Awarded to Farsight Consulting Ltd

Start date: Monday 26 October 2020
Value: £4,000,000
Company size: SME

Department for Education – Teacher Services Programme

Service Delivery A - Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis - London)

17 Incomplete applications

15 SME, 2 large

35 Completed applications

24 SME, 11 large

• Published: Wednesday 22 April 2020
• Deadline for asking questions: Wednesday 29 April 2020 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Wednesday 6 May 2020 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: The Teacher Services Programme, DfE requires Business, Data and Product Analytical Service Delivery capabilities to deliver various digital services. ; a. The programme has several projects in flight at different development phases.; b. DFE Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/786856/DFE_Teacher_Retention_Strategy_Report.pdf; c. Teacher Service Programme, Project Overview - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1moeQSpX96aDyJt0w5GSvaoDgi0MTen0t/view?usp=sharing
• Latest start date: Tuesday 1 September 2020
• Expected contract length: 24 months with option to extend for up to 6 months at the DfE’s sole discretion.
• Location: London
• Organisation the work is for: Department for Education – Teacher Services Programme
• Budget range: Up to £4million excl. of VAT

About the work

• Why the work is being done: The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, published in January 2019, sets out the government's priorities for making sure a career in teaching continues to be attractive, sustainable and rewarding. The growing number of pupils of secondary school age means that we need even more teachers in a competitive labour market, particularly in subjects such as maths, science and modern foreign languages. At the same time, we are losing more teachers from the profession than we can afford. ; ; We are introducing new digital systems designed to make the journey to becoming a teacher much easier and more user friendly. For example, the Find Teacher Training Service, currently in public beta, enables people to search for courses that are right for them. The Apply for Teacher Training Service, which is currently being piloted, is planned to be launched nationally in October 2021. We are also looking at our data infrastructure across the services following an initial discovery. ; ; Our International Recruitment service aims to increase the number of schools recruiting teachers internationally.; ; Teaching Vacancies is a free, national search and listing service to help publicly funded primary and secondary schools in England recruit teachers. ; ; Other projects within these programme areas may arise.
• Problem to be solved: Too many potentially great teachers are put off from pursuing a career in teaching before their training begins; in 2017/18 over 150,000 people registered on the Get Into Teaching website, but only 45,000 people applied for mainstream postgraduate teacher training. We know that people find the process of becoming a teacher complicated and burdensome so we are radically simplifying the system for becoming a teacher.; ; The Find and Apply services are being developed in a way that integrates with other services in the journey to become a teacher, such as the Get into Teaching website.; ; Schools spend an estimated £75 million a year on teacher recruitment advertising. Teaching Vacancies can save schools money they can instead spend on classroom resources, estates, teacher salaries and CPD, also helping to address retention issues, as well as recruitment.; ; Schools and international teachers find the process of international recruitment challenging. In particular, they can't access information on how to go through the recruitment process, what qualifications are needed, what the visa processes are, etc. Our Discovery research identified that a shift in the Department’s focus to improving and marketing our global offer is likely to better stimulate international recruitment in England.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: Each of our services include multiple identified users, each with their own set of journeys. These users include, but are not limited to:; ; As a potential teacher, I need to be able to showcase my qualifications, skills and experience to training providers so that I can become a teacher.; As a job seeker, I need to know that Teaching Vacancies exists and that I can trust it to find a role to suit me.; As a school or Trust, I need to be able to list vacancies quickly and easily on the service.
• Early market engagement: We held a Pre-Market Engagement event on 6th February 2020 to provide all suppliers with background on the requirements and gain early feedback on our proposed route to market.; ; The information shared during the event and subsequent Questions and Answers are available here:; ; Pre-Market Engagement - https://drive.google.com/file/d/16ooPTjesoj_0o_S16sXHPO3ukEJVwqTz/view?usp=sharing; ; Questions and Answer - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SvjLSk-Y7wp0RWtl-r40RigCznLMloY5/view?usp=sharing
• Any work that’s already been done: Find is in Public Beta - https://find-postgraduate-teacher-training.education.gov.uk/; ; Apply is in Beta Build - https://www.apply-for-teacher-training.education.gov.uk/; ; Teacher Vacancies is in Public Beta - https://teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/; ; International Teacher Recruitment is in Alpha.
• Existing team: The Teacher Services programme consists of multidisciplinary agile delivery teams, which include contractors and permanent DfE staff. There are other Service Delivery Teams working on associated digital services as part of the wider programme with whom the successful supplier will need to work. ; ; Typical team size (for a product team) is up to 10 with a skill mix such as product managers, delivery managers, business analysts, developers, policy designers, user research, Technical Architect & DevOps. and design professionals.
• Current phase: Not applicable

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: The primary location is London, travel may be required to other DfE UK offices, particularly Manchester.; For the duration of restrictions on movement due to COVID-19, all teams are expected to work and collaborate remotely.
• Working arrangements: We operate a standard agile methodology: daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprints, retrospectives, show and tells. The supplier will lead by being a role model in agile working. Exact milestones will be determined post appointment with weekly updates detailing achievements and any issues that may impact timescales or cost.; ; To improve DfE internal capability, build and support the applications/services, knowledge transfer and coaching will be a requirement for each Statement of Work (SoW).; ; A SoW will be completed to outline the working arrangements, outcomes and deliverables expected for each engagement.
• Security clearance: DfE requires all supplier staff to have baseline personnel security standard clearance (BPSS). There may be a requirement for some of the work to require a higher level of security clearance. Where this is needed it will be detailed in the Statement of Work.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: The standard Framework and Call Off Terms and Conditions.; ; https://www.gov.uk/guidance/terms-and-conditions-of-digital-marketplace-frameworks; ; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-4-call-off-contract; ; Variant bids are not permitted.; ; All expenses must be pre-agreed and comply with DfE standard Travel and Subsistence policy. Primary work location stated in SoW will not attract expenses. ; ; Contract and Vendor Management will form a key part of governance and suppliers will be expected to co-operate in a manner that fosters healthy working relationships and quality delivery.

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:
  • Demonstrate recent experience and knowledge of providing Service Delivery capabilities (specifically Business, Data and Product Analysis) to support designing digital solutions.
  • Detail recent experience of delivering products and/or services successfully through different phases of the digital delivery lifecycle (Discovery/Alpha and Beta).
  • Detail recent experience of creating and updating end-to-end user journeys and using evidence from research findings to create easy to use services for a digital service programme.
  • Detail recent experience of effective stakeholder engagement and facilitation to support decision making and ensure buy-in.
  • Detail recent experience of providing services to develop high standards of analytical artefacts e.g. BPMN Process Maps, Use Cases, Data Models for a digital transformation programme.
  • Detail recent experience of providing services to develop high standards of analytical artefacts e.g. BPMN Process Maps, Use Cases, Data Models for a digital transformation programme.
  • Detail recent experience of using a range of service delivery agile tools, methodology and techniques in accordance with standard Agile best-practice e.g. Google Analytics/Refine, Tableau, JIRA, Confluence, Kanban and Scrum.
  • Detail recent evidence that your organisation promotes a collaborative culture and you can demonstrate where you have successfully worked as part of a multi supplier team.
  • Detail recent experience working with multidisciplinary team ensuring the organisations objective is reflected in the approach to work and outputs delivered.
  • Detail recent experience of working in partnerships with organisations to understand capability and capacity needs and ensure the right skills are delivered and effectively embedded
  • Detail recent experience of coaching, building capability and upskilling of resource.
  • NOTE: 1: Special characters, commas and punctuation marks must only be used in accordance with standard English.
  • 2: Any bidder that uses any form of non-standard English or internet web links to circumnavigate word limits:
  • a) shall be non-compliant and
  • b) shall be excluded from further consideration.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Detail recent experience of effective stakeholder engagement and facilitation to support decision making and ensure buy-in.
  • Detail recent evidence of setting up and / or contributing to communities of practice.
  • Detail recent evidence of passing GDS service assessments or an equivalent.
  • Detail recent experience of implementing best practice in new product or service development to plan and put into operation service improvements.
  • NOTE: 1: Special characters, commas and punctuation marks must only be used in accordance with standard English.
  • 2: Any bidder that uses any form of non-standard English or internet web links to circumnavigate word limits:
  • a) shall be non-compliant and
  • b) shall be excluded from further consideration.

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 3
• Proposal criteria:
  • Detail recent experience of providing analytical services for a digital transformation programme at different agile project phases – Discovery,Alpha,Beta Build, Public Beta and Live (including GDS Assessment or equivalent).
  • Evidence of providing analytical services with extensive expertise of early project scoping, developing roadmaps, high-level themes, epics and user stories and providing recommendation to meet user needs and strategic objectives.
  • Evidence of providing analytical service to develop new or redesign processes business/project solutions across multiple departments and functional teams to support effective operation and business change.
  • Evidence of providing analytical services with extensive expertise of maintaining product backlog and prioritising key deliverables.
  • Evidence of your approach to managing your resources on site as part of a multi-vendor, multi-disciplinary environment, taking accountability for achieving deliverables
  • Evidence of your approach to deploying resources in multi-vendor teams at customer locations, specifically London (or alternatively in-line with COVID-19 Government restrictions should they still apply.)
  • Provide an overview of your business structure, its operating model and how skilled resources will be provided in a timely way.
  • Provide details of your on/off - boarding processes during different phases of an agile project and how you will quickly understand user needs to maintain continuity.
  • Provide evidence of delivering comparable services. Please include any lessons learnt that would benefit the DfE.
  • Describe your after-sales and account management offerings, highlighting any key features, efficiencies, system support and implementation.
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Describe how you will reinforce a culture of service and continuous improvement in all teams.
  • Describe how you will work transparently and collaboratively with the project teams and seek actionable feedback to resolve any issues quickly and efficiently.
  • Describe your methodology for training, coaching and knowledge transfer throughout the term of the contract
  • Describe how you can help the DfE build our in-house capability to manage and support cloud services
  • For information about the Teacher Services Culture, see - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AW3PIPOq3_KGz36L3tFFhLx9EHbj0TVo/view?usp=sharing
• Payment approach: Capped time and materials
• Additional assessment methods:
  • Case study
  • Reference
  • Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  60%

  Cultural fit

  20%

  Price

  20%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Are suppliers permitted to use multiple examples to answer the question?: Where the DfE have asked the Supplier to provide an example, the Suppliers may use one or more examples in order to answer the question. For clarification, multiple satisfactory examples will not score a higher mark then one strong example.
• 2. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. We note your NOTE 1 comment in the DOS Skills and Experience question stating special characters, commas and punctuation marks must only be used in accordance with standard English, and further that any bidder that uses any form of non-standard English or internet web links to circumnavigate word limits shall be non-compliant and excluded from further consideration.: Yes this note must be followed. If special characters, commas and punctuation marks are used to exceed the DOS 100 word limit, the bidder shall be excluded from further consideration. Links to web pages will not be reviewed or considered as part of your response.
• 3. Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Are you looking for a full product team of 10 as per your description (up to 10 with a skill mix such as product managers, delivery managers, business analysts, developers, policy designers, user research, Technical Architect & DevOps. and design professional)? Or are you looking for smaller groups of resources to supplement existing teams? If the latter, are there specific skills you are looking for?: We are not looking for a full product team. This opportunity is to procure Service Delivery capabilities, specifically focusing on Business Analysts, Data Analysts and Product Analysts. These capabilities will be working alongside existing teams, which may include Product Managers, Delivery Managers, Developers, Policy Designers, User Researchers, Technical Architects & DevOps, Designers and other Digital specialists.
• 4. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Please may you clarify the intent of this note? Within your questions you use correctly use obliques (/) to word questions concisely. Would you consider this to be a special character and non-standard English please if we were to use obliques in responses, or may we use this form of concatenation if both appropriate and grammatically correct?: Please only use special characters (/), commas and punctuation marks in accordance with standard English and as appropriate.
• 5. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Can you confirm how many people you are likely to require over the 24 month period?: The Call-Off Contract will run on a Statement of Work basis, where Service Delivery capabilities will be provided to deliver set outcomes based on our requirements. At this stage, we cannot confirm how many specialists will be required over the next 24 month period.
• 6. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Are you looking for all the resources to start from 1 Sept 2020, or do you expect the requirement for resources to ramp up? If the needs will increase over time, when do you see the busiest period of time?: We anticipate the Call-Off Contract will be signed by the 01 September 2020. The first Statements of Work will be raised shortly after. The initial Statements of Work will include transition between the current incumbent and the successful Supplier. The busiest period is difficult to determine due to the agile way of which the DfE works.
• 7. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Will the work be inside or outside IR35?: """In line with the DOS Buyers Guidance on """"Employment status of suppliers and specialists"""" which can be found here: ; ; https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-buyers-guide#employment-status-of-suppliers-and-specialists; specialists must be employed or contracted by the supplier - known as working ‘off-payroll’ or ‘outside IR35’.; DfE may check that suppliers and specialists are working outside IR35, by either:; - getting advice from our HR department; - use of HMRC’s online tool on a role by role basis to check a specialist is working ‘off-payroll’.""; "
• 8. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Question 6 is a duplicate of question 5. Please advise what you would like entered against this to satisfy the portal (repeat of the answer, "no response required" or something else)?: We note that question 6 is a duplicate of question 5 within the 'Essential Skills and Experience'. Please mark question 6 as "N/A".
• 9. Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. The first nice-to-have question is a duplicate of question 4 in the essentials. Please advise whether the question is an essential or a nice-to-have and what you would like entered against the duplicate (repeat of answer, "no response required" or something else)?: Please respond to this question within the 'Essential Skills and Experience' required and mark the duplicate question for the 'Nice-to-Have Skills and Experience' as "N/A"
• 10. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Please confirm that the last four questions for both the essentials and the nice-to-haves are just advisory and what we need to put in the responses to satisfy the portal ("no response required" or something else)?: We confirm that these for advisory purposes only. Please mark these questions as "N/A"
• 11. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Could you confirm that, by “capped time and materials”, you are just referring to your having an overall budget cap and not that you are expecting the successful supplier to take on commercial risk, given your multi-vendor team structure?: "; Suppliers will not own the overall delivery or commercial risk as we use blended teams to deliver outcomes. However, each SoW will set out the clearly defined outcomes to be delivered within a specific time period, for an identified cost. The supplier will then be responsible for delivering the SoW."
• 12. Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Is there an incumbent supplier that has been providing the analysis role with the teams for the projects in flight and if so who is that incumbent?: The current incumbent is Farsight Consulting.
• 13. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. For the 2 questions that are duplicated, do you require an answer for each with a different example or the same answer used twice, in each case?: "In the Essential Skills and Experience, we note that question 6 is a duplicate of question 5. Please mark question 6 as ""N/A"".; ; We note that question number 1 of the 'Nice to Have Skills and Experience' is a duplicate of question number 4 of the 'Essential Skills and Experience'. Please respond to question number 4 of the 'Essential Skills and Experience' and mark question number 1 of the 'Nice to Have Skills and Experience' as ""N/A""."
• 14. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Can you confirm that the instructions noted as the last 4 questions in essential skills and nice to have skills wont be scored, and a suitable response for answers simply to be a '.' so we can submit the response?: We confirm that these are for advisory purposes only. Please mark these questions as "N/A".
• 15. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Please can you confirm the same answer/response can be applied to duplicate questions you have provided within the 'essential' section: We note that question 6 is a duplicate of question 5 within the 'Essential Skills and Experience'. Please mark question 6 as "N/A".
• 16. ‘Service Delivery A – Package 1 – (Business, Data and Product Analysis – London)’. Are you open to awarding both contracts to the same supplier in principle?: A Supplier could be awarded both Call-Off Contracts, if successful following tender assessment for both packages.
• 17. Question 1 mentions product analysis. Is this within the context of COTS product evaluation, more aligned to product ownership/management or both?: Product Analysis is not within the context of COTS product evaluation. It refers to the ongoing analysis, specifically from a performance perspective, of the products that are being delivered by the department.
• 18. In question 1 you mention product analysis. Is this capability to assess third party COTS products, or more aligned with internal product management and ownership (or a combination).: Product Analysis is not within the context of COTS product evaluation. It refers to the ongoing analysis, specifically from a performance perspective, of the products that are being delivered by the department.
• 19. We assume that a response that just acknowledges Notes 1, 2a, b and c is sufficient through the digital marketplace: We confirm that these are for advisory purposes only. Please mark these questions as "N/A".
• 20. We assume that a response that just acknowledges Notes 1, 2a, b and c is sufficient through the digital marketplace: "In the Essential Skills and Experience, we note that question 6 is a duplicate of question 5. Please mark question 6 as ""N/A"".; ; We note that question number 1 of the 'Nice to Have Skills and Experience' is a duplicate of question number 4 of the 'Essential Skills and Experience'. Please respond to question number 4 of the 'Essential Skills and Experience' and mark question number 1 of the 'Nice to Have Skills and Experience' as ""N/A""."
• 21. Please confirm that question 6 is a duplicate of question 5 and there are 14 questions in total for the responses.: In the Essential Skills and Experience, we note that question 6 is a duplicate of question 5. Please mark question 6 as "N/A".
• 22. Are you seeking to appoint two different suppliers for the London and Manchester Service Delivery Business, Data and Product Analysis opportunities? Or might one supplier be appointed to both?: A Supplier could be awarded both Call-Off Contracts, if successful following tender assessment for both packages.
• 23. The title of the opportunity and the 'essential skills and experience' defines the package as 'Business, Data and Product Analysis', whereas the text in the summary of the work 'DfE requires Business, Data and Product Analytical Service Delivery capabilities'. Are you defining Product Analysis and Product Analytical Services as the same capability?: Yes.
• 24. In the requirement relating to stakeholder engagement (4th essential), please could you advise whether the stakeholders in question are the user community or the DfE programme/project team and sponsors?: The Essential question is asking for the Suppliers to provide recent experience of effective stakeholder engagement and facilitation to support decision making and ensure buy-in, the question is not specifically relating to the stakeholder engagement which will be required at the DfE
• 25. Who is the incumbent supplier?: The current incumbent is Farsight Consulting.
• 26. Do you have a role description of a data analyst and a product analyst? From your perspective, what are the main differences between these two roles?: The capability services will be focusing on analysing the data in legacy systems and/ or how data flows between the different projects in the Teacher Services Programme and product analysis will focus more on performance.