Awarded to Zoocha Limited

Start date: Wednesday 6 November 2019
Value: £134,838
Company size: SME

Equality and Human Rights Commission

Equality and Human Rights Commission website redevelopment: alpha, beta and live

7 Incomplete applications

6 SME, 1 large

8 Completed applications

8 SME, 0 large

• Published: Thursday 12 September 2019
• Deadline for asking questions: Thursday 19 September 2019 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Thursday 26 September 2019 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: The Equality and Human Rights Commission wishes to appoint a supplier to carry out a redevelopment of our external website, to cover alpha, beta and live stages of development.; ; The full project brief has been published at: http://bit.ly/ehrcwebspec
• Latest start date: Monday 4 November 2019
• Location: No specific location, eg they can work remotely
• Organisation the work is for: Equality and Human Rights Commission
• Budget range: Up to £150,000 including VAT

About the work

• Why the work is being done: The website needs to be redeveloped for several reasons, mainly:; ; 1) to focus on user needs: our vision for the website is to provide a first-class user experience, meet user needs and showcase our credentials as a world-leading equality and human rights institution.; ; 2) to upgrade the platform: the current site is built in Drupal 7, which will no longer be supported in the near future.; ; 3) to follow government recommendations: the 2018 tailored review of the Equality and Human Rights Commission recommended a website refresh.
• Problem to be solved: Discovery phase research identified issues around the following themes:; ; • structure of website and navigation; • search and findability; • intended audience and priorities; • content maintenance, versioning and governance; • understanding our story and the breadth of our work; ; Technical discovery recommended Drupal 8 as the best platform for the new website (upgrading to Drupal 9, when available).
• Who the users are and what they need to do: Audience and technical discoveries have been completed. Deliverables from the discovery phase can be found at: http://bit.ly/ehrcdiscovery
• Any work that’s already been done: Audience and technical discoveries have been completed. Deliverables from the discovery phase can be found at: http://bit.ly/ehrcdiscovery
• Existing team: The successful supplier will need to work closely with our communications and content team, mainly the:; ; • Website and Digital Content Manager; • Head of External Affairs; • Web Project Manager and Content Executive; • Content Designer; • Content Associate
• Current phase: Discovery

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: The successful supplier may work from their own premises but we expect to hold several face to face meetings (including kick-off and wash-up meetings) at our offices in either Manchester or London. ; ; The successful supplier will also need to send a representative to meet with our Board and senior leadership team.
• Working arrangements: We require weekly status updates, detailing activities, achievements of milestones and any issues that may impact the project. ; ; Expenses to be covered within budget for the project.

Additional information

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

• Essential skills and experience:
  • E1) recent experience of building sites in Drupal 8, including front end (theming) and back end development (coding)
  • E2) a certified Drupal 8 Grand Master on their team, who is available to work on this project (please provide their name)
  • E3) recent experience of developing Drupal websites from alpha to beta, through to live launch
  • E4) experience of migrating sites from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8
  • E5) experience of building Drupal sites to conform to 2.1 level AA standard, and validating that standard
  • E6) recent experience of effective engagement with current and potential users, including users with accessibility requirements, and of facilitating user research sessions
  • E7) experience of applying the principles of user-centred design to the development of digital solutions
  • E8) project management: experience of developing, and delivering to, a comprehensive project plan and implementation timetable
  • E9) experience of content migration
  • E10) knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) and how this could be incorporated to help with visibility of the website on search engines
  • E11) experience of working within the constraints of public sector organisations including budgets, timescales and change
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • N1) experience of working on equality or human rights projects
  • N2) recent experience of working with government or arm’s length bodies
  • N3) recent experience of working with public sector teams, particularly those with limited or no experience of agile; alpha, beta and live stages; or iterative development
  • N4) recent experience of delivering digital services to the GDS service standard and design principles

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 4
• Proposal criteria:
  • how you will ensure that our technical and delivery requirements, set out in sections 5 and 6 of the project brief, are met
  • a summary project plan and timetable: your proposed approach to alpha and beta phases and how you will ensure the live site is launched on time
  • the team you plan to use to complete the project (including team structure, roles and responsibilities) and how you plan to work with us
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • a commitment to equality and diversity
  • a commitment to accessibility
  • published gender pay gap information (if applicable, if you have 250 or more employees)
  • compliance with data protection law and responsible data protection practices
• Payment approach: Fixed price
• Assessment methods: Written proposal
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  65%

  Cultural fit

  5%

  Price

  30%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Project brief online at: http://bit.ly/ehrcwebspec
• 2. What are the timescales for this project?: We are aiming to launch the new site by the end of June 2020.
• 3. Is building in Drupal essential or are you open to other CMSs?: Building in Drupal is essential, which is why we have focused on this in the specification. A technical discovery phase – an independent, objective evaluation of content management system (CMS) options – has already been completed. The recommendations were based on a clear understanding of our technical needs, and the needs of internal administrators and public users. Many other CMSs (including WordPress, Umbraco and Sitecore) were considered but Drupal was found to be the best platform to meet our needs.
• 4. Why is Drupal 8 Grand Master accreditation a must have requirement? Can you provide a rational in relation to this specific project please? (part 1): Technical discovery revealed several difficulties with the current Drupal site set up. To avoid repeating these difficulties, to mitigate long-term development costs and to make sure the site is set up correctly from the outset, we want to make sure we have the highest standard of Drupal developer working on site set up.
• 5. Are you open to supplier meeting this requirement via a consultancy solution to augment the delivery team in this instance? (part 2): Suppliers may meet the requirement via a consultancy solution. The supplier must tell us how they will meet the requirement and include the cost of consultancy in their total cost for the project. For the avoidance of doubt, we intend to contract with a single supplier to deliver the services.
• 6. We noticed that some in-depth discovery and research work on this project has already been done. Since that supplier also seems to be a good fit for your technical requirements, is there any reason that they have not been awarded the website redevelopment project?: The discovery phase was procured by further competition under the Digital Outcomes and Specialists (DOS) framework agreement, as a distinct contract. The current further competition under the DOS framework agreement is for the alpha, beta and live website redevelopment, which is also a distinct contract. The outcome of this competition will determine who the supplier will be.