Core running, support, upkeep and improvements to Sport England Websites

Description

Summary of the work We’re seeking an agency to host, regularly support, maintain and improve Sport England websites, including sportengland.org and thisgirlcan.co.uk. The agency should be able to help us continual evolve these websites and our digital offering, including UX and content design expertise, accessibility capabilities and development experience. Expected Contract Length 2 years (Plus 6 month extension option) Latest start date Friday 15 October 2021 Budget Range Costs exclude VAT and assume a contract length of 30 months. Breakdown of costs is: hosting and core maintenance and support of three websites: £137,499-£157,000; continual improvements to three websites to enhance back end and front end functionality, user experience and accessibility: £309,999-£377,499; contingency for project-specific development work that would fall outside of the scope of continual improvements/enhancements to the three websites: up to £132,000; one-off costs for the migration of the websites to a new supplier, if required: £8,000-£12,000. Total: between £455,498-£678,999. Why the Work is Being Done There are three websites which we envisage will require hosting, maintenance and upkeep throughout this contract: sportengland.org, thisgirlcan.co.uk and evaluationframework.sportengland.org. These sites continue to be important for Sport England in helping us deliver the strategic outcomes outlined in our recently published Uniting the Movement strategy, and particularly in the case of Sport England's main website and This Girl Can, will need to evolve to continue to meet user needs, with UX capabilities and development experience important. Sport England is a primarily B2B website, sharing important guidance, resources, insight and funding opportunities. In the past two years, we’ve moved some of our external B2B sites (such as Local Insight Tool) on to sportengland.org where this has proved to be best for the user, and opportunities for future consolidation remain on the table, which would require your support and expertise. This Girl Can is our high-profile campaign helping women to get active in a way that works for them. We also have the whytereview.org website, which will require hosting and limited support for a period of time. Problem to Be Solved We have three existing websites for which we require hosting and core support for. Two of these websites are particularly high profile for our organisation (Sport England and This Girl Can) and these will in addition require continual upkeep and back end and front end improvements, in collaboration with Sport England, to keep them fit for purpose, able to meet user needs and responsive to organisational changes and aims which may impact on site structure, technical capabilities etc. Who Are the Users The Sport England website has three primary groups of users: ‘advocators’, defined broadly as decision-makers within sport and physical activity; ‘facilitators’, defined broadly as people who play a supporting role to help in the delivery of sport and physical activity at a local level; and ‘implementers’, defined broadly as people who put plans and systems into action to help get people physically active. Sportengland.org is a B2B site that provides relevant insight, shares expertise in the form of guidance and support, provides funding opportunities, and more. Given the broad range of our users, they could be looking for any of this kind of guidance and support and would need to be able to access, understand and use it. Our B2B Evaluation Framework website is used by both Sport England colleagues and partner organisations, allowing them to design and deliver effective evaluation for their sport and physical activity project. This Girl Can is a B2C campaign website aimed at helping women and girls find ways to get physically active, with inspiring stories and an activity finder with a host of tips and guidance. There’s also a supporters’ hub so people/organisations can engage with the campaign and share its key messages. Existing Team The supplier will be working most closely with Sport England’s head of editorial and content, senior content editor and content editor. In addition, Sport England’s campaign executive will be a key point of contact for This Girl Can website-related work. Our head of IT will also provide any technical support where necessary. A supplier currently hosts and maintains the Sport England, Evaluation Framework and This Girl Can websites, and would be engaged with as part of any transition process. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Demonstrate expertise with Drupal 9, which sportengland.org uses, and an at least good working knowledge of Wordpress, which thisgirlcan.co.uk uses, sufficient to allow you to build upon both sites. • The ability to provide support to AWS hosting, with experience in configuring, deploying and managing the hosting platform on AWS, and ensuring its resilience. • Has access to the correct technical infrastructure to support the hosting and maintenance of the following websites: www.sportengland.org, www.thisgirlcan.co.uk and evaluationframework.sportengland.org. • Can provide a website hosting and maintenance customer support service at least Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm, with proactive monitoring and an incident management plan. • Has expertise and skills to enhance websites, both back end and front end, working on sometimes project-level briefs, with experience in areas including UX, service design and development. • Evidence of building digital solutions with user needs front and centre – also explain your broad approach, including to project management. • Demonstrate a clear understanding of accessibility and accessibility guidance set out in the GDS service manual. Explain how this guidance would be considered and implemented as our websites evolve. • Demonstrate experience and knowledge of SEO best practice, including search engine optimisation and rankings. • Can demonstrate the ability to support and ensure Sport England’s compliance with the GDPR and associated national legislation. • Has adequate technical and organisational measures for protecting personal data in place, and any personal data processed on behalf of Sport England must be processed within the European Economic Area. • Able to follow Security Policy Framework and Security Classification Policy principles. Explain whether you’ve worked to this guidance before and how you would work to ensure these principles were followed. Nice to Haves • Experience user research and usability testing for websites in various formats - with a mix of people and clear objectives - embedded into project and informing the service design approach. • Has experience and/or expertise in bringing large external websites on to an organisation’s core/main website – particularly where these have differing technical requirements or audiences – in a user-centred way. • Provide customer support as part of the hosting and maintenance element of the contract outside normal working hours and at weekends (24/7). • Provide a priority system support centre that can rectify website issues as and when they arise. • Experience configuring analytics packages in compliance with GDPR, and the ability to analyse and use data/evidence to improve the user experience. Work Location 21 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3HF Working Arrangments A good working relationship underpinned by regular and open conversations is key – these can of course be remote, but opportunities for face to face collaboration when possible, practical and logical would be welcomed. Security Clearance All must have BPSS as a minimum Additional T&Cs All expenses must be pre-agreed between the parties and must comply with the Cabinet Office (CO) 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 7 Proposal Criteria • Technical solution and systems in place • Approach and methodology • How the approach or solution meets our objectives/goals • How the approach or solution meets user needs • How the supplier has identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • Team structure • Value for money Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation, fully immersing your organisation into ours to understand structure, objectives, challenges etc. • Work collaboratively with our organisation to offer solutions to complex challenges, explaining these in layman’s-terms. • Share knowledge and experience with team members at Sport England. • Provide honest and expert feedback to the client. • Challenge the status quo. Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method • Case study • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Would you be open to re-platforming the Sport England website to WordPress in the future, so you’re operating on a single technology stack? While not an active consideration, we wouldn’t want to rule this out. Nor the possibility of re-platforming This Girl Can to Drupal in the future. 2. Reading through the requirements, can the work be carried out remotely with frequent attendance agreed. Expenses obviously covered by the supplier? Yes. Expenses would need to be pre-agreed and comply with the Cabinet Office Travel and Subsistence Policy. 3. Is there anything about your current hosting and support arrangement that you are not happy with? No. 4. Is the incumbent expected to apply for this opportunity Yes 5. Please advise if you are open to other tech stacks other than Drupal? Yes. 6. Are you open to the core team being based in the UK but using some development resources from overseas, but from within our company’s wider international group? Yes. 7. Do your websites have any backend integrations? For example a CRM such as Salesforce? Or any mailing / lead tracking systems such as Hubspot or Marketo? No - we have a sign up form for our Be Inspired newsletter that feeds into a database managed by an external supplier (https://www.sportengland.org/campaigns-and-our-work/be-inspired?section=join_our_mailing_list) 8. Are you using a currently supported version of PHP? Yes. 9. Bidders must have access to the correct technical infrastructure to support the hosting and maintenance of www.sportengland.org, www.thisgirlcan.co.uk and evaluationframework.sportengland.org. Can you clarify what the technical infrastructure is please? The Sport England website runs on Drupal 9, while the This Girl Can website runs on Wordpress and the Evaluation Framework website runs on Umbraco. All three sites are hosted via AWS. 10. Are you looking to rehost the sites, or are you looking for support with your existing hosting? Support with our existing hosting would be preferred 11. Project Budget Please note, the maximum budget for this project has increased by £90,000 from £455,498-678,999 to £455,498 - 768,999.