfil the ambition of an ‘online court’. HMCTS is seeking a managed service provider of QA, Architecture and Software Engineering Services to ensure that high quality digital services are developed and implemented for HMCTS that are simple, easy to use and meet the government service standard. The managed service provider will be responsible for delivering the outcomes as specified in the contract and Statement of Work (SOW). Problem to Be Solved The High-Level Outcomes for the service are: • For the provision of Agile Quality Assurance Services supporting the HMCTS Digital Transformation Projects. • For the provision of Agile Architecture Cloud Services supporting the HMCTS Digital Transformation Projects. • For the provision of Agile Software Engineering services supporting the HMCTS Digital Transformation Projects. • Delivery of technology which is aligned to the business and user needs. • All technical outcomes must pass quality assurance tests, both from a functional and performance and a non-functional perspective. • Testing must be completed and aligned with HMCTS, Reform, & DACS architecture Governance, process and procedure • Comply with Government Digital Services. • Comply with HMCTS and Reform Security policies and procedures. • Comply with Reform Software Engineering process and procedures. Position of CFT Projects: • Common Components will close by 31 March 2022 • Civil project will close in May 2023 • Family project will close in October 2022 • Tribunal project will close in August 2022 Who Are the Users • The key users are as follows: o Legal professionals and expert users:  Professional/expert users who understand the legal process o Appellants in person/citizens:  Citizen users, various personas developed for the different services o Judges:  Professional/expert users who own the legal process o HMCTS administrative staff / case workers:  Professional/expert users who support the legal process o Other Government Departments (OGDs)  Any further development required with (OGDs) including the Home Office or Department for Work and Pensions Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done The CFT Programme has been running for several years and has delivered improvements to the legal process for all users. The digital services are being developed with a common capability approach; building common features and components once for all services, using a consistent design system, sharing understanding of users and their needs, maximising reuse of design patterns and reducing duplication of design effort. Some projects are in public beta stage whereas some are yet to commence and are only at the design stage. More details will be made available at Stage 2. Existing Team The current development is supplied by one external supplier supported by other CFT based suppliers for the Jurisdictions (Civil, Family and Tribunals) developments, User Experience and Centre of Excellence. It is the intention not to award this contract to a supplier who is providing services to a CFT Jurisdiction. The team consists of management functions, architects and engineers but the exact make up and numbers will be decided by the bidders. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Experience of delivering complex transformation programmes, working in multi-supplier teams, managing cross team dependencies, risks, and planning with agile teams to articulate detailed delivery plans e.g. in 3-6-month blocks. • Experience of business requirements analysis and technology availability to make informed build vs buy decisions. • Experience of robust UI Test Automation solutions supporting NodeJS and Angular technologies such as Building unit and e2e: Jasmine, Karma, Protractor, Webdriver, Sourcelabs, Codecept, Mocha, Chai, WebDriver, Sinon.js, SuperTest, CucumberJVM. • Expertise of managing a large testing organisation; functional and non-functional testing functions; and managing large and complex testing activities and processes • Experience of implementing Performance Testing strategies using open source tools (e.g. Gatling, Jmeter etc) • Evidence of ensuring solutions are scalable and supportable for large scale national user bases • Experience of Designing solutions to meet complex needs in workflow, task assignment, and access management using tools like Camunda and Forgerock • Experience of API testing using consumer contract testing, mocking and integration testing using tools such as PACT, RestAssured, etc • Experience of handing over services to buyer teams and/or other supplier teams – e.g. developing buyer capability and capacity and maintaining an exit strategy/handover • Ability to scale up development teams quickly to meet customer demand, e.g. scaling to deliver through private and public beta. • Experience of taking an "API first" approach to architecture design and Integrating with external services through consuming and defining APIs. • Experience of designing microservice based architectures spanning multiple domains • Demonstrable understanding of testing digital solutions to meet GDS and WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards Nice to Haves • Experience of working in highly regulated environments. • Experience of improving designs by using innovative ideas • Experience of data testing and ability to analyse & communicate the test outcomes and defect management • Experience of working as a team to pass GDS assessments or similar for external services including preparing and presenting work for assessment panels. • Demonstrate experience of knowledge transfer to the buyer’s organisation to build permanent back-end capability including user guides and training. Work Location Primarily London and remote working (post pandemic). The HMCTS platform is only accessible from the UK, and no overseas working is supported. Working Arrangments HMCTS services are built to government service standards using a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) essential. SoWs will be issued to define the development outcomes of each project phase and typically span three to six months. For any work performed at a non-base location and outside London (outside of the M25), all reasonable travel and expenses costs shall be met in accordance with the rates set out in the MoJ travel and subsistence policy. All expenses will require prior approval from HMCTS before being reimbursed. Security Clearance All supplier resources must have a Baseline Personnel Security Check (BPSS) which must be dated within three months of the start date. Any development work that requires access to production areas within HMCTS IT systems will require SC clearance which the supplier should provide. For further guidance see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-baseline-personnel-security-standard Additional T&Cs The initial Statement-of-Work (SOW) will be Capped Time & Materials but the Buyer reserves the right to use alternative payment mechanisms such as Fixed-Price, Incremental Fixed Price or Time & Materials for future SOWs. Suppliers shall provide transparency on the rates paid to resources and third parties in the supply-chain on request enabling full visibility of charges and costs including overheads and profit-margin in an auditable form. There will be a 4-week transition period working in conjunction with existing service providers. HMCTS Reform use a monthly project performance dashboard to measure Supplier performance and to agree rectification plans where appropriate. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Please explain how you would deliver the outcomes for this service including previous examples. (9%) • Please give an example of where you have previously approached transition from an existing supplier to minimise disruption to the project. (5%) • Please detail your approach to the leading and owning of such a service on a managed service basis to ensure an effective and efficient delivery, incorporating previous cases. (9%) • Please outline your approach, with examples, to business requirements analysis and technology availability to make informed build vs buy decisions (5%) • State your approach, with examples, to providing assurance for the handing over of live services to buyer teams and other suppliers (5%) • Outline your approach to managing a large testing organisation; functional and non-functional testing functions; and managing large and complex testing activities and processes (9%) • Please outline lessons learnt from previous managed service contracts that you would utilise in this contract. (5%) • Please explain how you plan to sustain pricing within changing market conditions and how the proposal offers value-for-money for HMCTS. (8%) • Please provide evidence of communication skills, working with all stakeholders, gathering and interpreting feedback and communicating to technical/non-technical audiences. (5%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Describe your approach for working with multi-vendor and client teams across multiple projects at different locations with examples. (2%) • Explain how you would develop and share good practice and processes, including how you would support HMCTS to develop its in-house capabilities. Use previous examples. (2%) • Please explain how you will ensure collaboration at all levels of delivery between users, team members, and management. Give examples of how you will maximise the value from collaboration. (1%) Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. Are you looking for one vendor to provide all services for areas mentioned here? Can a Specialist QA consultancy respond to this opportunity to deliver QA Services. Yes, HMCTS are seeking one supplier to provide a managed service to ensure that high quality digital services are developed for the QA and Architecture Services that are simple, easy to use and meet the government service standard. 2. please can you let us know who the incumbent is? Solirius Limited is currently the incumbent supplier 3. Can you please inform who is the incumbent? Solirius Limited is currently the incumbent supplier 4. In your tender you state – “It is the intention not to award this contract to a supplier who is providing services to a CFT Jurisdiction”. Our organisation has applied for CFT Jurisdiction tenders published earlier and are awaiting the outcome. If we were to apply for this opportunity and were subsequently awarded a Jurisdiction contract can you outline what HMCTS would do at this point? It is our intent to complete the notification of the award of the jurisdiction (HMCTS Civil, Family & Tribunals) contracts by early August. If this was to create a conflict with QA & Architecture procurement then this will be discussed with the affected supplier before stage 2. 5. Can the Authority expand on what they mean by not intending to award the contract to a supplier who ‘is providing services to a CFT jurisdiction’? Is there a list of suppliers this relates to, or definition of CFT jurisdiction? It is our intent to complete the notification of the award of the jurisdiction (HMCTS Civil, Family & Tribunals) contracts by early August. If this was to create a conflict with QA & Architecture procurement then this will be discussed with the affected supplier before stage 2. 6. Regarding the 2nd essential skills and experience; ‘Experience of business requirements analysis and technology availability to make informed build vs buy decisions’, please clarify if the business requirements analysis is specifically in the context of cloud architecture or if you require a business analysis service as well as QA and SW Engineering? Yes the business requirements analysis is in the context of Cloud Architecture, Business Analysis is not in the scope of this contract. 7. Please clarify the scope of the business analysis services required as part of the CFT QA, architecture and software engineering services? Business Analysis is not within the scope of this contract, it is referred to as part of the Cloud Architecture service. 8. Regarding the 12th essential skills and experience; ‘Experience of designing microservice based architectures spanning multiple domains’, please clarify what you mean by ‘domains’ providing an example? The CFT programme has 4 domains – Civil, Family, Tribunals and Common Components, we are requesting a service of designing microservices spanning, in some instances, all of these domains. 9. Regarding the last essential skills and experience’ ‘Demonstrable understanding of testing digital solutions to meet GDS and WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards’, please clarify if you want us to provide demonstrable understanding of testing digital solutions to meet all GDS Standards, or whether you are specifically referring to the GDS accessibility standards? The Testing service must meet all GDS standards, we would like some evidence to show specific understanding of GDS standards and WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards. 10. Regarding the first nice to have skills and experience; “Experience of working in highly regulated environments”, is it preferable to have GDS experience? The experience provided should be in highly regulated environments and bidders do not have to demonstrate GDS specific experience. 11. Regarding the 4th essential skills and experience; ‘Expertise of managing a large testing organisation; functional and non-functional testing functions; and managing large and complex testing activities and processes’, please clarify if this means, ‘providing testing services for a large organisation’ as opposed to ‘managing a large test organisation’? This requirement will be both of these. In order to effectively test the breadth of CFT requirements, there will be a requirement for a large test team. CFT is implemented in a large complex organisation which has its own set of challenges. Experience in a similar type of organisation will be required.