Procurement details: Strategic Delivery Partner
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1. Context and requirements
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Pre-market engagement
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None
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Work done so far
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The DDaT team sits within the Regulatory & Corporate Services Directorate, managing several software products supporting business critical functions. Ofqual’s regulatory IT system, the Portal, was first developed in-house in 2015. It manages interactions with regulated awarding organisations, enabling them to manage qualifications and units data; also, to notify Ofqual of any events that may cause adverse effects to learners. Using Agile methodologies, the DDAT team deliver against programme priorities set by the DDaT Programme Board. We are currently on a journey to improve our delivery cadence through the adoption of Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, DevSecOps, and Product Management practices.
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Which phase the project is in
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Live
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Existing team
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The Ofqual Information Management team is supported by a broad mix of skills, which cover five key disciplines: • Digital development • Information assurance • Cloud and infrastructure • Delivery, engagement, and management (project and programme management, procurement, business analysis, user guidance, process improvement) • Data services (data engineering and analysis) The existing team is around 30 permanent staff. The DDaT team use an Agile approach to delivery, with daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives ceremonies to facilitate fortnightly deliveries. You can learn more about the wider Ofqual organisation here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofqual/about#:~:text=and%20A%20levels.-,Who%20we%20are,are%20based%20in%20central%20Coventry
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Address where the work will be done
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Remote by default, with the potential need to visit Ofqual’s offices (Earlsdon Park (7th Floor), 53-55 Butts Rd, Coventry CV1 3BH) as needs arise.
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Working arrangements
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9am to 5pm Monday to Friday • Engaging and participating in Agile ceremonies • Engaging permanent Ofqual DDaT experts in all architecturally significant decisions • Ensuring consistency in software design and development across Ofqual’s estate • Adhering to Ofqual Software development practices, standards and guardrails • Meet, conform to and highlight where necessary, all pertinent security standards, policies, risks or potential risks • Clearly presenting delivered work back to Ofqual staff during Agile ceremonies and reviews. As a partner of Ofqual, we always expect high professional standards, and strong, demonstrable values of corporate social responsibility.
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Provide more information about your security requirements
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No security clearance needed
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Latest start date
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2024-01-15
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Enter the expected contract length
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2 years
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Extension period
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1 year
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Are you prepared to show your budget details?
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Yes
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Indicative maximum
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800000
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Indicative minimum
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Confirm if you require a contracted out service or supply of resource
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Contracted out service: the off-payroll rules do not apply
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Summary of work
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Ofqual’s DDaT team are seeking to appoint a highly engaging and collaborative strategic digital, data and cloud infrastructure delivery partner who, periodically, can supplement an existing, (permanent), agile delivery team with technical development and design capabilities in order to improve velocity and business outcomes.
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Where the supplied staff will work
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West Midlands
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Where the supplied staff will work
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No specific location (for example they can work remotely)
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Why the work is being done
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Ofqual’s Digital, Data and Technology (DDAT) team continuously deliver a programme of strategic improvements in order to meet the organisations evolving needs as it continues to meet its Regulatory and Compliance responsibilities across Education in England. The in-house team is working to deliver key business priorities agreed by Ofqual’s DDaT programme board from a prioritised backlog. This work is of significant strategic importance for Ofqual; delivery will improve efficiency, cross-team communication, enable better case management, and improve public accessibility and confidence in our services, ultimately to deliver better outcomes for learners. Our key priority is to establish a highly collaborative, culturally aligned and value driven working relationship with an experienced strategic partner who can immediately contribute as part of our existing Agile delivery team. In line with wider government ways of working and User Centred Design practices, required expertise ranges from interaction design, user research, software development, test automation, data engineering and analysis; but with potential for other disciplines as outcomes require. Desired mobilisation is anticipated to be no more than 4 weeks on each occasion; ideally faster.
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The business problem you need to solve
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Ofqual are seeking to engage with a strategic partner to deliver the following benefits: • Tactically increase velocity of delivering business outcomes for priority DDaT activities • Supplement existing DDaT technical skills and experience to constructively challenge and enrich the design and implementation of solutions • Augment DDaT working and cultural routines with industry tried and tested, best practice methodologies.
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First user type
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Public
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Enter more details about this user type
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Our public-facing services are used by citizens to make complaints to or about Ofqual, ask questions via public enquiries, and to make freedom of information requests. These services are developed in line with GDS standards and integrate with our internal-facing Portal, allowing Ofqual to manage cases and interactions with citizens in one place. People offering teaching, assessment, and industrial expertise to Ofqual to aid in regulation use our experts gateway to register and access commissions to do work on Ofqual’s behalf. Organisations seeking to become regulated Awarding Organisations (AOs) use our recognition gateway, before being onboarded in the Portal, should their application be successful. Users of our Portal system include Ofqual staff, regulated AOs and Northern Ireland regulator (CCEA Regulation). Data and statistic links are shared with a range of stakeholders, including the Welsh Regulator (Qualification Wales) and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. Regulated AOs use the Portal to create and maintain their qualifications, submit event notifications and data to Ofqual, or to contact Ofqual or CCEA Regulator with queries. Data from the Portal, among other sources, is collated into our data lake, which is used for analysis and BI reporting for both Ofqual and awarding organisation users.
Security and vetting requirements
Expected contract length
Terms and acronyms
Set your budget
The people who will use your product or service
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2. Assessment Criteria
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Select your pricing model
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Capped time and materials
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Additional assessment methods
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Presentation
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Additional assessment methods
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Reference
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Additional assessment methods
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Case study
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Additional assessment methods
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Work history
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Create your scoring criteria
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3
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How many suppliers to evaluate
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3
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Technical competence
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50
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Cultural fit
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20
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Social value
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0
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Price
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30
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Essential skills and experience
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50
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Nice-to-have skills and experience (optional)
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10
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Technical questions
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40
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Describe the essential skill or experience:
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Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Software Developer: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/software-developer Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Content Designer: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/interaction-designer Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Content Designer: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-designer Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of User Researcher: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/user-researcher Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Test Engineer: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/test-engineer Set out how you can reliably resource the above key partner personnel needs with a lead time of no more than 4 weeks on each occasion. Demonstrate experience of successfully delivering technology and digital services for UK public sector organisations, adhering to all standards and governance. Demonstrate experience of delivering using agile SCRUM methodologies. Demonstrate experience of working collaboratively as part of a blended team, alongside customers working in the digital, data and technology domain. Demonstrate technical knowledge of Azure DevOps. Demonstrate technical knowledge of Azure Cloud Services. Demonstrate development experience in .NET Core 3.1, building and consuming REST APIs, React with Typescript, HTML, JS, CSS. Demonstrate experience of automated testing; we use Cucumber Automated Testing. Demonstrate experience of behaviour driven design (BDD). Provide two public-sector focused case studies, covering what service capacity your organisation has acted in and showing where your organisation’s involvement has delivered a positive outcome.
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Enter a weighting for this skill or experience in whole numbers, for example 30
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100
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Describe the nice-to-have skill or experience:
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Demonstrate an appreciation of Education and/or Regulatory sectors. Demonstrate experience of successfully working as a partner organisation to one or more UK public-sector clients, over an extended period of at least 2 years. Demonstrate experience of delivering accessible software by design and implementation, ensuring that services promote equity, supporting disabled users, neurodiverse users, and non-native-English speakers. Demonstrate experience in conducting successful User Research, leading to successful outcomes. Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of DevOps Engineer: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/development-operations-devops-engineer Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Technical Writer: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/technical-writer Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Business Analyst: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/business-analyst--2 Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Technical Architect: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/technical-architect Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Data Engineer: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/data-engineer Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Data Architect: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/data-architect Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Data Analyst: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/data-analyst Supply experienced UK-based professionals in the role of Delivery Manager: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/delivery-manager Supply experienced UK-based professionals in further roles relating to software delivery, at the partner’s discretion. Wider technical knowledge of Azure (Azure Analysis Server, Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory, Azure Defender, Azure Sentinel, on-prem and Azure networking and firewalls - Cisco ASA/FirePower, Azure NSGs) Technical knowledge of Hyper-V (Active Directory, File Sharing, RDS, Always-On VPN, Print Server). Technical knowledge of Office 365 (SharePoint, Dynamics, Power BI, O365 Security). Technical knowledge of Hybrid Mobile Device Management (MDM) with Intune. Technical knowledge of ETL, data warehousing and data pipeline development Technical knowledge of data storage, validation, and cleansing.
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Enter a weighting for this skill or experience in whole numbers, for example 30
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100
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Explain the technical question:
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Provide evidence of being a successful, multi-disciplinary IT partner organisation. Provide example CVs of supplier personnel suitable for the four essential roles. Cultural fit use this: Demonstrate a positive internal working culture within your own organisation. Demonstrate your approach to corporate social responsibility. Additional Assessment methods: Set out your governance approach for a long-term partner relationship with Ofqual. Explain how together we ensure partner expectations continue to be met.
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Enter a weighting for this technical question in whole numbers, for example 30
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100
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Your question
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Evidence of collaborative working on technical outcomes
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Enter a weighting for this question
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100
About assessment criteria and evaluation weightings
How you will score suppliers
Set the overall weighting
Technical competence
Essential skills and experience
Nice-to-have skills and experience
Technical questions
Write your cultural fit questions
Write your social value questions
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3. Timeline
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Publication of stage 1
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November 17, 2023, 5:06 PM
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Clarification period closes
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November 22, 2023, 4:00 PM
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Deadline for suppliers to submit their stage 1 responses
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December 1, 2023, 4:00 PM