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NHS Jobs Digital Capability

Published

Value

3,000,000 GBP

Description

Summary of the work The NHSBSA is looking for a partner to provide additional capability and capacity to work alongside the digital delivery team to facilitate and accelerate the delivery of the product roadmap for the NHS Jobs service. This contract will provide teams, or resources to supplement existing internal and external NHSBSA teams. Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Tuesday 1 June 2021 Budget Range There is no maximum spend, it is anticipated that approximate spend will be £3 million over the duration of the contract. To clarify the NHSBSA makes no commitment to any particular level of spend (actual spend agreed in SOWs) nor does it grant exclusivity to the selected supplier in respect of the services described in this opportunity. Why the Work is Being Done The NHSBSA is responsible for the NHS Jobs service which is the official online recruitment service for the NHS in England and Wales. A new service is currently being delivered but a large roadmap for further iteration, improvement and development exists. We are seeking a digital partner to support where digital capability is required. We expect this contract to fulfil two types of need: ● Capability to supplement teams on urgent deliverables or live service support ● Provision of agile multidisciplinary teams Core capabilities for the proposed contract would be: ● user experience and design ● performance analysis and data ● service delivery ● Solution Design ● software development ● user research Problem to Be Solved The NHSBSA is looking for a partner to provide additional people or teams to work alongside the digital delivery team to facilitate and accelerate the delivery of the product roadmap. It is intended that the specific resource requirements will be planned in advance but there may also be a need for resource at short notice. Who Are the Users The NHS Jobs service is used by employers across England and Wales to recruit people to fill vacancies across the NHS. Citizens use the NHS Jobs service to apply for jobs. As a recruiting manager I need to advertise, evaluate and appoint the right candidates to vacancies I have so that i can deliver the services i am responsible for. As a candidate/Job Seeker I need to be able to identify, apply for and gain employment to roles which are suitable for me so that i can gain employment Work Already Done A Discovery and Alpha phase have been completed and the service is now at the end of Private Beta and entering Public Beta. It will move into full Live in early 2022. Existing Team The supplier will work with the existing NHSBSA digital delivery team and may also work with existing NHSBSA suppliers. This will include roles from a range of disciplines, including architecture, security, policy, service and product management, finance, and delivery management. Knowledge transfer back into NHSBSA will be required to enable NHSBSA to improve internal capability to build and support the services. Where required collaboration with other suppliers may be necessary. This contract will not prevent us from using other commercial arrangements, including using capability contracts, to pull together a team from a range of suppliers. Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Illustrate your process for understanding client requirements and deploying multi-disciplinary team(s) into established or blended teams for a digital project. (3%) • Tell us about an engagement with an organisation which had not gone well, challenges faced and how were these overcome. Detail the lessons learned and what would you do differently.(3%) • How will you help the NHSBSA ensure affordability and value for money whilst delivering outcomes on time sensitive pieces of work? Detail your relevant skills and experience. (3%) • On a service of similar size/scale to NHS Jobs,which is in beta, demonstrate how you work with established decisions&frameworks of the team and service whilst also providing challenge to improve?(3%) • NHS Jobs service is complex and has multiple squads/teams working on deliverables at any one time. Detail your skills&experience in ensuring that alignment&collaboration across your teams&internal NHSBSA teams will remain.(3%) • Demonstrate your understanding of the Digital Service Standard and Government Design Principles. (2%) • Demonstrate your skills and expereince that will enable you to work with the current NHS Jobs Tech Stack, specifically in realtion to Java, Node JS and AWS Platforms. (3%) Nice to Haves • Tell us how one of your teams has developed a piece of work that has successfully passed GDS Service assessment or equivalent. How did you ensure delivery against organisational standards?(2.5%) • Tell us how one of your teams has developed a piece of work that has successfully passed GDS Service assessment or equivalent. How did you ensure delivery against organisational standards?(2.5%) Work Location Stella House Goldcrest Way Newcastle upon Tyne NE15 8NY Other locations as required The NHS Jobs service is based in Newcastle upon Tyne however the NHSBSA is open to remote based delivery. There is an expectation that any teams stood up would be required to travel to Newcastle upon Tyne for kick-off workshops and potentially on a fortnightly however in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, initial working arrangements will be remote. Working Arrangments The Supplier will work as a part of the Digital team, they will be viewed as part of the overall NHS Jobs Digital Delivery Team with a one team ethos. The digital team is co located and work following Agile and GDS principles and it is expected that the successful supplier's people will work in this way. The supplier's resources will be expected to come on site at least every fortnight and travel as required/agreed. The successful supplier must comply with relevant NHSBSA policies and standards. Security Clearance Specific security requirements will be outlined in each Statement of Work, in the main no specific security clearance will be necessary however some roles and projects may require BPSS and a small number may require Security Clearance. Additional T&Cs Expenses: to and from Stella House,Newcastle are not eligible to claim. Any other expenses must be agreed in advance and be in accordance with the NHSBSA’s policy for Travel and Subsistence. 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/ For the avoidance of doubt, all intellectual property rights in any data or deliverable shall be retained by, or transferred to, the NHSBSA, as appropriate. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Detail your approach and experience of putting together an experienced multi disciplinary team and onboarding them with minimum disruption within an existing programme.(5%) • Detail how you will ensure that teams or people placed, work collaboratively with other suppliers and the NHSBSA. (3%) • Demonstrate your experience where value has been added to projects you have worked on and how you will ensure value for money for the NHSBSA. (4%) • Detail your approach to and experience of managing conflict resolution (resources, stakeholders) (3%) • Demonstrate experience of how you have managed departmental expectations with regards to key skills/experience (3%) • Detail your approach to and experience of building teams to retain knowledge, ensuring knowledge transfer to the NHSBSA? (4%) • We will need to scale teams up/down over the term of the contract. How will you ensure we are not repeating lengthy onboarding-processes each time we deploy people/teams on-the service.(4%) • Detail your approach to providing accurate estimates to pieces of work which are delivered on capped time&materials approach. How do you manage the risk of change in an agile delivery?(4%) • Describe how you will create employment, re-training and other return to work opportunities for those left unemployed by COVID-19, particularly new opportunities in high growth sectors.(3%) • Describe how your organisation would execute the contract to ensure staff mental health, is promoted, and how you would monitor and measure this?(3%) • Describe how your organisation undertakes educational attainment relevant to the contract, including training schemes that address skills gaps and result in recognised qualifications. (4%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Please answer the next two questions in reference to working to NHSBSA's values: Collaborative-work together; Adventurous-try new things; Reliable-do what we say we will; Energetic-give everything do our best. • When joining an established programme like NHS jobs, demonstrate how you work as a team, manage collaboration, share know-how and best practice, motivate&maintain high levels of engagement within delivery teams.(2.5%) • Demonstrate an empowered ‘can do’ team culture, encouraging constructive feedback and learning and how this links to the NHSBSA values.(2.5%) Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 75% Cultural fit 5% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. As a supplier where will I need to register if shortlisted to the second stage? Suppliers who are shortlisted and then wish to submit proposals must register on the NHSBSA’s e-tendering solution which can be found at https://nhsbsa.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.html 2. Which scoring scoring methodology will be used. The standard DOS scoring Matrix or the NHS Business Services Authority scoring table? This requirement this will be scored using the NHS Business Services Authority scoring table, not the standard DOS scoring matrix. 3. What is the NHS Business Services Authority Scoring Table? NHSBSA scoring table.Score Classification Criteria0 Unacceptable Completely fails to meet required standard ordoes not provide a proposal at all1 Not Met Significantly fails to meet the standards required,contains significant shortcomings in many areas2 Partially Met Meets a number of required standards but fallsshort of achieving required standard in a numberof identifiable areas3 Mostly Met Meets the required standard in most(but not all)material respects4 Met Meets the required standard in all respects anddemonstrates a thorough understanding of therequirement.Score of 2 or less will be deemed a fail 4. Please can you confirm if the Nice-to-have skills and experience is repeated in error or you would like us to provide 2 separate examples for this. The second question in nice to have skill should read:-How do you manage the wellbeing of deployed resources and ensure they are aligned with the culture and practices of the delivery team, the department, and the wider NHS? (2.5%)Please reply to this question. 5. Will the day rates be capped? For clarity at this stage we would like to advise that we have capped the rates that we wish to accept for roles as follows:-Project Manager £800Business Analyst £700Front End Developer £750Back End Developer £750Senior Delivery Manager £800Delivery Manager £650Tester £800Technical Architect £700Information Security £750DevOps £650Service Manager £700User Researcher £800Enterprise Architect £650Data Analyst £700User Experience £700 6. There appears to be a repetition of Nice-to-have skills question “•Tell us how one of your teams has developed a piece of work that has successfully passed GDS Service assessment or equivalent. How did you ensure delivery against organisational standards?(2.5%)”Could the Authority confirm:1. we can provide same response to both the question2. there wont be an additional scoring (2.5%) for the repeated question. 1 - The second question in nice to have skill should read:-How do you manage the wellbeing of deployed resources and ensure they are aligned with the culture and practices of the delivery team, the department, and the wider NHS? (2.5%)Please answer this question. I will ensure the evaluators know what the question is when assessing the answers.2 – The second question should be the one above, it will carry a scoring of 2.5% 7. Is this a new opportunity or is there an incumbent currently delivering this or similar related services to NHS Jobs? There is currently an incumbent supplier delivering similar services to NHS Jobs. The incumbent supplier is Difrent. 8. Please can you confirm if the Nice-to-have skills and experience is repeated in error or you would like us to provide 2 separate examples for this. We do not require 2 Separate example. Please answer the following question. I will ensure the evaluators know what the question is when assessing the answers.How do you manage the wellbeing of deployed resources and ensure they are aligned with the culture and practices of the delivery team, the department, and the wider NHS? (2.5%) 9. It states that a written proposal is required, but DOS only allows the fields to be filled and no attachments. Is a written proposal required separately or will it be requested after the submission of the DOS responses? A written proposal will be required at the shortlisted stage after the DOS response submission. Only the 5 suppliers that go through to the shortlisted stage will be required to submit the written response. 10. Please can you confirm who the incumbent suppliers are? The incumbent supplier is Difrent 11. Hi – thank you for confirming the NHS scoring table. Does a score of 2 or below in the ‘nice-to-have’ section also automatically disqualify an applicant? A score of 2 or below does not automatically disqualify an applicant for the “nice to have” skills and experience only. 12. The two ‘Nice-to-have skills and experience’ criteria are identical. Is this an error or do you want suppliers to provide two examples here? This was an error please submit a response to the following question:-How do you manage the wellbeing of deployed resources and ensure they are aligned with the culture and practices of the delivery team, the department, and the wider NHS? (2.5%)I will ensure the evaluators know what the question is when assessing the answers 13. Who is the incumbent The incumbent supplier is Difrent 14. Is there a set rate card cap? There is a capped rate card. This was shared in a previous question, please refer to that. 15. Could the Authority share the procurement timeline for shortlist, evaluation, presentation and award? The estimated timescales are a followsBidder question Clarification Deadline 22/03/2021Deadline for Receipt of longlist responses 29/03/2021Evaluation to shortlist completed by 12/04/2021Invite shortlist into Bravo and issue ITT 12/04/2021Deadline for Receipt of tender responses 26/04/2021Evaluation, clarification and presentation completed by 07/05/2021Contract award 12/05/2021 16. Please confirm if you are amenable to some resources on the team being fully remote and/or off-shore, if we can demonstrate that this provides value for money without impacting quality or agile principles. The NHSBSA do consider the option for some resources on the team being fully remote and/or off-shore as an option. For the purpose of this requirement both onshore and off shore rates will be evaluated. 17. Please confirm whether this opportunity is inside or outside IR35. This contract is about capability to deliver outcomes. We do not anticipate this being in scope of IR35. 18. We note that remote work is mention as an option in delivery. Would offshore resourcing in delivery be considered as part of that? The NHSBSA do consider offshore resourcing for some resources as an option. For the purpose of this requirement both onshore and off shore rates will be evaluated. 19. Is this requirement inside or outside of IR35? This contract is about capability to deliver outcomes. We do not anticipate this being in scope of IR35 20. To inform the type and level of technical resources required, please confirm the new Technology stack for NHS Jobs Site. The Technology stack for NHS Jobs can be shared. If you require a copy please email judi.nuttall@nhs.net . Please only use this email for this purpose. All other communications should continue to be via the Digital Marketplace/ 21. What kind of resources are required? Can you please share type of resources and number of resources required for each type? The people skills which we envisage needing from this engagement are centred around two areas Software Engineering and User Centred Design. This will include in the main, Front End Developers, Developers, Test, DevOps and Platform Engineers and User Research, Service Designers and Business Analysts. 22. Which supplier(s) worked with NHSBSA on the Alpha and Beta so far? To date the NHSBSA have worked with Difrent as our main delivery partner for Alpha and Beta of NHS Jobs. 23. Regarding the question: “demonstrate how you work with established decisions&frameworks” – Can you define what you mean by decisions and frameworks? The service is currently in beta, and will be in public beta for the commencement of this work, therefore a number of design decisions have already been made and tested as well as underlying architecture. As an example the NHSBSA have defined patterns for development and frameworks to work within. 24. The portal references “Internal/External teams” and “suppliers and partners”, please clarify the current delivery team configuration. The current delivery structure is three multi disciplinary delivery squads. Two squads are provided from our current delivery partner (Difrent) and one squad is made up of NHSBSA team members. The leadership of the service (Product Owners and Service Managers along with Lead Delivery Manager) are all NHSBSA team members. 25. The references a Product roadmap, has this roadmap been finalised, if so, can it be shared? A high level roadmap has been developed however as this service is entering its public beta phase this roadmap is very much shaping from the user research and the experiences of the beta stage 26. Is current Beta solution for the new NHS Jobs Site on target to meet customer expectations? We have extensive feedback across all user types currently using the beta version. There are areas where feedback is very good as well as areas where some additional improvements are required as we would expect in Beta.We are aiming to have full end to end users starting to be on boarded from May or June onwards and are confident that the beta service will provide users what they need at this point in the development lifecycle. 27. s the preference for a “Delivery Partner” solution facilitating capability and capacity uplift or is the preference more a “Body shop” arrangement to address capacity shortfall only? The preference and the requirement is for a Delivery Partner 28. Is Essential Question 2 asking for an example that illustrates challenges we faced ourselves and what we would do differently compared to our own prior actions/decisions, or an example of challenges faced by another supplier/company that we helped to resolve? This question is looking to understand where you have faced challenges yourself and what you would do differently, not how you have helped resolve a challenge or issue you perceive to be another’s doing. 29. The first Nice To Have question makes reference to ‘organisational standards’ – please could you confirm if NHSBSA has any additional standards we should be aware of, outside of standard GDS/NHS standards? Like most organisations the NHSBSA have frameworks and standards which are applied, these are developed based on multiple factors such as alignment to nation standards and frameworks (overarching government, GDS and NHS) and also local (NHSBSA specific) for example those which are driven by internal capabilities such as programming languages as set out in our tech stack. 30. Do you anticipate the successful supplier working with just the NHSBSA team, or with other suppliers in a rainbow team model? The NHSBSA work with a number of suppliers and partners and any successful supplier will be expected to work with those suppliers for example the NHSBSA utilise a managed infrastructure supplier and we would anticipate collaboration across all of our ecosystem. 31. For the question “Tell us how one of your teams has developed a piece of work that has successfully passed GDS Service assessment or equivalent. How did you ensure delivery against organisational standards?”Could the Authority define the “delivery against organisational standards”. Are these NHSBSA internal standards or best practice? Both the NHSBSA like most organisations have frameworks and standards which are applied, these are developed based on multiple factors such as alignment to nation standards and frameworks (overarching government, GDS and NHS) and also local (NHSBSA specific) for example those which are driven by internal capabilities such as programming languages as set out in our tech stack. 32. For the question “On a service of similar size/scale to NHS Jobs,which is in beta, demonstrate how you work with established decisions&frameworks of the team and service whilst also providing challenge to improve?”Could the Authority define the “established decisions&frameworks of the team and service”. Are these internal, GDS, supplier or industry best practice? The service is currently in beta, and will be in public beta for the commencement of this work, therefore a number of design decisions have already been made and tested as well as underlying architecture. As an example the NHSBSA have defined patterns for development and frameworks to work within.The NHSBSA like most organisations have frameworks and standards which are applied, these are developed based on multiple factors such as alignment to nation standards and frameworks (overarching government, GDS and NHS) and also local (NHSBSA specific). 33. In relation to criteria number 2 ‘Tell us about an engagement with an organisation which had not gone well’. There is likely to be subjectivity & sensitivity relating to whether something has or has not gone well. Are you looking for us to talk about elements of a project which have not gone well or have been challenging, or to talk about a project as a whole which has not gone well? Please can you confirm whether it is acceptable for this credential to be anonymised? This question is looking to understand where you have faced challenges and what you would do differently. Anonymising the question is acceptable. 34. Criteria 3 asks ‘How will you help the NHSBSA ensure affordability and value for money…’ Are you looking for: 1. An example from a recent project which demonstrates the approach that we would apply2. A description of how we will do this for NHSBSA.3. Both Both – it would be sensible to provide a description of how you would do this for the NHSBSA and if you could provide a real example of how you may have done this. 35. You’ve listed a capped day rate card for various roles. Do you really consider it realistic to pay more per day for a user experience role than for an Enterprise architect role? Is this list correct?Project Manager £800Business Analyst £700Front End Developer £750Back End Developer £750Senior Delivery Manager £800Delivery Manager £650Tester £800Technical Architect £700Information Security £750DevOps £650Service Manager £700User Researcher £800Enterprise Architect £650Data Analyst £700User Experience £700 Please be advised that the capped rate for Enterprise architect is being changed to £700. 36. Please can you confirm the rate cap for an Enterprise Architect...? Without understanding the experience/skill level you are expecting, this rate looks low compared to the Technical Architect. Please be advised that the capped rate for Enterprise architect is being changed to £700

Timeline

Publish date

3 years ago

Close date

3 years ago

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