Awarded to Unboxed Consulting Ltd

Start date: Monday 12 February 2018
Value: £25,350
Company size: SME

Public Health England (PHE) UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC)

Public Health England (PHE) UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), Website Review

6 Incomplete applications

5 SME, 1 large

5 Completed applications

5 SME, 0 large

• Published: Monday 4 December 2017
• Deadline for asking questions: Monday 11 December 2017 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Monday 18 December 2017 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: Conduct Discovery and potentially implement all phases of an agile project as defined in the GDS Service Manual to develop the UK National Screening Committee’s new online presence. To include assessment of the user needs & journeys, legacy website, governance and to support internal options reviews.
• Latest start date: Monday 29 January 2018
• Expected contract length: 24 months
• Location: London
• Organisation the work is for: Public Health England (PHE) UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC)
• Budget range: Up to £36,000 inc VAT (for Discovery only)

About the work

• Why the work is being done: The work is being done because the legacy site is over-fitted and no longer fit for purpose: (https://legacyscreening.phe.org.uk/screening-recommendations.php). ; ; This is due to technical, security and governance; issues, and because the website cannot accommodate recent business changes which have resulted in fragmented workflows across to a second website.; ; An internal review concluded that a more effective underlying technical infrastructure, coupled with user centred design of both internally and public facing interfaces, would deliver multiple benefits.
• Problem to be solved: UK NSC needs a digital service that is built around user-needs.; ; UK NSC needs a digital service which reflects the 4-country remit and independence of the UK NSC.; ; UK NSC needs a digital service for interested members of the public and stakeholders, by defragmenting UK NSC online content and workflows.; ; Boost the UK NSC online presence so that potential stakeholders can more easily find and engage with UK NSC.; ; UK NSC needs a solution which complies with all standards stated in the DOS contract agreement (e.g. Digital Service Standard).
• Who the users are and what they need to do: The following users have been identified:; • Stakeholders (charity organisations, academic institutes, NHS clinical directors, patient representatives, clinical specialists) – offering expert opinion on consultation papers that inform UK health screening policy; • Citizens affected by a condition - offering patient stories and opinion in consultations; • UK NSC Secretariat – the officers responsible for managing online public consultations, document management, and keeping the policy reviews up-to-date.; • UK NSC – to approve the publishing of policy recommendations and consultation documents
• Early market engagement: None
• Any work that’s already been done: Reviews of the existing websites and internal business processes have been conducted and included a stakeholder survey. ; ; The review findings, which will be available to short listed Suppliers, include outline functional descriptions of a new ICT solution, a high level conceptual system design and data model.; ; An initial list of potential user research participants across the UK has also been prepared (patient reps, researchers, royal colleges, and charity organisations).
• Existing team: A product manager from the UK NSC secretariat team has been assigned to oversee and facilitate the development of this work. PHE Digital team will also support this project.; ; The supplier will need to work with multiple user research participants across the four UK countries.
• Current phase: Not started

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: The work can be performed from any location, but is likely to be co-ordinated by staff in PHE’s London Offices.
• Working arrangements: Work may be carried out from multiple locations, including the Supplier’s offices. Attendance at PHE Offices in London will be required for meetings. Supplier staff will be expected to be on-site at PHE locations sufficient to manage the relationships with senior stakeholders; the exemplar project team and users; and, stakeholders and users in other organisations so that the outcomes of the project may be met. Members of the PHE team may also occasionally work in the supplier’s offices.
• Security clearance: Not required, DBS checks will only be required where user research with children and families is taking place.

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:
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of eliciting user needs from a diverse range of users/stakeholders, both in person/remotely via Skype or other online technologies. Provide links to relevant case studies.
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of delivering options appraisal based on quantifiable user benefits for preferred technologies, including already available products, and approaches.
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of assessing options for consolidation of content, data, and functionality of two or more websites.
  • Experience of working on time critical workflow systems and/or experience of document management solutions that support full audit trails.
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of methods and digital tools designed to be used by a diverse range of users.
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of assessing the suitability of GOV.UK transitional services to public sector delivery outcomes.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Recent and demonstrable experience with public sector organisations such as central and/or local government
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of delivery within an evidence-based policy environment including the development of quantified metrics to compare user needs
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of working with a group of stakeholders and users across the UK including users with limited digital capability or accessibility needs.
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of relational database design.
  • Recent and demonstrable experience of information ‘tagging’ including controlled taxonomy and social / folksonomy solutions.

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 4
• Proposal criteria:
  • Approach to Discovery including User Research and process mapping – 40%
  • Approach to Alpha / Beta / Live – 20%
  • Approach to technology assessment including the use of GOV.UK Transactional services – 20%.
  • Approach to migration including user and data management – 20%.
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • The Presentation should summarise the Proposal and demonstrate the approach to:
  • Working with the project team’s stakeholders who have varying experience of agile methods;
  • Flexible working arrangements and knowledge sharing;
  • Open innovation that explores a wide range of solutions and conclusions that includes demonstrating the limits of digital interventions; and non-digital solutions;
  • Transparent and collaborative when making decisions;
  • Demonstrate your approach to knowledge transfer throughout the duration of the project.
• Payment approach: Fixed price
• Assessment methods:
  • Written proposal
  • Case study
  • Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  60%

  Cultural fit

  20%

  Price

  20%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. How long have you given for the discovery phase?: Due to pre-project work that has been undertaken to date we are expecting the discovery phase to last 4-6 weeks. All pre-project work will be shared with the awarded supplier.
• 2. As part of the scoring for the proposal you have asked for "Approach to Alpha / Beta / Live – 20%". Here you could have the scenario were a supplier who only supplies Discovery phase projects, is shortlisted, but cannot score any of 20% of the marks of the 'Approach to Alpha / Beta / Live". This project is only procuring for a Discovery phase. Please could you advise if Discovery phase only suppliers can bid for this project and how to go about this in the proposal given the section I have mentioned?: Discovery phase only suppliers can bid and in the "Approach to alpha/beta/live" question they should try to provide details of how they will capture and share their discovery work and findings in such a way as to be useful and usable by any team we bring in to do the alpha/beta/live phases. ; Additionally you may provide examples of projects where you have handed over to other suppliers for subsequent phases of a project successfully.
• 3. Do you have easy access to users for the user research aspect to the Discovery?: We would like suppliers to propose an approach for engaging those users we already have contact with and for finding and engaging additional users. Please see other answers below for more info.
• 4. Noting that you have outline functional descriptions of a new ICT solution, a high level conceptual system design and data model. Is there a technical aspect to this discovery i.e. developing those further, or are they set.: A technical review of the current site was carried out, this included some very high level recommendations including future options. This does not form part of discovery.
• 5. Regarding the data model - are there other applications or databases that are integrated with the website as part of a system?: All content and documents on the current website are managed by the Secretariat team through an integrated back-office system. This system stores public and private stakeholder details, documents, and important constulation-related dates. The specification of the legacy site will be made available to the awarded supplier. However, it is important that focus is on user research during discovery before technical solutions are considered.
• 6. How many stakeholder groups are you looking for us to engage with, and what is the spread between the internal and external service?: Internally, the website has a back-office system which is managed only by the UK NSC secretariat team. The product manager is representing their interests.; ; The number of stakeholder groups required externally will be a topic for discussion but a spread of stakeholders from across the 4 UK countries is important. The website has several different stakeholder types, but they currently all access the website to do one of three things: find information, participate in consultations, or register as a stakeholder. Please see Q11 below for more details.
• 7. Is PHE already working with a 3rd party on the technology platform of will this form part of the requirement going forward?: No - see also reponses to the questions above.
• 8. In reference to question 1, How would you like us to provide case studies? We do not hold our case studies online.: Short-listed suppliers will receive information on proposal requirements which will be contained in the Request for Proposal documentation.
• 9. Please could you outline any suppliers involved in the provision of the current website?: The UK NSC legacy site is maintained by an independent consultant, however this arrangement is only in place until a new website solution has been created.
• 10. What roles will UK NSC and PHE Digital Team be providing to this project and will they be full time?: The PHE Digital team will conduct end of project phase reviews and support the project when their expertise is needed. The product manager from the UK NSC has full commitment and will fulfill his role as the business ambassador for the Committee and engage senior stakeholders in the UK NSC and PHE. For the last 4 years he has managed the existing legacy site, developed UK NSC business processes, and has helped to build a large UK NSC stakeholder base consisting of potential user research participants.
• 11. Can you share any detail on the methodology, scale and recency of the existing website review and internal stakeholder survey?: The stakeholder survey was hosted on the UK NSC legacy site in autumn 2016 and had 70 participants. It consisted of 9 questions to help understand what interactive tools are required by our users, and how they find the current layout of our webpages. Three qualitative follow-up interviews were conducted by the product manager, and a report summarising all the findings will be shared with the awarded supplier, along with all other pre-project work completed to date.
• 12. Can you share any detail/analytics on the current usage of the website(s)?: Since its creation in 2008 the UK NSC website has developed a consistent growing trend in the number of visits per month; reaching 33,000 from people across the globe. It celebrates international recognition as the world-leading resource for health screening information. A report will be shared with the awarded supplier that will comprise a Google analytics assessment and the results from an online public survey that was hosted on the UK NSC website.
• 13. What current technology is used by the website(s) and are there any requirements or preferences for certain types of technology going forward?: The legacy site technology will not be taken forward. There are no current requirements or preferences for technology, but any technologies proposed at the alpha phase would need to meet the Government Digital Service Standard.
• 14. The expected length of contract is 24 months, can you clarify the expected timeframes for discovery specifically?: Due to all the pre-project work that has been undertaken to date we are expecting the discovery phase to last 4-6 weeks. All pre-project work will be shared with the awarded supplier.
• 15. Please could the following be clarified; “recent and demonstrable experience of assessing the suitability of GOV.UK transitional services to public sector delivery outcomes: Apologies for this typo, it should read: "GOV.UK 'transactional' services to public sector delivery outcomes." In other words, a supplier who has experience of, or a strong proposed approach to, applying the government service standard and using GOV.UK to deliver public services.
• 16. Will you be supplying user research participants from the identified users list, or will the successful supplier be responsible for recruiting users?: The supplier is ultimately responsible for recruiting user research participants, however a list of 400 potential stakeholders who use our website will be shared with the awarded supplier. From this list we have already secured 20 user research participants.; ; There is also a task for the supplier to find potential stakeholders who have not yet registered with the UK NSC; these represent a group of potential users who may not know that our website or Committee exists.
• 17. You mention one website but there’s a suggestion of multiple websites. Can you clarify and list all the existing websites that this will need to supersede?: The new solution will replace the UK NSC legacy site (link available in the ad above) and will also inherit a group of webpages that are currently located on GOV.UK. Discovery must explore user journeys between these two locations.
• 18. Is an “evidence-based policy environment” a defined system or the description of a process which has data at the crux of all decisions?: The latter - the basis of this "nice to have" is that UK NSC policy recommendations are based on evidence synthesis and stakeholder comments received via online public consultations. Any experience with organisations which similarly base policy on empirical evidence would be beneficial; in particular if this experience relates to the production of evidence-based user insights and needs.
• 19. Notification of error in response to supplier Q6: Please refer to Q16 instead of Q11 for further information on stakeholder groups.