Awarded to Compass Informatics Limited

Start date: Wednesday 16 December 2020
Value: £42,700
Company size: SME

NHS London Healthy Urban Development Unit

NHS London estates database

21 Incomplete applications

19 SME, 2 large

31 Completed applications

29 SME, 2 large

• Published: Monday 24 August 2020
• Deadline for asking questions: Monday 31 August 2020 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Monday 7 September 2020 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Specialist role: Developer
• Summary of the work: To design, develop and test a NHS estates database for London with a GIS online 'front-end' to allow NHS users to edit and maintain property records and related data. Solution should explore use of data feeds with other NHS data sources to automate data updating.
• Latest start date: Thursday 1 October 2020
• Expected contract length: 5 months
• Location: No specific location, for example they can work remotely
• Organisation the work is for: NHS London Healthy Urban Development Unit

About the work

• Early market engagement: Identified preferred solution of SQL database with GIS 'front-end'. Willing to explore other options.
• Who the specialist will work with: Working with client resources - NHS London Healthy Urban Development Unit and London Estates Delivery Unit. Supplier expected to design, development and test solution.
• What the specialist will work on: Develop a SQL database with a GIS online 'front-end' which will allow users to edit and maintain property records and related data. To design and test the solution with users, who are NHS organisations in London.

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: Client operates and is based in London. Supplier can work remotely, but workshops with users in London are anticipated, which could be face-to-face, depending on Covid 19 circumstances.
• Working arrangements: Flexible working arrangements to be agreed.

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:
  • Experience and skills developing SQL or other databases for estate / property purposes
  • Experience and skills designing online GIS solutions, preferably using ESRI ArcGIS

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a work history.

• How many specialists to evaluate: 3
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Experience of working with users to test and implement ideas and solutions
  • Experience of working with public sector organisations, including the NHS
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  65%

  Cultural fit

  10%

  Price

  25%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Is there a current incumbent?: There is no incumbent supplier. The client has developed and maintains the current data in a spreadsheet.
• 2. Please could you indicate a £/day rate range you are looking at here?: The day rate would be between £700 - £800.
• 3. Do you have a budget /daily rate in mind for this piece of work?: The budget is £50,000 and the daily rate would be between £700-£800.
• 4. What is the budget for this piece of work?: The budget is £50,000
• 5. Can you give an estimate for the day rate?: The day rate would be between £700-£800.
• 6. Is there an incumbent in place currently in this role?: There is no incumbent supplier.
• 7. Is this role inside IR35?: The role is not inside IR35.
• 8. What's the timescale for this process?: The timescale is 5 months.
• 9. Can you confirm the budget?: The budget is £50,000.
• 10. Is there an incumbent?: There is no incumbent supplier.
• 11. Could you enclose the length of contract and overall budget for the role please?: The length of the contract is five months and the overall budget is £50,000.
• 12. If the budget is £50,000 for 5 months (100 working days) – this equates to £500pd – is this correct?: Yes that's correct. However, the supplier should demonstrate that the quoted day rate(s) would cover the range of skills and expertise required. The number of days allocated could be either full-time or part-time per week depending on the stage of the project.
• 13. Do you need either now or in the future to use the solution for ‘what-if’ property planning and gap analysis based on catchment areas and planned housing developments?: In future, we would want to link the database to other tools, including those predicting demand for services/estate using catchments and see GIS as a user-friendly way to do this.
• 14. Ideally, are you looking for a single developer or two developers with the correct mix of skills?: Ideally, we would be looking for a single developer.
• 15. What types of property related data do you have that also need to be included in the solution?: The property related data we have /we would want to include is property interest (freehold/leasehold), floorspace (GIA and NIA by occupier/void), condition, age, utilisation, occupier information and 'scope for change'. We need to relate premises to occupier records as many buildings/sites are multi-occupation.
• 16. We understand from the post that you need a GIS tool edit and maintain your property data only. Is this correct?: Yes, we are seeking a GIS tool as a 'front end' to enable users to view, edit and archive property and occupier records stored in a database.
• 17. Could you clarify if you are looking for someone for 5 days a week (full time), as this will greatly reduce the anticipated day rate.: The number of days allocated could be either full-time (5 days a week) or less (part-time). The supplier should demonstrate that the quoted day rate(s) would cover the range of skills and expertise required.
• 18. Is ESRI Arc Info mandated, and if not mandated is it strongly preferred, and if so why? For example are you already using this product have the requisite licenses for it.: ESRI ArcGIS is strongly preferred as we already have licences and are using it.
• 19. Is there are particular preferred SQL database product and if so why?: There is no preferred SQL database product.
• 20. Is there a preference for Open Source technology?: There is no preference for open source technology, but we see advantages in a collaborative approach to the design and development of the product where the source code could be open.
• 21. “Design, develop and test.” Doesn’t say deployed into production. Should we include this?: Yes, following testing the solution would be deployed.
• 22. Is there a preferred operational deployment environment, such as an NHS data centre or AWS and is there an available NHS standard platform, such as a RHEL 7 or 8 deployment artefact into which we can deploy.: It is likely that it would be cloud hosted, such as AWS rather than being on a NHS platform.
• 23. Will you provide / fund or add us to an existing development framework : Atlassian/jira/confluence/bitbucket environment including any licenses for chosen GUI/mapping technology if applicable?: We would expect the supplier to establish a collaborative development framework and recommend the tools to do this. The cost of additional licences should be included within the budget.
• 24. Could you expand on the budget. 5 months at approximately 20 days per month is 100 days at a day rate of 700-800 is £70k – £80k, so its unclear how this will be within budget.: The timescale of 5 months is a maximum, so that the solution could be deployed in less time at a higher day rate. The day rate is a guide and is dependent on the skills and experience required.
• 25. Its difficult to determine the number of function points and hence the complexity of the system, the likely effort or the required time for testing. Are you able to provide us with a copy of a requirements specification or functional specification that would allow us to assess the effort involved, so we can assure ourselves that we can deliver the capability you require within your budget?: We are unable to provide a specification at this stage.
• 26. Would lower cost or open source GIS products such as Google Earth and open source mapping be acceptable in place of ESRI / arc info and what are the criteria by which you would judge?: We would prefer ESRI ArcGIS has we have licences and are using the software and we have access to Ordnance Survey data under the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA).