Procurement details: RM1043.8-1-Cabinet Office - FSET Recruitment Platform Live Support and Maintenance - Lot 1

• Term or acronym:

  CS

• Definition:

  Civil Service

• Term or acronym:

  CO

• Definition:

  Cabinet Office

• Term or acronym:

  GPG

• Definition:

  Government People Group

• Term or acronym:

  FSET

• Definition:

  Fast Stream and Emerging Talent

• Term or acronym:

  FS

• Definition:

  Fast Stream

• Term or acronym:

  SIP

• Definition:

  Summer Internship Programme

• Term or acronym:

  HMRC

• Definition:

  His Majesty's Revenue and Customs

• Term or acronym:

  MDTP

• Definition:

  Multi-channel Digital Tax Platform

• Term or acronym:

  GDS

• Definition:

  Government Digital Service

• Term or acronym:

  NCSC

• Definition:

  National Cyber Security Centre

• Summary of work:

  The Fast Stream and Emerging Talent (FSET) team is inviting bids for the provision of technical development and live support services: maintaining, updating, enhancing and trouble-shooting issues that may occur during the operation of our bespoke recruitment platform. The services will be offered as two lots - lot 1 will focus on live support and maintenance activities whilst lot 2 will focus on enhancement and development. This is lot 1 - provision of live support and maintenance activities. The scope of work will cover: On-going live support of our Platform (3rd line and some 2nd line are envisaged); Quality assurance and performance testing; Security testing; Accessibility testing; Annual campaign setup activities; Maintenance activities - security patches, code updates; Management of users; Deployment activities; Management of third party technical engagement; Configuration and content updates. Work with Lot 2 supplier to support the development and/or enhancement of integrations with existing and/or new third party test and assessment platforms Work with Lot 2 supplier to support the development and enhancement of the candidate and admin interfaces Work with Lot 2 supplier to support the development of unspecified emerging requirements including changes to the existing Platform functionality; Working with the Lot 2 supplier to accept the handover of newly developed or enhanced features for future on-going live support (3rd line and some 2nd line are envisaged). More detail can be found in the attached statement of requirements.

• Where the supplied staff will work:

  No specific location (for example they can work remotely)

• Why the work is being done:

  In line with the government’s digital strategy, FSET has been working to make our recruitment activities ‘digital by default’. In autumn 2015 the Authority appointed a supplier who conducted a successful agile development programme, providing both development capability and live support activities as part of our public beta development. The Authority re-appointed the supplier after G-cloud procurements in February 2018 and May 2020. The Authority is now coming towards the end of this contractual engagement with their incumbent supplier and are returning to the market to seek a supplier or suppliers to provide them with on-going development, technical and live support for our services over the next two to four years. This procurement will consist of two lots - Lot 1 (Live Support and Maintenance) and Lot 2 (Development). Potential suppliers are invited to bid for either Lot 1 or Lot 2 or both depending on their interest and capability.

• The business problem:

  Our bespoke recruitment platform requires ongoing support and maintenance throughout the year and in particular during the months of September to March during our annual recruitment campaigns. This platform supports the recruitment of graduates into the Civil Service Fast Stream and our Internship programmes. The decision to build a bespoke platform was taken in 2015 because at that time no off the shelf product on the market could meet our complex business requirements - today this remains the case. This procurement is seeking to appoint a supplier capable of providing direct development support to maintain and update our code base in line with ongoing business requirements and our users needs.

• User type:

  Candidate - Fast Stream

• Definition:

  As a candidate I need to be able to provide personal information and undertake the required online testing and virtual assessments so that I can secure a place on the Fast Stream.

• User type:

  Candidate - Internship

• Definition:

  As a candidate I need to be able to provide personal information and undertake the required online testing and virtual assessments so that I can secure a place on the Summer Internship Programme.

• User type:

  Admin user

• Definition:

  As an admin user, I need to be able to see candidate details, test results and availability so that I can manage who proceeds through our assessment process and who receives a job.

• User type:

  Admin manager

• Definition:

  As an admin manager I need access to management information reports so that I can assess what pass marks to set for each scheme, for each test phase and can control the numbers who receive a job in line with the number of roles we have to offer.

• Any pre-market engagement done:

  A pre-market engagement exercise was carried out in 2022 to gauge the capability and interest of potential suppliers on the digital outcomes framework. The results of that engagement exercise have helped us to define our requirements for this procurement.

• Work done so far:

  The Authority supported by our incumbent supplier successfully delivered our recruitment service into public beta: www.apply-civil-service-fast-stream.service.gov.uk/fset-fast-stream. This service is operated through our FSET Recruitment Platform - a bespoke product that provides the functions of a traditional Applicant Tracking System (ATS), together with event scheduling, integrated online assessments, notifications and performance feedback. The service collects candidate application data, including (some sensitive) personal information and scheme preferences. Candidates who submit their applications are then taken through a series of online tests, an assessment centre (currently virtual) and final selection boards which narrow down the 50,000 annual applications to around 1500 successful appointments (across both FS and SIP pipelines) annually. The service has three separate access routes – an open candidate facing application which anyone can access and apply to the Authority’s schemes during campaign windows; a similar open application that the Authority’s assessors utilise remotely for entering evaluation scores and feedback to tests, which is invite only; and a restricted-access admin interface only accessible from allow-listed IP addresses – used by FSET staff and the Authority’s service provision partner. The service that the Authority has built is hosted on the HMRC Multi-channel Digital Tax platform (MDTP) – this is a fully-fledged platform as a service offering. There is multi-active data storage across two data centres and the architecture is based on common and bespoke micro-services; full operational management support is offered by the MDTP team and the Authority’s incumbent supplier. The Authority’s code is Scala-based and they utilise Mongo db for data storage; Jenkins, Jira, Confluence and github are used to facilitate all development and deployment activities.

• Which phase the project is in:

  Beta

• Existing team:

  Our core team consists of a Product Manager and a Business Analyst, both civil servants who have worked on the project for 8 and 6 years respectively.

• Address where the work will be done:

  Our office is located 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ. Work will be carried out remotely, but we may on occasion wish to hold in person meetings either at this location or, if suitable, the supplier's own premises.

• Working arrangements:

  We would like to continue the working arrangements whereby we form one team with the suppliers personnel, working remotely as a rule but on occasion holding meetings in person to workshop issues, review progress etc, if this is felt to be beneficial by either party.

• Security and vetting requirements:

  Security Check (SC)

• More information about the Security requirements:

  Supplier personnel will have access to sensitive personal information relating to our candidate population, as such we require that all staff hold SC clearance.

• Latest start date:

  8 July 2024

• Contract length:

  2 years 0 months 0 days

• Optional extension:

  1 years 0 months 0 days

• Indicative maximum:

  £235000

• Indicative minimum:

  The contract value is not specified by the buyer

• Further information:

  An annual maximum budget of £235,000 is available for provision on these services.

• Contracted out service or supply of resource?:

  Supply of resource: the off-payroll rules may apply

• How many suppliers to evaluate:

  3

• Technical Competence:

  45%

• Cultural fit:

  15%

• Social values:

  10%

• Price:

  30%

• Essential skills and experience:

  30%

• Nice-to-have skills and experience:

  0%

• Technical questions:

  70%

• Description:

  Are all staff who will work on the project SC cleared?

• Weighting:

  20%

• Description:

  Does your organisation have experience in Front End development utilising JavaScript and HTML?

• Weighting:

  20%

• Description:

  Does your organisation have experience in back end development utilising a Scala-code base and MongoDB for data storage?

• Weighting:

  20%

• Description:

  Jenkins, Jira, Confluence and GitHub are used to facilitate all development and deployment activities. Does your organisation have experience using the named applications?

• Weighting:

  20%

• Description:

  Does your organisation have experience performing Testing & Quality Assurance in delivering or developing a Digital Service?

• Weighting:

  20%

• Question:

  Describe your track record of successfully supporting comparable digital projects (either previous or currently in progress); in particular projects carried out under an agile methodology. Demonstrate specific expertise, integration experience and operational experience. Your response should include contract examples and show how this would be relevant to the specific requirements and delivery of the solution laid out in our requirements.

• Weighting:

  40%

• Question:

  Provide an overview of the role functions and team structure you propose to meet our requirements. With reference to our requirements, describe how your resources would integrate and interplay with the our team/other suppliers resources, as a single delivery team. The response must include, but is not limited to: 1. How your team structure maps to our requirements 2. Key roles and how they deliver the solution 3. The numbers and seniority (Junior, Intermediate or Senior) 4. What roles/tasks each team member would perform 5. Types of skills, experiences and capabilities in the team and how these are relevant to delivering the requirements 6. How your team structure would integrate and interplay with the customer to create a single delivery team.

• Weighting:

  30%

• Question:

  The services we have built are hosted on the HMRC Multi-channel Digital Tax platform (MDTP) – this is a fully-fledged platform as a service offering and the architecture is based on common and bespoke micro-services. Does your organisation have experience working with HMRC MDTP, can you provide an example? Does your organisation have experience working on other services developed around a micro-service architecture – can you provide an example?

• Weighting:

  30%

• Question:

  Describe your approach for working with us (and alongside other suppliers) as part of an integrated, virtually co-located effective and efficient digital delivery team where the team is: • Genuinely multi-disciplinary • Collaborative • Solution Oriented • Focused on continuous delivery • Committed to quality • Able to put user needs at the heart of delivery • Adding business value with every action Your response should provide evidence of: • How you are able to work effectively as a multi-disciplinary integrated team. • How you can maintain control and assure quality • How you can reach back within your organisation to provide resources within tight timescales It is essential that you convey the ability to supply a service where capability and capacity are critical in terms of: • Providing quality agile candidates • Supplying a quality service, capable of dealing with fluctuations in demand in an agile environment. You should demonstrate therefore, how you will achieve this and indicate how quickly the service provided could react to changes in demand.

• Weighting:

  100%

• Question:

  t

• Weighting:

  100%

• Pricing model:

  Time and materials

• Additional assessment methods:

  Case study

• Level:

  Not met

• Score:

  0

• Description:

  The response does not meet any of the requirements or no response has been provided. An unacceptable and / or non-compliant response with serious reservations, demonstrating no understanding of the requirement.

• Level:

  Partially met

• Score:

  1

• Description:

  The response has met some, but not all elements of the requirement, which poses risk that the proposal will not meet the deliverables required. The response does not demonstrate a full understanding of the requirement posing major concerns.

• Level:

  Met

• Score:

  2

• Description:

  The response is acceptable and meets all the basic requirements. However, the response is not sufficiently detailed to minimise risk and / or the proposed approach may require additional support (in addition to that outlined in the Statement of Requirements) from the Contracting Authority to meet its deliverables.

• Level:

  Exceeded

• Score:

  3

• Description:

  The response exceeds requirements, providing detail that minimises risks to delivery. The response is comprehensive and unambiguous, demonstrating a thorough understanding of the requirements and providing details of how the requirement will be met in full without additional support from the Contracting Authority, other than that outlined within the Statement of Requirements.

• Publication of stage 1:

  08/05/2024

• Clarification period closes:

  14/05/2024 16:00

• Deadline for suppliers to submit their stage 1 responses:

  22/05/2024 16:00

Return to RM1043.8-1-Cabinet Office - FSET Recruitment Platform Live Support and Maintenance - Lot 1

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