HMRC

Single Trade Window - Strategic/Technical Partner

21 Incomplete applications

10 SME, 11 large

0 Completed applications

• Published: Wednesday 11 May 2022
• Deadline for asking questions: Wednesday 18 May 2022 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Wednesday 25 May 2022 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Off-payroll (IR35) determination: Contracted out service: the off-payroll rules do not apply
• Summary of the work: This is an opportunity to support the Single Trade Window on its' journey to deliver the world's best border for the UK at a critical staging post, as the Programme moves out of foundational year with an SR21 settlement secured and engages with market leading suppliers to deliver the vision.
• Latest start date: Wednesday 22 June 2022
• Expected contract length: 6 months +3 +3
• Location: No specific location, for example they can work remotely
• Organisation the work is for: HMRC

About the work

• Why the work is being done: Single Trade Window Programme will provide traders and their representatives with a single place where they can supply all mandatory information required into government and a single place where they can receive messages relating to the trade. The Programme aims to improve traders experience with the Border through simplification, reliability and consistency implementing a tell us once approach to data and incorporating supply chain data direct into government. Work packages to deliver these outcomes will continue towards this long term aim over the next 6-12 months.
• Problem to be solved: Over the past 18 months Single Trade Window Programme has been laying the foundations for the Programme to move into delivery developing a high-level vision, component architecture, service design, Programme structure and business case to secure funding. STW launched its first live service in August 2021, a stand-alone guidance service for importers and intends to follow this by delivering an export guidance service in 2022 and a first phase for data submission bringing together Safety and Security and import declarations in 2023 whilst doing further work to iterate the service design, develop and agree the cross-government target architecture and evolve the 5year roadmap with further detail.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: Detailed user requirements of UK businesses and traders in EPIC format will be provided to the successful bidder.
• Any work that’s already been done: In order to build on the success of the Programme's foundational year 21/22 - the STW now seeks client-side DDaT related advice and assurance, with a focus on strategic direction for the 3 overarching areas as below:; · Service design; · Data analysis, modelling &strategy; · Technical architecture; It is essential existing work is continued without pause or re-invention.
• Existing team: Existing STW Programme staff and existing suppliers supporting the live Guidance Service and other services in Private Beta
• Current phase: Discovery

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: London, Liverpool, Newcastle; Remotely as well
• Working arrangements: Remote working, onsite as required
• Security clearance: BPSS

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: HMRC Mandatory Tax Clauses

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:
  • Have proven expertise/track record of leading Government Programmes and Departments successfully through complex digital change delivery, demonstrable experience/track record of aligning all Strategic/Technical activity with Programme Business Case
  • Have capacity to provide quality technical resources; experienced solution and/or enterprise architects, with a good understanding of multi-component and distributed architectures, proven knowledge of designing solutions for cloud environments
  • Have experience of data driven delivery and expertise such as data modelling, analysis and management, plus documentation of artefacts
  • Have capacity to resource day 1 Programme requests with adequately skilled/experienced resources, respond in an agile way to needs/requests as understanding /requirements develop demonstrating ability to flex/prioritise maintaining quality
  • Provide a rate card setting out the range of charges for each of the following 6 essential roles - Service Designer/Technical Solutions Architect/Data Analyst/ Business Analyst/Data Architects/Data Engineer

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 10
• Proposal criteria:
  • Technical Solutuon
  • Cultural Fit including Social Value
  • Price
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Respond to Social Value as part of full RFP
  • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers
• Payment approach: Time and materials
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  55%

  Cultural fit

  15%

  Price

  30%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. The format of DOS does not allow suppliers to provide rate cards in the response. There is a max of 100 words allowed. Please advice how we’re to answer this question? Do you want examples of where we have done similar?: I am going to try and issue a simple template to populate for this. If CCS are unable to facilitate this then I will respond to one of the other questions on this topic with guidance on how it will be managed. Examples of similar would be of interest yes.
• 2. can you guide us on the budget pls?: The STW SR21 settlement is in the public domain £180m over 3 years, with £30m for 22/23, this opportunity will be less than that 22/23 budget but it is difficult to be precise given the emerging requirements of the Programme, sorry.
• 3. can you confirm who the incumbent suppliers are mentioned in the existing team please?“Existing STW Programme staff and existing suppliers supporting the live Guidance Service and other services in Private Beta”: In alphabetical order, CapGemini, Deloitte, Engine, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, plus suppliers supporting HMRC Digital Delivery
• 4. In response to Q.5, is the expectation to provide day rates for all the six roles mentioned, at this stage of DOS procurement? Usually this is asked at stage 2. Please confirm.: It is the expectation. Further detail will be provided in response to a related question, but the actual rates will not be evaluated at stage 1, the rates are requested relating to technical competence so that the Programme can get assurance at stage 1 that suppliers have access to resources with the required skills for a large digital transformation programme.
• 5. What is the budget for this opportunity.: Please see answer to Q2
• 6. Is there an incumbent supplier for this piece of work?: Please see answer to Q3
• 7. Please can you confirm if there is an incumbent provider for this service?: Please see previous answer
• 8. Could you please provide an indicative budget for the 1st 6 month period?: Previous answers hopefully inform, it is anticipated that a significant proportion of the Programmes spend over the next 6 months will flow through this proposed contract
• 9. Would it be possible to disclose the budget for this engagement?: Other answers refer
• 10. Would it be possible to disclose who the incumbent supplier is?: Other answers refer
• 11. Please could you confirm the allocated budget for this opportunity?: Other answers refer
• 12. Regarding Q5 which asks suppliers to provide a rate card, please could you clarify how suppliers will be evaluated for this question given that it does not correspond with the evaluation guidance provided on the Digital Marketplace? This states that suppliers should only be evaluated on Technical Competence at Stage 1 by providing evidence of their skills and experience: A rate card is deemed by the STW Programme as essential evidence of the skills and experience of supplier resources, so technical competence. ; ; Standard DOS5 scoring will be used; ; Score Description; 0 Not met or no evidence; 1 Partially met; 2 Met; 3 Exceeded; ; If you are able to provide resources at all SFIA rates, this will result in a MET, if you are able to actually give the Client some assurance on how you can protect the Client against the risk of a less experienced resource being charged out higher, EXCEEDED.
• 13. Please can you clarify how you will score responses to the Rate Card question (Essential Skills and Experience bullet point 5). The Buyers Guide for DOS (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-score-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-suppliers#score-suppliers-on-each-criteria-for-technical-competence-and-cultural-fit), mandates a 0 to 3 scoring scheme for Essential Skills and Experience criteria with scores awarded according to the quality of the evidence provided. Given that a rate card is not based on evidence, how will you determine what scores to allocate?: Please answer refers
• 14. Is there an incumbent?: Apologies, above answer should say 'previous' not 'please'; ; Other answers refer re incumbents
• 15. Is there an indicative budget?: Other answers refer
• 16. Can you let us know where we can find the additional HMRC mandatory tax clauses?: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tax-compliance-of-hmrc-suppliers/tax-compliance-of-hmrc-suppliers; This link should provide enough detail at stage 1, full clause will form part of full RFP
• 17. Will the services being procured replace those being provided by an incumbent supplier? If so who is the incumbent supplier?: Other answers refer
• 18. What is the expected contract value (or range) over the full possible 12-month contract duration?: Other answers refer
• 19. Can you please clarify the likely timescales for the two evaluation phases of this DOS opportunity.: Phase 1 26-27 May 22; Phase 2 13-14 June 22; ; Subject to change.
• 20. Can you provide the methodology that will be used to score the ratecard in this initial phase of evaluation (DOS round 1): Other answers refer
• 21. 1. Is the request for one case study to be referenced per question or are we at liberty to give examples of both UK Government experience and international STW experience per question?2. With regards to the rate card. Are you requesting a rate card at this stage of the tendering process? If so could you please specify the grades within each role you are interested in a rate card for.: 1. It is up to you within the limits of the framework response word count; 2. Initially requirement is for all grades within a role, evaluation a stage 2 may be restricted to grades that will be specified in the RFP
• 22. Can you please provide a template for the ratecard that you seek given the 100-word limit of DOS: Please see answer to Q1
• 23. As promised in the response to Q1, can you advise when a response template will be provided?: Apologies for delay and also conscious of many outstanding questions which I will start responding to later today, but for the template for the rates I have not had chance to speak to CCS so best option is if you can email me directly at james.gadsby@hmrc.gov.uk before the close for clarification questions tomorrow then I will issue the template to all who request it on Thursday 19th May. Thank you.
• 24. In relation to the last question “Provide a rate card setting out the range of charges for each of the following 6 essential roles – Service Designer/Technical Solutions Architect/Data Analyst/ Business Analyst/Data Architects/Data Engineer” do you expect the rate card to be provided as part of the answer and if so what SFIA grades are the roles?: Yes and for all roles at this stage please, SFIA grades for roles will be covered in more detail later
• 25. 1. What are the procurement timelines?2. Can the resources work from Offshore?3. What are the DDaT roles (and numbers) the Authority envisages to procure through this opportunity from day 1?: 1. Stage 1 as per this opportunity Stage 2 new contract to commence 23/6/22; 2. Preference is onshore ; 3. TBC
• 26. Please can you confirm what the expected timescales are for the full DOS bid process up to contract start?: Other answer refers
• 27. Please can you clarify if this opportunity is intended to procure a single supplier, or a group of suppliers, to provide technical and strategic support to the Single Trade Window Programme over the next 12 months: Single supplier
• 28. We note that there are 4 incumbent suppliers. Please could you confirm whether this DOS opportunity will be awarded to a single supplier or to multiple suppliers (and if multiple, how many).: Single Supplier
• 29. Please confirm how many suppliers you will shortlist for DOS stage 2 (the assessment stage): Subject to interest and quality of responses to essential criteria, but at least 3 and no more than 10
• 30. 1. Please can you confirm how many suppliers are you looking for?2. Given there are 4 incumbent suppliers, please can you advise how are you able to create a level playing field considering the evaluation weighting for cultural fit is 15%?3. Please can you advise; is this resource augmentation or are you looking for defined technical and consultancy support against defined outcomes?: 1. Single supplier; 2. 10% of the cultural fit is for Social Value so cultural fit weighting low and the full RFP section on that is designed to not to advantage any supplier incumbent or otherwise; 3. Outcomes will be defined but STW reserves the right to deploy milestone payment approach over hard deliverables for specific work packages
• 31. (1) Should suppliers provide rates for all SFIA levels (1 – 7). Please bear in mind, this will have an impact on response wordcount.(2) The response to question 12, suggests that suppliers need to answer 2 questions i.e. provide a rate card and assurance about resource capability. Given the limited wordcount available, is it possible to split this question into 2 parts?(3) Can you advise if suppliers will have an opportunity to update their rate card at later stages once more information about the work is available e.g. volume of work etc.: 1. Yes - but as per a previous answer, request the template from james.gadsby@hmrc.gov.uk by cop tomorrow, so no impact on word count; 2. Yes - just provide narrative around assurance and any process you have in place to match skills/experience to what you charge, thank you; 3. Yes
• 32. (1) Given that the work is due to start to start in 5 – 6 weeks, when will the budget be confirmed?(2) Can you advise the initial volume of work for the first 1 – 3 months.(3) Recent HMRC DOS opportunities have been cancelled as they have been covered by the ongoing HMRC TSP programme. Can you advise if there is potential for that to happen in this instance?: 1. There is no specific budget for this work, it is within the STW SR21 settlement; 2. No, but currently there are more than 15 resources deployed on this work and it is expected that will be continue under the 1st work package awarded to the successful bidder; 3. STW is outside of TSP and there has been no migration of services from existing arrangements to TSP contracts since STW transitioned back to HMRC, plus TSP deals unlikely to have headroom so highly improbable
• 33. Can any elements of this work be completed overseas, or will it all have to be completed in the UK?: Other answer refers
• 34. Is the rate card required for both off-shore and on-shore team?: On shore only
• 35. Is Rate card provided part of technical question 4 and evaluated separately? And does it need to adhere to the 100 word limit?: Other answers refer
• 36. Will supplier staff be furnished with HMRC IT kit, or will supplier kit be used? If so does it need to be secure IT?: Yes and yes
• 37. Do HMRC expect suppliers to provide a rate for each of the SFIA levels for each of the roles requested?: Yes
• 38. Will you be awarding to a single Supplier and if this is therefore a consolidation would this require handover from multiple incumbents: Yes a single supplier but the work covered by this RFP is currently being delivered by a single supplier, other incumbent suppliers are working specifically on the STW Guidance Service which is largely out of scope of this RFP, there will be touchpoints but not a full handover as such other than with a single supplier
• 39. Given Deloitte’s role on the TSP are they conflicted out from this tender?: STW is not part of TSP

The deadline for asking questions about this opportunity was Wednesday 18 May 2022.