Procurement details: Participant Recruitment for DWP Digital Modernisation

• Summary of work:

  DWP Digital Modernisation requires participant recruitment for regular user research activities. These will be a mixture of face-to-face, video calls, telephony and surveys. We are looking for suppliers who can recruit participants who reflect the diverse make-up of people that use or could use DWP services, across paper, telephony and online channels. The services we are focusing on include: Bereavement, Care, Retirement, Appeals, Children and Family services, across paper, telephony and online channels. We are looking for an Agency who is able to complete non-digital recruitment directly to digitally excluded people and through third party organisations.

• Where the research will take place:

  North East England

  North West England

  Yorkshire and the Humber

  East Midlands

  West Midlands

  East of England

  London

  South East England

  South West England

  Scotland

  Wales

• Any pre-market engagement done:

  NA

• Number of research rounds:

  This is a Call-Off Contract. There will not be a set number of rounds.

• Number of participants per round:

  Each recruitment brief will specify the number of participants required. The size of rounds will vary but typically be between 5 to 8 participants. However when new teams are set up and going through the discovery phase this could be up to 20 participants. It is the responsibility of the provider to replace last minute drop outs or no-shows, so that the required number of participants are provided. DWP will only pay for participants meeting the recruitment brief that attend the research sessions. For harder to reach individuals, there may be a need to engage with individuals outside of a full round of research to support participant recruitment.

• Research dates:

  Research rounds will predominantly occur 9-5 Monday to Friday excluding Bank Holidays. On exception weekday evening research may be required for hard to reach participants.

• How often research will happen:

  We provide 2 weeks notice ahead of research rounds. We currently average 6-8 rounds of research per month. However the requests for participants may not be at regular intervals and fluctuate, across projects differently.

• Evening or weekend research:

  Weekday evenings

• Research location:

  Research activities will be either face to face or remote using video calls or a telephone call. Remote research will predominently be using Microsoft Teams or similar tooling. Face to face research (across England) may be located in research labs, government buildings, businesses, support organisations, participants place of work or home. Locations will be specified in the research brief. The Agency will be responsible for provision of research venues when requested. Including procurement of accessible locations, and provide details to both the researcher and participants.

• Access restrictions at location:

  There should be no access restricitions at research locations and venues. Information about the accessibility of individual venues will be supplied by the Agency, including any accessibility requirements of participants.

• Description of participants:

  The recruitment contract will vary project by project. They will include a range of users and people who interact directly or indirectly with DWP or other Government Departments. Including people eligible for benefits, their supporters, representatives or other professionals. They will include people who encounter universal barriers to engage with government (https://uteschauberger.com/barrierstoaccess.html). Inlcuding those who are excluded from using any specific channel including paper, telephony or online. Digitally exclusion may include limited access online, low digital skills or access needs that restrict digital engagement. Retirement services: - people planning for retirement - people who have taken early or are delaying retirement - people who are retired and over State Pension age Bereavement services: - people who have experienced a death of a close family member or friend - people who have supported someone who has dealt with the death of a close family member or friend - people who have or are eligible to claim benefits due to the death of a close family member or friend Children and family services: - parents or guardians who are eligible for benefits, from pregnancy onwards - parents who should be and/or are receiving child maintenance - parents who are or are not paying the child maintenance they are required to pay Care services: - people who have disabilities and/or care needs - people who care for someone else (unpaid carers) Appeals and policy change: - people who disagree with a DWP decision - people who appeal a DWP decision - people who take a DWP policy to court (for example, a benefit excluding a group of people) A range of businesses and support organisations that cover the services above. These descriptions are not exhaustive.

• Describe accessibility requirements:

  Participants with assisted digital or access needs will need to be included in the research as described by the project brief. The recruiters must be able to recruit users across the range of assisted requirements and digitally excluded users, so be able to recruit by using non-digital means. All participants must be recruited ethically and sensitively.

• Describe accessibility requirements:

  Accessibility could include (non exhaustive): Users who need alternative formats of documents or use assisted technology to help them use a digital service. The use of assisted tech can be built into a device e.g. zooming in on an ipad, making font large, or using specific software e.g. apple read aloud, Dragon or Jaws. Permanent, temporary and situational access needs (e.g. a person who has one arm (permanent), a person with a broken arm (temporary), a person holding a new born baby (situational). Accessibility can also be fluctuating with certain health conditions.

• Describe accessibility requirements:

  Assisted digital Users who struggle with use of a digital service and need support to engage with such. Range from being excluded from digital (for various reasons), have access to digital but struggle with use, are willing to engage but need support.

• Describe accessibility requirements:

  Government Digital Services have established 11 Universal Barriers across all interactions, across all channels. These include awareness, interface and interaction skills, time, enthusiasm, access, comprehension skills, evidence, self-confidence, finance, trust and emotional state.

• Research plan:

  Research plans will vary by project will usually include either usability testing or depth interviews. Most research sessions will involve an element of learning about the participant in terms of their day to day lifestyle (interviews), as well as any functionality being tested as part of usability. There are multiple projects across Digital Modernisation each of which with their own research plan. Each research plan could change based on project priorities.

• Indicative maximum:

  The contract value is not specified by the buyer

• Indicative minimum:

  The contract value is not specified by the buyer

• How many suppliers to evaluate:

  5

• Technical Competence:

  30%

• Availability:

  30%

• Social values:

  10%

• Price:

  30%

• Essential skills and experience:

  10%

• Nice-to-have skills and experience:

  5%

• Technical questions:

  85%

• Description:

  Ability to handle all participant communications around recruitment including sending and collecting DWP consent forms (provided during each recruitment brief)

• Weighting:

  10%

• Description:

  Ability to provide incentive vouchers to research participants such as Love2Shop or equivalent

• Weighting:

  10%

• Description:

  Ability to provide incentive vouchers to research participants with low digital skills or confidence that do not require them to access or activate online and can you used offline

• Weighting:

  10%

• Description:

  Ability to work to short deadlines (2 weeks notice) and to source participants for several briefs at the same time

• Weighting:

  10%

• Description:

  Experience recruiting participants across the whole of the UK

• Weighting:

  10%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit participants with accessibility needs both that do and do not use assistive technology

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit participants with low digital skills and/or confidence using only non-digital methods

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit pregnant people and people with dependant children

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit people who are planning for or have retired

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit people who have been recently bereaved

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit people who have a disability and/or care needs

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit people who care (unpaid officially or unofficially) for a person with a disability and/or care needs

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to recruit people who are eligible for or have applied for DWP benefits

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Ability to provide monthly report split into project and/or groups of projects to see overall usage, spend and projected spend.

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Demonstrate experience of data sharing and data transfer complying with GDPR and data security policies.

• Weighting:

  5%

• Description:

  Experience or ability to work with charities and external organisations to find participants that are very hard to reach, vulnerable, or those with access needs

• Weighting:

  40%

• Description:

  Experience or ability to directly recruite people who are digitally exlcuded, have low digital skills or low digital confidence

• Weighting:

  40%

• Description:

  Provide within research hours’ contact / support

• Weighting:

  20%

• Question:

  Approach to recruiting participants Provide a case study, describing describe the methods you will use and how you approach ethical recruitment that meets DWPs goals of inclusive research (finding a wide range of participants with low digital skills, low digital confidence, that are digitally excluded, experience any of the 11 GDS universal barriers, are disabled, have accessibility needs). Be aware that DWP can only offer gift vouchers as incentives, not cash or other inducements. Your response should include: - How you will recruit user research participants, described in the 'Summary of Work' section, across England, Wales and Scotland - How you use digital and non-digital recruitment methods, for both digital and face to face research. - How you will ensure that you identify potential service users to make sure the user research is carried out with the relevant cohort of users - How you will identify and recruit people on different types of benefits - How you have/will identify and recruit users who transact online and those who don’t, including those who face universal barriers and people with assisted digital needs - How you have/will identify and recruit users with; Cognitive and/or learning disabilities, Mental health conditions, Motor skills impairments/physical disability/recent diagnosis and long-term disability, Visual impairments and Auditory disabilities. - Any adaptions/considerations you employ when recruiting such participants. - How you ensure participants are recruited ethically and sensitively. Users of services may include vulnerable users so should be recruited ethically and sensitively

• Weighting:

  40%

• Question:

  Describe your approach to data handling and risk management whilst capturing, storing and transferring citizens personal information. Your response should include: - How you will manage sharing of information to enable joint pre-shifting between recruiter and researcher - How you will manage issuing, explaining, and storing DWP consent forms - How you will manage the sharing of digital MS Teams invites and deletion of them How you will manage the sharing of information about participants and locations for face to face research and deletion of them

• Weighting:

  20%

• Question:

  Describe your approach to keeping all relevant colleagues updated with how project goals, usage and budgets are being met.

• Weighting:

  20%

• Question:

  Describe how the end to end solution will meet requirements around privacy and information/cyber security aligning with good practice such as that specified within ISO27001/Cyber Essentials Plus and relevant legislation such as DPA and GDPR.

• Weighting:

  20%

• Question:

  Describe the commitment your organisation will make to help tackle economic inequality.

• Weighting:

  30%

• Question:

  Describe the commitment your organisation will make to help tackle workforce inequality.

• Weighting:

  30%

• Question:

  Describe the commitment your organisation will make to help improve health and wellbeing.

• Weighting:

  40%

• Additional assessment methods:

  Presentation

  Reference

  Interview

  Scenario or test

  Case study

  Work history

• 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:

  03/05/2024

• Clarification period closes:

  13/05/2024 23:59

• Deadline for suppliers to submit their stage 1 responses:

  17/05/2024 23:59

Return to Participant Recruitment for DWP Digital Modernisation

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