DHSC Projects Delivery Partner

Description

Summary of the work DHSC requires a partner to deliver digital/technical outcomes across key programmes. We require an understanding of analytical platforms and experience of working in an analytical/statistical environment Expected Contract Length 12 months, with an optional extension of up to 6 months (if required). Latest start date Monday 20 December 2021 Budget Range It is estimated that the work can be delivered within the budget of £3,000,000. However, this is a higher limit. Why the Work is Being Done This work is part of the government's health reform - please see the link, below. DHSC is migrating users into the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) which works to protect the public’s health against infectious diseases and external health threats and also moving staff and systems/data sets into DHSC. IMS4 is a programme to identify and onboard a new managed service IT provider. DHSC is currently in the contracting phase and will require resources to assess the on-boarding of the new supplier. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transforming-the-public-health-system Problem to Be Solved DHSC is seeking a supplier to provide design and research capability alongside technology and business-oriented roles. The successful supplier will support three Digital Discovery and Delivery programmes. 1. The move of 1,000 staff including ~400 specialists and ~200 data systems into DHSC (Office of Health Improvements and Disparities) from Public Health England (PHE). The move will incorporate most of PHE’s functions that directly support development and delivery of national health improvement policy, alongside existing DHSC capability on health improvement. This will include subject-matter expertise on obesity and nutrition, physical activity, tobacco, drugs, public mental health, and young people’s mental health. We will need expertise in defining solutions on complex interrelated systems/data working with analytical experts. Identifying solutions and understanding user needs, Information Architecture/Governance, Solution Architecting. 2. The move of ~4,500 staff, data and systems from DHSC to a newly formed Executive Agency. These staff are mainly Test and Trace but all are part of the Government’s response to Covid. 3. The onboarding of a new IT managed service partner including the delivery of new services and exiting from the incumbent supplier. There are legal requirements to meet in terms of timeframes but also the need to retire aged technologies. Who Are the Users The capacity that this procurement will provide will be used to deliver or support the three large projects currently being run by WTD; UKHSA, Office of Health Improvements and Disparities (OHID) and IMS4 (IMS3 Exit). - on-boarding and off-boarding of people/teams, and on-boarding a new supplier with the associated services. Early Market Engagement Not applicable Work Already Done All strands of work have been started, The OHID programme is in the initial phases of integration providing users with a DHSC email address/identity and corporate service access. IMS4 is in the pre-contract signature phase. UKHSA has a small portion of users who have been transferred to the new organisation. Existing Team The existing team consists of a programme director, programme managers, project managers, technical architects, business engagement, plus limited other resource. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Experience of hosting big data using Azure and AWS services and connecting advanced data science tools including opensource software • Experience to include (1) tenant-to-tenant data migration (Sharepoint, OneDrive, Teams), (2) experience of deployment of resilient IaaS, PaaS and SaaS solutions, (3) compliance with HMG security standards • Experience of designing and building analytical services for Data Scientists and Analysts including re-platforming analytical solutions hosted on large and diverse relational databases and data lakes • Building and owning stakeholder relationships, discovery (Business and Data analysis), gathering requirements, influencing Product owners, solutioning to achieve effective business outcomes • Experience of hosting big data using Azure and AWS services • Experience of delivering complex transformation programmes/projects, working in multi-supplier teams, managing cross team dependencies, risks, planning issues, management and escalation. Nice to Haves • Experience of NHS Digital, Office of National Statistics and Government analytical services • Experience of working with and hosting a range of tooling e.g. RStudio, R, Python, AWS Lamba, Azure functions, source control such as Git Work Location 39 Victoria Street, Westminster London, SW1H 0EU Working Arrangments The working pattern will mostly be remote, engaging through Microsoft Teams and preferably using video as well as voice. As Covid restrictions ease, working may well return to sites in Leeds and central London so there is the possibility that the supplier will need to be on-site too. Security Clearance All resources must be BPSS cleared as a minimum. SC clearance for certain roles. Additional T&Cs All expenses must be pre-agreed between the parties and must comply with the DHSC Travel and Subsistence (T&S) Policy. All vendors are obliged to provide sufficient guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures so that the processing meets the requirements of GDPR and ensures the protection of the rights of data subjects. For further information please see the Information Commissioner's Office website https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/ No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria Proposal and cultural fit criteria are not published, here. These will be provided to those suppliers who are successfully shortlisted from the essential and nice-to-have criteria. Cultural Fit Criteria Proposal and cultural fit criteria are not published, here. These will be provided to those suppliers who are successfully shortlisted from the essential and nice-to-have criteria. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Schedule 7 Award states at 2.1.1 ‘This must include the evaluation method and criteria for assessing Suppliers against the Statement of Requirements’ this ad is thus in breach of the Framework Award terms and Reg 18 of PCR2015. CCS shall be notified of this breach. Please state how you are going to correct this i.e. how and when you will state the Award criteria that are absent from this ad. The proposal criteria will be published to the shortlisted suppliers following the conclusion of stage one. The criteria published as part of the advert only covers the evaluation of how suppliers meet the essential and nice to have skills and experience. 2. Is there a formal set of requirements in addition to the skills and experience section? The advert contains the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience required for stage 1 only. Stage 2 requirements will be shared with those suppliers who are successfully short-listed from stage 1. 3. Can you let me know when the information from Monday’s Q&A session is going to be released? Attendees to the dedicated Q&A session had to cancel at the last minute. There is no feedback to share with suppliers. 4. Could the Authority share the high-level procurement timelines? Including Shortlisting, ITT, Presentation and results? We expect shortlisting of stage 1 to take place W/C 22nd November whilst we expect the evaluation and presentations for stage 2 to take place W/C 13th December. Contact award will follow W/C 20 December. 5. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold? An evaluation panel consisting of commercial managers and technical analysts will score applications. 6. What are the specific types of analytic services that will need to be developed to support the data scientists and analysts?/Is there any need with helping to analyse data/reporting?/Are there currently any BI tools in use e.g Tableau/ Microsoft BI and will there be a need to integrate/maintain?/Is this an exhaustive list of technologies used? “RStudio, R, Python, AWS Lamba, Azure functions”/Azure and AWS is mentioned. Is there a preference for either platform? Is there a requirement to use both or just one? We are looking for thought leadership and skills to understand and document/map the existing data/systems and interdependencies and then assist in safely re-platforming probably to the Cloud or other Government providers. There will be a requirement to work with the Analysts and inform IT. The full extent of tooling isn’t understood as we are off boarding from another Government Agency, there is an intention to rationalise the tooling suite being used currently in the Department along with what is inherited. 7. Please elaborate more on the difference between 1st and 5th point in the Essential skills and experience section i.e. ‘Experience of hosting big data using Azure and AWS services and connecting advanced data science tools including opensource software’ and ‘Experience of hosting big data using Azure and AWS services’. Apologies for confusion. We are trying to highlight that the data will both need to be securely hosted, while also being easily accessible for analysts to work with using a number of advanced tooling and software. We are not looking for a hosting supplier but someone with experience of working with hosting options. 8. Please could the Authority clarify the following; ‘Experience of hosting big data using Azure and AWS services’. Is the Authority referring to our experience migrating big data to Azure and AWS services, working with data hosted in public cloud to build analytical products and re-platforming analytics solutions? We do not yet know the target for the data/systems therefore we need to understand your experience and capability in working with different technologies and enabling infrastructure platforms and enabling and supporting civil servants in migrations. 9. Will the Q&A go ahead on a different date and the close date for initial submissions be pushed back accordingly? No. The supplier Q&A is not going ahead at another time and the published timescale for this work still applies. Suppliers can still submit questions using the portal. 10. Please can you clarify whether the Delivery Partner is required to be a hosting provider or to have experience of hosting solutions? There is no requirement for hosting, just expertise. 11. Please can you provide more information regarding the requirement for provision of subject matter expertise including Obesity & nutrition, tobacco etc? We do not need you to have subject matter expertise in these areas, rather to be able to gather the requirements from in-house experts and then find suitable solutions to their needs. 12. In Nice to have Skills, Can you please explain why is it mandatory to have experience in NHS Digital, Office of National Statistics and Government analytical services ? The DOS5 guidelines mentions objective driven skills rather than prior public sector experience to make a fair bidding process for SME. Please explain. 'Nice-to-have' skills are not mandatory. They are literally 'nice-to-have.' The mandatory skills are listed under 'essential.' 13. In Nice to have Skills, will you accept application from SME with no prior public sector but proficient in Azure and AWS analytics experience ? All bids have to meet the essential criteria AND be able to start on the published project start date to proceed to the evaluation panel for assessment. Bids that do not do both of these things will be eliminated from the process.