Awarded to Atos IT Services UK Ltd

Start date: Monday 20 February 2017
Value: £125,994
Company size: large

Ministry of Defence

Programme Cortisone - Quality Assurer for SRO

0 Incomplete applications

8 Completed applications

5 SME, 3 large

• Published: Wednesday 11 January 2017
• Deadline for asking questions: Friday 13 January 2017 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Wednesday 18 January 2017 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Specialist role: Quality assurance analyst
• Summary of the work: A senior quality assurer experienced in delivering complex Medical Information Services to act as an independent SME in order to review and quality assure programme team outputs. To support the SRO with independent advice and guidance during reviews of key Programme materials and at key decision points.
• Latest start date: 07/02/2017
• Expected contract length: 23 months, 5 days per month
• Location: South West England
• Organisation the work is for: Ministry of Defence
• Maximum day rate: £1500 per day to reflect the seniority and specialism of this role

About the work

• Early market engagement: None. However suppliers should be aware that MOD are running a separate competition to select COTS products/software to meet the Future CORTISONE requirement. In light of this, suppliers are required to confirm the approach of dealing with Conflict of Interest iaw RM1043 Digital Outcomes and Specialists Framework T's & C's.
• Who the specialist will work with: The team consists of IT Design Architects, Project Management professionals (both Agile and APM) and NHS interface specialists in a blend of Military and Crown Servants, complemented by contract staff and specialist companies. Team size is in the region of 30.
• What the specialist will work on: CORTISONE will provide a suite of scalable, interoperable Medical Information Services using COTS products to support the delivery of operational capability by providing readily exploitable information for effective clinical, operational and management decision making. The Quality Assurer will review and quality assure programme team outputs to ensure the digital products we develop meet the quality and standards expected by our stakeholders and that they meet the needs of the project blueprint. The specialist will also provide a report to the SRO at key decision points to support the Executive Board, the CORTISONE Programme Board and the CORTISONE Programme Working Group

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: The Delivery Team is located at MOD Corsham in Wiltshire (SN13 9NR). Travel to the Senior Responsible Owner in Central London (SW1A 2HB) will be required for 2 meetings a month.
• Working arrangements: The specialist will be expected to work 5 days a month, approx split 3 days in Corsham, 2 days in London. The Corsham delivery team works in an Agile Scrum environment under the direction of a Scrum Master and Programme Manager. It is envisaged that the Quality Assurer will report to the SRO based in London. A list of key meetings and decision points is available. Travel and subsistence expenses to attend meetings will be payable from Corsham using current Civil Service T&S practices. Where possible, MOD Rail Warrants or the Travel Cell will be used.
• Security clearance: The individual or team will have to have a minimum of SC clearance when they start work. Existing SC clearance is a prerequisite and must be obtained prior to commencing work due to the nature of the work, Ministry of Defence site security requirements and programme schedules.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: These MOD DEFCONs form part of this Call Off Contract: 5J (Edn 18/11/16) Unique Identifiers 76 (Edn 12/06) Contractors on site 129J (Edn 18/11/16) Electronic business Delivery Form 516 (Edn 04/12) Equality 520 (Edn 18/11/16) Corrupt gifts and payments of commission 522 (Edn 18/11/16) Payment and Recovery of Sums Due 531 (Edn 11/14) Disclosure of Information 534 (Edn 18/11/16) Subcontracting and Prompt Payment 566 (Edn 07/14) Change of control contractor 642 (Edn 06/14) Progress meetings The following DEFFORMS will be used: 111 Appendix - Addresses And Other Information 10 Acceptance Of Offer Of Contract

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 through examples their experience of working within the NHS Sector (10%)
  • Demonstrate through examples their understanding of the NHS Systems within NHS England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (5%)
  • Demonstrate through examples their knowledge of OTS (Off The Shelf) medical applications across primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare areas (10%)
  • Demonstrate through examples their experience of working in a central role within a large-scale change programme within the medical sector (10%)
  • Demonstrate through examples their experience in meeting User Requirements within a large-scale change programme (10%)
  • Demonstrate through examples their experience of working in a senior role delivering complex Medical Information Services (15%)
  • Demonstrate through examples their experience of the Integration of multiple COTS products and services to meet a requirement (15%)
  • Demonstrate through examples their experience of reporting and advising on acquisition and delivery strategy, both verbally and in writing, to Director level stakeholders (15%)
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Demonstrate evidence of previous working with the Ministry of Defence (2%)
  • Demonstrate knowledge of MOD medical systems (2%)
  • Demonstrate evidence of working in an agile environment (2%)
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the GDS Service Manual (2%)
  • Demonstrate knowledge and experience of Database management and architecture (2%)

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many specialists to evaluate: 3
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Work to agile methodology (20%)
  • Have experience in working within a team that covers multiple organisations (20%)
  • Be customer oriented (15%)
  • Share knowledge, experience and expertise with other team members (15%)
  • Communicate clearly (10%)
  • Have strong stakeholder management skills (10%)
  • Be transparent and collaborative (10%)
• Assessment methods:
  • Work history
  • Interview
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  50%

  Cultural fit

  20%

  Price

  30%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Q1. Please can you send "A list of key meetings and decision points is available": A1. List of Key Meetings -; ; Executive Board ; 13 Feb 2017; 24 Mar 2017; 28 Apr 2017; ; CORTISONE Programme Board; 9 May 2017; 8 Aug 2017; 7 Nov 2017; ; CORTISONE Programme Working Group; 28 Feb 2017; 5 April 2017; Note: Dates may be subject to change due to programme changes and/or other external factors; ; Later dates are yet to be agreed and the roles of these boards/groups will be reviewed however, as a guide the frequency will remain the same.
• 2. Q2. Could MOD accept a well-qualified candidate with constrained mobility, and who would therefore seek to perform their role predominantly in a remote manner, using Skype, telephone, email for most interactions with the SRO and team in Corsham?: A2. MOD is an equal opportunities supplier and would normally make all reasonable adjustments to accommodate an idividual on-site, however this role requires a close relationship and interaction with the SRO and Programme Team which could not be achieved in a remote manner. As stated in the advert this role needs a significant amount or interaction with the Programme Team across the 2 geographically separated sites and also the SRO in London. Business is mostly conducted in interactive meetings and F2F engagements.
• 3. We have more than one candidate whom we feel is suitable for this role, is there a mechanism to submit more than one candidate? For clarification can you please provide additional information about what types of Conflicts of Interest are contemplated for suppliers participating in this project scope? For example: If the successful offeror for this work scope were to support later implementations of the selected products, OR were to serve a similar role to other MOD Program Cortisone PMO or ISS staff, would either of those conditions be considered as a conflict of interest?: A3 a. With regard to the question on putting forward more than one candidate, the supplier should only put forward one candidate.; ; A3 b. In respect of conflict of interest, as an example the supplier for this role could also be involved in supplying into the solution space so there could be a conflict here. The need for the supplier to confirm their approach in dealing with such a conflict, should one occur, is indicated in the description of work.
• 4. Given the short timeframe for commencing work following the can you please confirm this clearance is required at the start of work? Would the MOD consider relaxing this requirement until after the candidate is presented and vetted so that the MOD can get competition for qualified candidates who meet the criteria and have a high confidence of achieving the security clearance within a reasonable amount of time following the initial assignment?: A4. No, security clearance must be in place prior to commencing the role.
• 5. We question whether the attributes sought under this procurement are aligned with the description provided for 'Quality Assurer' in establishing the DOS framework. Our understanding is that this role title should be used for manual and automated test preparation and execution, which is considerably different to what is sought here. Therefore it is not appropriate. There are consequences as organisations provided day rate ranges for the DOS framework informed by the role description, which did not anticipate this type of senior request: A5. The Quality Assuror role description on the DOS Framework includes the statement "testing for quality helps you build the best system, make sure your service does what your users need it to do, and build your service at a cost that is acceptable to your organisation".; ; This role will support the Cortisone Programme to do these things and is therefore aligned to the description on the DOS Framework.
• 6. We are trying to submit our response, however when we enter a number into the day rate field it is not accepted by the system?: A6. As this is a technical problem you will need to contact Digital Marketplace to seek a resolution to this problem.