Awarded to Equal Experts UK Limited

Start date: Sunday 1 October 2017
Value: £4,500,000
Company size: large
Her Majesty’s Passport Office

Her Majesty’s Passport Office – Digital Application Processing – Product & Delivery Team

10 Incomplete applications

8 SME, 2 large

24 Completed applications

12 SME, 12 large

Important dates

Published
Friday 21 July 2017
Deadline for asking questions
Friday 28 July 2017 at 11:59pm GMT
Closing date for applications
Friday 4 August 2017 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

Summary of the work
By 2019 we need to create a new Passport service for processing for all users / application types.

Expecting to see the following Agile roles covered by Supplier:
• Delivery Manager
• Delivery Leads
• Technical Architect
• Product Owners
• Business Analysts
• Front end and back end Developers
Latest start date
Monday 25 September 2017
Expected contract length
Up to 2 years
Location
London
Organisation the work is for
Her Majesty’s Passport Office
Budget range

About the work

Why the work is being done
HMPO's 2020 vision moves passport applications online for the majority of customers and shifts assessment to a risk based, digital approach which will increase the capability to identify fraud.

The DAP project is responsible for building the capability to deliver an in house case working, workflow and checking capability to support the production of passport applications, currently the responsibility of an external provider.

With HMPO's contracts with existing strategic partners coming to an end in 2019, the DAP service has to be ready to take over all application processing by this date.
Problem to be solved
To achieve the HMPO Transformation agenda, DAP needs to introduce risk-based approaches to application assessments, resulting in automation of low risk applications and more time for in depth examination of higher risk cases
By 2019 we must create a new service for application processing which meet users’ needs.

Delivering the back end back end capability to support orchestration of checks and workflow based on Micro-service provision and interface with existing legacy service and systems during the transitional period.
Who the users are and what they need to do
As a user the HMPO passport staff need a system that automates passport applications where safe and practical to do so.
To enable them to concentrate on the more complex cases that can never be automated.
So that HMPO can achieve its 2020 vision and 2019 contract objectives and build the capability to deliver an in house case working, workflow and checking capability to support the production of passport applications.
Early market engagement
N/A
Any work that’s already been done
Over the last 12 months we have almost completed work on the initial Discovery Phase for British Overseas Territories (BOTs). However we are now concentrating on UK Adult On-line Renewal applications through our new Digital service.

We have been working with users to identify casework needs and have completed some prototypes but to continue moving at pace and meet the 2019 delivery timescale to have created a service by which applications can be processed and which meets our user needs, we need to recruit specialist skills to support the continuation of this work.
Existing team
There are currently two cross-functional teams working on these services and capabilities. HM Passport Office anticipates the supplier team will work with these existing capabilities, as well as build new ones for the provision of shared services from this platform.
Current phase
Alpha

Work setup

Address where the work will take place
Central London (near to Victoria / Westminster/ Fleet Street) and co-location in Aldershot with the Legacy Supplier for some Developer roles.
Working arrangements
We expect the supplier to:

- Work collaboratively with existing cross-functional teams transforming application processing.

- Focus on evidence-based skills transfer between supplier and civil servant team members.

- Be on site at least four days per week collaborating with the wider team.

- Be responsible for travel and expenses to normal workplace; London or Aldershot.

- Align service design and development with the HM Passport Office strategic technical architecture and technologies.

- Be aware that this arrangement may also be used by other Programmes within HM Passport Office and across the Home Office.
Security clearance
SC Clearance is required. HM Passport Office will support the clearance process

Additional information

Additional terms and conditions
Breakpoints to assess progress and quality will be set at the end of alpha and beta phases.

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
  • We want to recruit an established team who have a good working relationship – who can work well together and blend their skills set together to meet objectives.
  • Team members need to be self-starters and self-managing, capable of working at a fast pace
  • Excellent communicators both from wider team perspective and with users and stakeholders alike.
  • Clear evidence of how the proposed team has moved an organisation and its people forward on a journey from a staid way of working to a new concept.
  • We want to utilise an outcome based model rather than a headcount one to allow flex in the resources needed to meet the work.
  • Expecting to see the following Agile roles covered by the Supplier as indicated in the summary of work
  • All Team members supplied must meet the GDS essential criteria as set out in GDS job descriptions for Agile Teams.
Nice-to-have skills and experience
  • Proven experience of working in an agile development environment with designers and developers and product managers to create new digital products and services
  • Previous experience within government services.

How suppliers will be evaluated

How many suppliers to evaluate
3
Proposal criteria
  • Technical solution
  • Approach and methodology
  • How the approach or solution meets user needs
  • How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal
  • Estimated timeframes for the work
  • How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them
  • Team structure
Cultural fit criteria
  • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers
  • Transparent and collaborative when making decisions
  • Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes
Payment approach
Time and materials
Assessment methods
  • Written proposal
  • Case study
Evaluation weighting

Technical competence

60%

Cultural fit

15%

Price

25%

Questions asked by suppliers

1. To help us decide whether we are a suitable partner to bid for this work, please can you give an indicative expected FTE number for the optimum team? You have listed a number of roles, several of which are plural. Unfortunately this, together with the high level description of the work, is insufficient to quantify the likely effort required.
The DOS recruitment is based on outcomes rather than fixed resources. This allows you to flex the team up/down depending on the activities. We are deliberately not specifying numbers in the advert.
2. Who carried out the discovery and is any supplier considered an incumbent supplier for this opportunity?
HM Passport Office conducted the Discoveries led by our Business Design Authority. There are no incumbent suppliers which is why we are undertaking 3 DOS recruitments.
3. To help us decide whether we are a suitable partner to bid for this work, please can you give an indicative expected FTE number for the optimum team? You have listed a number of roles, several of which are plural. Unfortunately this, together with the high level description of the work, is insufficient to quantify the likely effort required.
The DOS recruitment is based on outcomes rather than fixed resources. This allows you to flex the team up/down depending on the activities. We are deliberately not specifying numbers in the advert.
4. Who carried out the discovery and is any supplier considered an incumbent supplier for this opportunity?
HM Passport Office conducted the Discoveries led by our Business Design Authority. There are no incumbent suppliers
5. Expecting to see the following Agile roles covered by the Supplier as indicated in the summary of work", are there specific roles you would like us to cover in our response here or is it all of the GDS roles?
We would expect the roles to cover the following skills:
- Delivery Manager
- Delivery Lead
- Technical Architect
- Product Owner
- Business Analyst
- Full-stack Developer (Node & Java); could be split into front end and /or back end developers
6. The requirement states this is at Alpha stage, has the discovery been completed? And is there associated documentation to summarise this? Also is there an incumbent supplier?
Yes Discovery has been completed for this initial phase although further Discoveries will be required.

Further detail will be shared on the successful bidder’s contract start.

There are no incumbent suppliers.
7. Does the authority have a budget in mind for this requirement?
In the region of 4.5 million pounds over the 24 month period.
8. Is there a specific form of outcome based contracting that HMPO are looking to use? How will pricing be assessed?
We will be asking the successful Suppliers at Stage 2 to populate a financial model to ensure that we get a consistent level of responses. We will then uses this information and the responses to the other Technical questions to understand how the supplier’s team will operate and be structured as part of the evaluation.
9. Assuming a service start of 25th September, what are HMPO expecting as the critical team make up on day one?
We will be asking the successful Suppliers at Stage 2 to articulate their suggested proposal for day 1 as this will form part of the evaluation.
10. Test question. We don't seem to be getting any answers to our questions on this system. Please confirm they are getting through.
Apologies, we initially only received 2 questions which were responded to with the remaining questions responded too now being on Monday 31/7.
11. In the 'problem to be solved' section, it mentions existing strategic partners. Could HMPO please specify who this refers to?
These are current Suppliers who provide our Legacy Services; and include DXC, DeLaRue, Tele Performance and Sopra Steria.
12. Can we ask what is driving the date of 2019 by which this work needs to be completed?
As stated in the advert, HMPO's contracts with existing strategic partners coming to an end in 2019. Therefore the DAP service has to be ready to take over all application processing by this date.
13. Can we ask what relationship this project will have with the Discovery Phase mentioned in 'Any work that's already been done'?
The successful supplier will be building a solution based on the outputs from this Discovery, building on the architecture already in development.
14. Are the two cross-functional teams mentioned in 'existing team' made up of HMPO staff or are these resourced by an external supplier? If so, who is this supplier?
Both, further details of existing Suppliers will be shared on the successful bidder’s contract start.
15. In the 'existing team' section, which service and capabilities are being referred to specifically?
As articulated in the “who are the users and what they need to do” section we are referring to “build the capability to deliver an in house case working, workflow and checking capability to support the production of passport applications.”
16. Breakpoints have been identified at the end of the alpha and beta phases, although this procurement is for alpha stage”- is the expectation that the chosen supplier will carry the project through to Live phase? Or will this work be re-procured at the end of each stage?
The expected period of this contract is up to and including live deployment.
17. Who is the legacy supplier mentioned in 'Address where the work will take place'?
DXC our current Legacy supplier who reside in Aldershot.
18. Can you please outline the steps and dates in the procurement timetable up to and including supplier award? i.e. proposal or presentation dates?
Further detail will be shared with the successful suppliers put through to Stage 2.
19. Can you confirm that co-location in Aldershot with the legacy supplier means that the successful supplier will be required to work with the current supplier in their offices? If so, what resource and for how long will the legacy supplier be providing resource to this project?
We would expect that some of the team would be co-located in Aldershot but as part of the evaluation we will be looking to see what models the suppliers suggest for this.
20. Can HMPO please confirm this work is out of scope of IR35 legislation?
We would expect that this work will be outside IR35, providing that the successful Supplier can meet the IR35 requirements around substitution and error correction where it is a recognised Supplier issue in their own time.
21. For clarity, can HMPO confirm the successful supplier is expected to provide the full team highlighted the 'summary of work' section? Specifically - Delivery Manager, Delivery Leads, TA, Product Owners, Business Analysts, Developers?
We would expect the roles to cover the following skills:
- Delivery Manager
- Delivery Lead
- Technical Architect
- Product Owner
- Business Analyst
- Full-stack Developer (Node & Java); could be split into front end and /or back end developers
However we are looking for the suppliers selected to stage 2 to provide their view of the optimum team and their reasons why.
22. What full-time roles are HMPO expecting to provide to this project? For example, are HMPO expecting to provide a full-time Product Owner or Service Manager?
We have in place:

Portfolio Director
Service Manager
Senior Project Manager
Product Owners
BA’s
Test Lead and Analysts
Project Support
23. We would normally see the Product Owner role to be provided by the customer. Can we ask for HMPO's rationale for asking a Supplier to provide this?
We are looking for a blended approach between HMPO and the supplier to ensure cross fertilisation of industry standards, tools and techniques.
24. In order for HMPO to compare 'apples for apples' for pricing, how will suppliers be asked to provide the price?
We will be asking the successful Suppliers at Stage 2 to populate a financial model to ensure that we get a consistent level of responses. We will then uses this information and the responses to the other Technical questions to understand how the supplier’s team will operate and be structured as part of the evaluation.
25. What phase/s is this procurement for?
The period of this contract is up to and including live deployment.
26. Does HMPO have an indicative budget they can provide to suppliers?
In the region of £4.5 million pounds over the 24 month period.
27. Please be advised Qs 3 and and Qs 4 have been duplicated, please ignore
Please be advised Qs 3 and and Qs 4 have been duplicated, please ignore
28. Is there a specific supplier that has been involved in this specific project or an associated project who will be able to bid for this opportunity? If so how will HMPO ensure a level playing field?
The initial Discovery work was under taken in-house by our Business Design and Architecture Team. Once approved, the work was allocated to a project team and the contractor resources obtained from 6 existing G-Cloud suppliers with Home Office contracts. These contracts are all now reaching their expiry date so with the exception of our Testing and Assurance functions there are no incumbent suppliers.

All our team requirements have been raised on the DOS Framework and will be evaluated by a team of HMPO Senior Civil Servants, overseen by our Commercial Team to ensure this is an open and fair competition.