Awarded to The Public Service Consultants (trading as The PSC)

Start date: Monday 23 August 2021
Value: £476,000
Company size: SME

UK Space Agency

UK SBS DDaT21249 UKSA SST Programme Beta Phase

10 Incomplete applications

7 SME, 3 large

20 Completed applications

13 SME, 7 large

• Published: Tuesday 8 June 2021
• Deadline for asking questions: Tuesday 15 June 2021 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Tuesday 22 June 2021 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: UK Space Agency is seeking to partner with a highly skilled and proven supplier with extensive knowledge of working to Government Digital standards to successfully undertake a Beta phase to build a digital service to enable the sharing of Space Surveillance and Tracking data between UKSA and industry satellite operators.
• Latest start date: Monday 23 August 2021
• Expected contract length: The total contract length is expected to be 9 months for the Beta phase.
• Location: London
• Organisation the work is for: UK Space Agency
• Budget range: The total contract value, including any extensions, shall not exceed £600,000.00 excluding VAT. ; The initial contract value for 9 months shall not exceed £480,000.00 excluding VAT with up to an additional £120,000.00 excluding VAT should UKRI decide to utilise the up to 25% contingency margin to accommodate any changes to the SOW deliverables during the term of the SOW as stated in the DOS framework contract. However, there is no commitment to spend up to this amount.; ; The UK Space Agency will directly fund the associated GOV.UK PaaS cloud environment costs, thus should not be included in the bid submission.

About the work

• Why the work is being done: The UK Space Agency (UKSA) works with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to deliver Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) services to government users and to deliver new operational capability for the UK Space Operations Centre (UKSpOC).; ; To support this, the UKSA is evaluating the products and services required by civil users of SST services. Discovery identified a range of civil user needs and Alpha prototyped several possible solutions to address the highest priority. UKSA now wish to conduct a Beta to build a digital service to enable data sharing between UKSA and these users.
• Problem to be solved: Develop the end-to-end digital service to Private Beta (Stage 1: Satellite Operator MVP), complying with Government Digital Service standards and Technology Code of Practice.; ; • Build the technical solution.; ; • Accredit service to established industry security standards.; ; • Establish process for users to sign-up to the service.; ; • Onboard initial users of the Private Beta.; ; • Support, evaluate and continuously iterate the service during the Private Beta phase.; ; • Continue to research user needs (including accessibility).; ; • Prepare for and successfully pass Government Service Assessment.; ; Expected timeline below:; Development complete by end of December 2021; Private Beta for initial users from January to March 2022
• Who the users are and what they need to do: The primary users are, Satellite Operators (mainly commercial), who wish to protect their assets from collisions with space debris and other satellites.; ; There are secondary user groups who have similar needs,; Government (Emergency Response Teams, Regulators, Administrators) who may need to react to events happening on orbit where they could impact the economy, public safety, national security, or international diplomacy.
• Early market engagement: Not Applicable
• Any work that’s already been done: UKSA have already completed a Discovery and Alpha phase. The Alpha final report, User needs database, Alpha options analysis, link to access the prototype and a briefing note will be shared with the shortlisted suppliers.
• Existing team: The Supplier will be working with the UKSA SST team, as well as the Orbital Analysts who currently deliver civil operations in the UKSpOC.; ; The UKSA SST Team will comprise a Product Manager, Service Owner, Business Analyst, Technical Architect and Orbital Analyst. The UKSA Team will be assigned on a part-time basis and will provide oversight, assurance, subject matter expertise and facilitate end user engagement. The Supplier is expected to provide a team with the skills required to lead and deliver the Beta.
• Current phase: Beta

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: Remote whilst COVID-19 restrictions remain in place with meetings to be held preferably via MS Teams. Once restrictions are lifted you may be expected to attend meetings in London, Swindon or other locations as required.
• Working arrangements: Remote working whilst COVID-19 restrictions remain in place with meetings, daily stand-ups and show & tells to be held preferably via MS Teams.; ; The supplier is expected to use appropriate project management / collaboration tools (such as Jira, Trello, Miro, Mural), and make it available to the UK Space Agency team.; ; Deliverables to be stored on the established UK Space Agency SharePoint.; ; Normal working hours (09:00 - 17:00), Monday to Friday.
• Security clearance: Baseline BPSS for all supplier team members is required. SC clearance of at least one member of team is desirable. UKSA will sponsor the successful supplier through this process if SC clearance is not already in place.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: Not Applicable

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 your experience of working with teams, particularly those with limited experience of Agile and iterative development and how you overcame this to successfully deliver a project. [15 points]
  • Demonstrate your experience of delivering a Beta, particularly by following Government standards for digital services and making available a Private Beta for an initial set of users. [20 points]
  • Demonstrate, with example, your experience of developing digital services using widely adopted GOV.UK PaaS, Notify and Identity & Access management services, that successfully met security accreditation standards. [20 points]
  • Demonstrate your experience of working towards policy goals evidencing how these were achieved. [15 points]
  • Detail your team’s experience of designing systems that take data from multiple sources, adopt API integration, exchange data securely and link records between systems. Provide a clear example. [20 points]
  • Demonstrate your team’s experience of applying principles of user-centred design to the development of digital services for a diverse range of users, paying particular attention to accessibility needs. [10 points]
  • Demonstrate your teams experience of designing digital services that have been successfully used to present complex numeric and graphical information with simplicity. [10 points]
  • Demonstrate your teams experience of designing services against a set of KPIs, and then measuring the benefits and success of new services during a ‘private Beta’. [10 points]
  • Detail your team’s experience working to the Government Digital Service Standards, including Service Design Manual, Technology Code of Practice and passing a Service Assessment at a Beta phase. [10 points]
  • Demonstrate experience of building on an Alpha phase delivered by another organisation. [10 points]
  • Demonstrate experience of working across a large number of stakeholders and how you overcame any challenges. [10 points]
  • Demonstrate experience of working with scientific subject matter experts (SMEs). [5 points]
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Demonstrate experience of working on solutions for space surveillance or orbital dynamics. [15 points]
  • Detail with example(s) your experience of working within a highly regulated industry and technical science field or equivalent and delivering the expected outcomes for a similar Beta phase. [10 points]
  • Demonstrate expertise in being able to quickly understand the market in which we work and the key users. [5 points]

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 3
• Proposal criteria:
  • Detail your approach, methodology and project management tools for how the expected outcomes of this Beta will be successfully delivered. [20 points]
  • Detail your proposed schedule and timescales for successful delivery of this Beta. Clearly indicate key phases of activity and milestones to achieve the expected timeline. [15 points]
  • Detail your team’s structure and how it will successfully deliver this Beta. Include roles, skills, experience, clearances, relevance of individuals and explain how they will lead this Beta. [20 points]
  • Detail the technical solution and how it will be developed. [10 points]
  • Detail how you intend to manage delivery of the MVP requirements and propose opportunities of how post-MVP requirements may be accommodated into the schedule. [15 points]
  • Detail your approach to quality assurance and testing specific to this Beta, and how you will manage the Agency’s acceptance. [15 points]
  • Detail your approach to managing the Private Beta phase, and if possible, propose how users will be on-boarded. [10 points]
  • Detail your approach to ensure this Beta is consistent with the Government Digital Service Standards. [10 points]
  • Detail risks and dependencies specific to this Beta and how these will be mitigated/managed. [10 points]
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Demonstrate how you will integrate with UKSA to work as one team. [15 points]
  • Demonstrate how you will ensure transparent and collaborative ways of working when reporting or making decisions. [15 points]
  • Demonstrate how you will actively facilitate knowledge transfer and information sharing with team members and the wider organisation and stakeholders. [10 points]
• Payment approach: Capped time and materials
• Additional assessment methods: Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  70%

  Cultural fit

  10%

  Price

  20%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Latest start date: The commencement of the services is scheduled for Monday 23rd August 2021 in accordance with the published requirements. However, this is subject to change should there be any delays in the procurement process.
• 2. Procurement timeframe: The anticipated procurement timeframes are as follows:; Wednesday 7th July 2021 – Notification of shortlisting outcome; Wednesday 14th July 2021 – Written proposal deadline; Thursday 22nd July – Friday 23rd July 2021 – Presentations; Wednesday 4th August 2021 – Notification of award outcome
• 3. How suppliers will be evaluated: The evaluation methodology for this procurement will be based on the 0-3 methodology as per below:; ; Suppliers that fail to score 2 and above in any Essential Skills and Expertise criteria will not be considered for the assessment stage.; ; Score - Score Prefix Descriptor; 0 - Not met or no evidence.; 1 - Partially met.; 2 - Met.; 3 - Exceeded.
• 4. Budget Range: Please note that reference to ‘UKRI’ in this section of the opportunity should read ‘UKSA’.
• 5. Is this inside IR35?: Once contracts have been let, the Contracting Authority will complete IR35 assessments to determine whether workers are deemed to be in scope of IR35 for tax purposes. In the event that workers are in scope of IR35, suppliers will be required to demonstrate that they have a payroll facility available for their contractors to deduct tax at source.
• 6. Did the UKSA engage a supplier for delivery of the discovery and alpha phases? If so, could you share who delivered this, please?: We do not feel that it is appropriate to disclose the name of the supplier. This information is not essential or required by bidders in order to submit a response to this tender.; ; Please note that information about previously awarded contracts is available in the public domain.
• 7. Which supplier carried out discovery and alpha phases?: We do not feel that it is appropriate to disclose the name of the supplier. This information is not essential or required by bidders in order to submit a response to this tender.; ; Please note that information about previously awarded contracts is available in the public domain.
• 8. Can you advise if you have been working with a supplier during the Discovery and Alpha phase?: We did contract with a supplier for the delivery of the previous Discovery and Alpha phases.
• 9. Please advise who is the incumbent delivering this service?: There is no incumbent supplier as the Discovery and Alpha phases have been concluded. This is a new piece of work.
• 10. Can you share the outputs from the alpha phase?: As detailed in the opportunity under the 'Any work that’s already been done' section, the Alpha final report and Alpha options analysis will be shared with the shortlisted suppliers.
• 11. Did you undertake an alpha assessment and if so what were the outputs from the assessment?: As detailed in the opportunity under the 'Any work that’s already been done' section, the Alpha final report and Alpha options analysis will be shared with the shortlisted suppliers.
• 12. Can you say a little more about UKSA’s Product Manager please? It would be good to know how involved we can expect this person to be, so we can make sure we are not duplicating this resource.: As stated in the 'Existing Team' section, the client will have a Product Manager part time assigned to provide oversight, assurance and subject matter expertise. Their role will be to facilitate client decision making where required. A supplier side Product Manager will be beneficial to lead on the product design and delivery.
• 13. "Demonstrate experience of working on solutions for space surveillance or orbital dynamics”Please can outline how nice-to-have skills will be assessed? (We’ve seen buyers do this differently). The above is the only one we can’t meet.e.g. Will the total ‘Points’ determine the shortlist or will we be excluded if we score ‘0’ on the above (despite scoring strongly in other areas) and 3 other suppliers can score ‘2’ on all requirements: Nice-to-have skills and experience will be evaluated using the 0-3 scoring methodology. As per the framework guidance suppliers who score less than 2 for any essential skills or experience criteria are excluded, however this does not apply to Nice-to-have skills and experience so you will not be excluded for a score below 2 or not meeting the requirement. The scores for Essential skills or experience and Nice-to-have skills and experience will however be added together to determine who will be shortlisted to the next stage.
• 14. Can you let us know whether in the case of scope changes, you expect/ need to spend the extra money this Financial Year?: This project is due to finish in March, however if there was any change of scope and the project was extended in line with the 25% allowance provided under the framework this spend could cover the current and next financial year.
• 15. Given the considerable effort required of suppliers to thoroughly answer the questions outlined in this opportunity. Would it be possible to share the outcomes from the alpha phase now instead of at the shortlist stage to ensure we are suitable for the role?: Suppliers should be able to answer the technical criteria questions without the need of the outcomes from the Alpha phase. As detailed in the opportunity under the 'Any work that’s already been done' section, the Alpha final report and Alpha options analysis will be shared with the shortlisted suppliers.
• 16. Can you please let us know which GOV.UK Identity & Access management service, you are requiring experience in please? Thank you.: During the Alpha OpenID Connect was recommended, however, we are willing to consider other options if they prove suitable for the service.
• 17. Can the UKSA provide any further profiling of the number of anticipated initial set of users of the Private Beta?: We anticipate up to 10 initial users.
• 18. Please can UKSA provide a definition of ‘policy goals’ in question 4?: These would be Government departmental policy goals or equivalent. The supplier is requested to provide evidence of where they have delivered an outcome that has directly supported a Government departmental policy goal or equivalent.
• 19. Have KPIs and detailed benefits been produced as part of the Alpha phase, or will we need to define them with the full stakeholder group as part of the benefits management activities?: A set of KPI's were identified as part of the Alpha phase. The supplier may need to re-validate these KPI's during this Beta phase.
• 20. The DOS5 Framework offers a data breach liability of up to £10M. Given that the value of this opportunity is approximately £600,000, would the customer consider amending the Data Breach Liability to 150% of the contract value?: We will not consider altering the DOS5 Framework Award Form terms and conditions, including liability in the event of a data breach.; ; The Framework Award Form is an agreement between the supplier and CCS and has been previously agreed by you both for you to become a supplier on this framework.; ; We appreciate that the value of the contract is well below the £10M limit, however a potential data breach could far exceed 150% of the contract value.
• 21. Clause 11.2 of the CORE Terms states that the cap on liability is the greater of £5M or 150% of the Estimated Yearly Charges. Given that this opportunity is approximately £600,000 would the Authority be willing to discuss a change to be facilitated via the Order Form to reflect that the liability is capped at 150% of the Estimated Yearly Charges?: We will not consider altering the DOS5 Core framework terms and conditions, including liability. ; ; As per the DOS guidance "The core terms form part of the framework and call-off contracts and must be used on every contract. They govern the supplier’s relationship with CCS and every buyer who has a call-off contract. They cannot be changed." https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-5-legal-documents; ; We appreciate that the value of the contract is well below the £5M limit, however liability could far exceed 150% of the contract value.