Department for Work & Pensions

DOS_013: Development of the DWP Child Maintenance Group's Analytic Platform

4 Incomplete applications

0 SME, 4 large

10 Completed applications

3 SME, 7 large

Published: Wednesday 12 September 2018
Deadline for asking questions: Wednesday 19 September 2018 at 11:59pm GMT
Closing date for applications: Wednesday 26 September 2018 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

Summary of the work: The Supplier must enable DWP to develop a new MI and Analytical Platform to support the Child Maintenance Group's user needs. Delivered through Supplier provided multi-disciplinary teams providing services under Solution/Technical Design and Software Development capabilities.

This project consists of 3 Phases, this procurement is for Phase 1 only.
Latest start date: Monday 7 January 2019
Expected contract length: Anticipated duration is between 9-12 months from contract award.
Location: North East England
Organisation the work is for: Department for Work & Pensions
Budget range: The indicative budget for Phase 1 is £0.75M

About the work

Why the work is being done: The Child Maintenance Group (CMG) wants to transform it's Digital Services to produce Management Information to meet their needs to support the performance management agenda of the 2012 Scheme, fulfil their statutory obligations for external reporting and support activities undertaken by the performance reporting and analytical communities.
Problem to be solved: MI and Analytics are currently provisioned by MI solutions based upon a range of COT’s products which are not aligned with the DWP strategic vision to use open source and cloud based technologies. To address these challenges DWP Digital will implement the Children Analytics Platform (CAP), which is the first phase of CMG’s MI Roadmap to decommission the existing MI solutions currently in place, transition existing capabilities and deliver new user needs on the new platform.
Who the users are and what they need to do: As a DWP Technology Function I need to be able to ensure we have the capability and capacity to deliver necessary change to:
- enable Operational Managers to proactively manage the Operational Performance of their Teams and identify business process improvements.

- enable Analysts to access and exploit the 2012 Scheme data to support the Child Maintenance Reforms and to meet statutory obligations to publish statistics.

- enable the Finance Business Intelligence community the ability to create and report on key performance metrics.
Early market engagement: N/A
Any work that’s already been done: A high level technology blueprint has been defined by DWP Digital Data and Analytics team which has identified that a Hadoop-based data lake is to be implemented . This will physically run on Nutanix hyper converged infrastructure (for storage & compute) running Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub. This will provide common services for raw data cleansing etc. and curate data for consumption which will in-turn be provisioned in the appropriate hosting environment and database technology, depending on the consumption use case.
Existing team: There is an existing Data team within DWP Digital's Children line of business who have significant experience in the core systems supporting the 2012 Scheme. There are also other teams supporting the 2012 Scheme and the successful supplier will work with these existing capabilities (from other suppliers as well as DWP staff). A part of the role of the supplier will be to assist DWP in growing its own capability and we will expect a level of support for our staff with a view to contributing and sharing knowledge.
Current phase: Not started

Work setup

Address where the work will take place: The Supplier will be expected to be primarily located with the DWP on DWP sites based in Newcastle Upon Tyne and will be expected to travel to Leeds as and when required.
Working arrangements: Be on site 5 days per week co-locating, collaborating and working flexibly with DWP teams. A flexible approach will be agreed with the successful supplier as each Statement of Work (SoW) is agreed throughout the life of the contract. The Supplier will responsible for travel and expenses to primary base location, however any travel required in addition will be subject to prior agreement with DWP and be paid in line with the DWP Travel and Subsistence Policy in place at the time.
Security clearance: All resources as a minimum must be BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standard) compliant or equivalent (or prepared to undergo clearance process prior to commencement of work). DWP would support an application however costs are to be met by the supplier.

Any additional clearance required will be agreed as appropriate.

Additional information

Additional terms and conditions: N/A

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: A1: Experience (2>5years) of delivering design and development capability of Big Data Solutions in an Agile environment using Cloudera technologies.(6.25%)

A2: Immediate capacity to supply experienced (3>5years) technical skills in Solution and Technical Architecture supported by references of deliveries they have either led or had significant involvement utilising Cloudera technologies.(8.75%)

A3: Immediate capacity to supply experienced (2>5years) technical skills in Data Ingestion, Repository Design and Modelling supported by delivery references they have led or had significant involvement utilising Cloudera technologies.(7.5%)

A4: Immediate capacity to supply experienced (2>5years) technical skills in Data Visualisation supported by references of deliveries they have led or had significant involvement utilising BI Tools.(6%)

A5: Immediate capacity to supply experienced (2>5years) technical skills in Dev Ops supported by references of deliveries they have either led or had significant involvement utilising Nutanix and Cloudera technologies.(4.75%)

A6: Have experience (2>5years) in functional, non-functional and automated testing of MI and Analytical solutions in a Big Data environment.(6.25%)

A7: Have experience (2>5years) of working with Real / Near Time and Batch Data provision / ingestion technologies from Oracle Databases into Cloudera.(6.25%)
Nice-to-have skills and experience: B1: Have experience of working with the following Data Visualisation Tools: Power BI, Qlik. (1.5%)

B2: Have experience of working within DWP or a comparable organisation within the last 3 years. (1.5%)

How suppliers will be evaluated

How many suppliers to evaluate

Proposal criteria

Technical solution
How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal
Value for money
Team structure
Detailed Evaluation Criteria will be included in the RfP

Cultural fit criteria

D1: Work as a blended team with our organisation and other suppliers, able to take direction within a DWP team. (25%)
D2: Experience of successful collaborative working as part of a multi-supplier delivery team sharing knowledge within the team. (25%)
D3: Evidence of a culture of continuous improvement where individuals learn from past mistakes and offer improvement opportunities. (25%)
D4: Approach to recruitment and retention, training, and on-boarding which enables DWP to have continued access to a highly effective resource pool through the course of the contract. (25%)

Payment approach

Time and materials

Assessment methods

Written proposal
Case study
Work history
Reference
Presentation

Evaluation weighting

Technical competence

70%

Cultural fit

Price

25%

Questions asked by suppliers

1. Access to Supplier Briefing Presentation: The presentation for the Supplier Briefing, to be held 14/09/18 at 15:00, can be accessed via the following link to the DWP e-procurement system. Please note here is no requirement for suppliers to register on the system.

https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/esop/toolkit/opportunity/opportunityDetail.do?opportunityId=39060&oppList=CURRENT
2. Are you expecting any of this to fall under GDS compliance?: We are not expecting this to fall under GDS but this will get confirmed as part of the Discovery Phase.
3. What does the enduring position look like, what happens after Phase 1?: This procurement opportunity is for Phase 1 only. The enduring position of Phase 2 and 3 will be confirmed at a later date and is subject to future funding and governance.
4. How accountable will the supplier be for deliverables and how are the other roles to be fulfilled?: We appreciate that the successful supplier will be working as part of a blended team and there will may some dependencies on the Department and other 3rd Parties for some deliverables. The specific deliverables that the successful supplier will be accountable will be discussed and agreed and incorporated into the Call-Off Contract as part of the Statement of Work.
5. What is the budget for this opportunity?: The indicative budget for Phase 1 is £0.75M
6. Are the platforms currently in use within DWP?: The foundation of the platform is being delivered now. We acknowledge there is a dependency on this shared platform however the current plan is aligned with our planned timescales.
7. Which physical locations are the key users located (Operational Managers, Analysts, Finance Business Intelligence)?: Users are in various physical DWP locations;
• The CMG Head offices are located in Newcastle
• Operational Managers are located Country wide (Core CMG Sites: Belfast, Birkenhead, Leicester, Falkirk, Hastings, Plymouth, Newcastle)
• The Operational Performance team is located primarily in Plymouth
• Finance colleagues are located in Newcastle
• Business Intelligence colleagues are located in Newcastle
• Digital – Children are predominantly located in Newcastle
8. What are the approximate number of users in each role (Operational Managers, Analysts, Finance Business Intelligence) the platform will need to service?: This is to be defined during discovery and related to the use cases for each persona. The current profile for the 2012MI Solution is approx. 800 users
9. "The project consists of 3 phases, this procurement is for Phase 1 only". Are DWP following a Government Service Manual delivery lifecycle approach i.e. Discovery, Alpha, Beta?: Phase 1 of the project will follow a Discovery, Alpha and Beta approach. Details on the project phases can be found in the Supplier Briefing Presentation which can be found via the following link.

https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/esop/guest/go/public/opportunity/current
10. In reference to "this procurement is for Phase 1 only" and "a high level technology blueprint has been defined by the DWP technology team", is Phase 1 best described as being like an Alpha moving towards Beta? If not, then can you please characterise the intent of Phase 1?: The intent of Phase 1 is deliver a productionised BI and Analytical capability on the strategic technology platform to enable the 2012MI System to be decommissioned.

Details on the project phases can be found in the Supplier Briefing Presentation which can be found via the following link.

https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/esop/guest/go/public/opportunity/current
11. Can you please describe the different data sources at a high level, incuding the nature of the data source in terms of terms of 1) volume 2) variety (i.e..CSV, relational database, unstructured data) 3) Velocity ( i.e. how often the data sources update, weekly batch, overnight, daily, hourly, near real-time, real time)?: Phase 1 is expected to use two data sources which are Oracle Relational Databases which contain the Siebel & BaNCS application data.

The source data bases are currently Siebel 1.5TB / Bancs 300GB. The daily number of transactional data change records are approx. Siebel 7 million , Bancs 0.3 million.

Source system updates are a mixture of real time transactions and daily overnight batch updates.
12. "There is an existing Data team within DWP Digital's Children line of business", what is the physical location of this team?: The existing Data is based primarily in Newcastle.
13. Suppliers will be responsible for the travel expenses to the primary base location. Is the primary base location considered as Newcastle Upon Tyne, Leeds or both?: The primary base location is Newcastle.
14. Which roles does DWP expect a supplier to provide during Phase 1?: DWP will expect the successful supplier to provide the following roles during Phase 1:

Technical Architect
Data Engineer ETL
Data Engineer BI
Dev Ops
15. Which roles will DWP be providing during Phase 1?: DWP be providing the following roles during Phase 1:

Agile Delivery Manager, Technical Architect, Data Architect, Data Modeller, Security Architect, Product Owner, Business Analyst, Data Solution Designer, Analyst / Operational Users, Test Engineer, Data Engineers.
16. Does DWP expect a supplier to take responsibility for achieving necessary outcomes, otherwise does DWP expect supplier resources to operate under DWP direction?: The successful supplier will be working as part of a blended team . The Department will expect the successful supplier to be responsible for specific deliverables which will be agreed for each SoW.
17. Will scoring from the evidence stage be taken through to final evaluation scoring? As opposed to being used solely for the purpose of shortlisting.: The Department intends scoring from shortlisting stage to be taken through to final evaluation scoring.

Weightings have been published for individual criteria for essential and nice-to-have skills and experience, however weightings will not be applied to scores at the shortlist stage, they will only be applied at the assessment stage.
18. In order to compare suppliers, how will price be evaluated: The evaluation of price will be conducted in accordance with the Digital Outcomes and Specialists buyers’ guide: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-evaluate-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-suppliers.

Detailed evaluation criteria will be released to shortlisted bidders at the Assessment Stage.
19. In order to compare suppliers, how will price be evaluated: The evaluation of price will be conducted in accordance with the Digital Outcomes and Specialists buyers’ guide: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-evaluate-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-suppliers.

Detailed evaluation criteria will be released to shortlisted bidders at the Assessment Stage.
20. Can we ask what criteria DWP will be using to judge whether an evidence answer 'exceeded' requirements and therefore scores full marks (3)?: The evaluation will be conducted in accordance with the Digital Outcomes and Specialists buyers’ guide: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-evaluate-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-suppliers.

Beyond the guidance that has already been provided, DWP will not advise Bidders how to respond to specific requirements in order to gain maximum scores. There is an expectation that Bidders should competently provide responses that are relevant by describing how their organisation meets each of the requirements and, if applicable, articulate within their responses how their organisation may exceed the requirement, provided it is within the context/scope of the requirement and overall solution as a whole.
21. Can you please outline the procurement timeline beyond submission of evidence answers, specifically what is the deadline for proposal submission? What dates are presentations likely to be held?: At present the anticipated procurement timeline following shortlisting of Bidders is as follows:

RfP issued: 08/10/18
RfP Response: 22/10/18
Presentation: 26/10/18
Contract Award: Early December 2018

Please note the above dates are subject to change at DWP’s discretion.
22. Has the work already been done identified any users needs which the current MI and Analytical platform does not support, if so at a high level what are these?: There are no user needs currently identified which the current platform could not support, but the implementation of these needs would require further development which is not deemed sustainable due to both the nature of the technologies and cost/availability of resource.
23. Is the intent of Phase 1 to identify any unknown user needs? Is the intent of Phase 1 to validate user needs in any way?: Phase 1 is primarily about replicating existing capability on a new platform to enable decommissioning of the 2012MI Solution, however it is proposed to be more than a ‘lift and shift’. The existing capability and the underlying user needs will be reviewed as part of Phase 1 to understand whether they are still required and if so how they can adapted to improve the end user experience by leveraging new technology.
24. Many of the evidence questions relate to "immediate capacity to supply", for avoidance of doubt can you please confirm that the latest start date is 7th January 2019?: Yes. The latest date is the 7th January.
25. Are there any slides from the Supplier briefing from 14th September that can be shared?: Details on the project phases can be found in the Supplier Briefing Presentation which can be found via the following link.

https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/esop/guest/go/public/opportunity/current
26. For avoidance of doubt, is Phase 1 intended to be 9 to 12 months long, with a budget of £0.75m to cover this period (as the contract duration implies)?: To confirm, the timescales for the Phase 1 plan is for a 9 month duration with an estimated budget of 0.75m.

9-12 months has been used to take into account for any unforeseen delays which may occur.
27. Is there a particular design or architectural blueprint that the client requires the solution to follow or any particular product suite? (1): Part 1:

The architectural blueprint is owned by Data and Analytics and is currently being refined and iterated based upon the needs identified by DWP’s lines of business. The project will align with the blueprint where the current blueprint supports the user need / use case. If the projects user need cannot be met, then the project will define the solution which will be used to inform the blueprint.
28. Is there a particular design or architectural blueprint that the client requires the solution to follow or any particular product suite? (2): Part 2

The envisaged core technologies to be used are:
• AWS/Cloudera Enterprise Hub – to support Alpha/Beta Phases
• Crown Hosting / Nutanix / Cloudera Enterprise Hub – to support Private/Public Beta
• The data visualization tooling is to be confirmed by Nov ’19. Although potential candidates are Qliksense and Microsoft Power BI
29. Are there any indicative timescales for future phases of work at this stage?: Indicative timescales for future phases of work are defined in the Supplier Briefing Pack which can be access via the link below.

https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/esop/guest/go/public/opportunity/current
30. The link: https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/esop/toolkit/opportunity/opportunityDetail.do?opportunityId=39060&oppList=CURRENT doesn't provide the promised presentation, is there another link to the presentation that works without having to register for the portal?: The Supplier Briefing Pack which can be accessed via the link below.

https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/esop/guest/go/public/opportunity/current
31. How many reports do they use currently? Is the expectation that the same will be replaced or will there be an overhaul?: ~30 Reports with different levels of interactivity.

The scope is to provision the capability to replace the existing reports, but there is an expectation that there will be an overhaul of the reporting capability based upon the user needs which will exploit new technology capabilities.
32. Are there available design patterns for the use cases on the platform, or will these need to be developed as part of the engagement?: There are design patterns available for some of the use cases, although there is an expectation that there will be specific use cases which will need to be developed in conjunction with Data and Analytics Strategic Platform Team as part of the Project, which will ultimately form part of the Strategic Platform.
33. How much of the current platform (AWS / Nutanix / Cloudera) already exists?: AWS, Nutanix and Cloudera environments are currently being provisioned. We acknowledge there is a dependency on this shared platform however the current plan is aligned with our planned timescales.
34. DWP already have a live data stack on an HDFS environment. Is there a reason this is an entirely different technology stack?: This is to align with the wider Digital - Data & Analytics technology strategy.
35. Has the reuse of existing DWP modern technology and data products, as per GDS guidance, been considered?: The project will ultimately be a tenant on the strategic platform, which will be re-used and leveraged across DWP Digital.
36. We understand the first phase of CMG’s MI Roadmap is to decommission the existing MI solutions currently in place, transition existing capabilities and deliver new user needs on the new platform. Have you have any due diligence / assessment to develop migration approach and roadmap? If yes, could you please share the details.: The detailed migration approach has not been defined and will be dependent upon the historical user needs identified as part of Discovery. However a data analysis phase has been completed which has identified, if required, an operational data store (Oracle Database) which contains full history of transactional level data from both Siebel and BaNCS applications. It is expected that this will be will be the data source if historical data is required.
37. We understand that the key outcomes are focused on functional change (report framework/layout etc), Data Processing, Real-Time Streaming, Movement of Data & Workload, Consumption Capabilities and Service Delivery Capacity & Capabilities. Please confirm our understanding is correct and include if we have missed anything.: DWP can confirm our understanding is correct.
38. Given that there is existing MI reporting capability, albeit, not adhering to the DWP strategic vision, are there future reporting needs that can be shared?: These cannot be shared at this point in time.
39. No pricing information has been asked in the response to be submitted by 26th Sep. At what stage would this be asked?: Pricing information will be requested from the Shortlisted bidders taken through to the assessment stage.

Information on the process can be found on the Digital Marketplace in the Buyer and Supplier guides.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-buyers-guide

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-sell-your-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-services
40. Are there two rounds of the selection process – initial short-listing and then the final round? What are the timelines after the suppliers submit the response for the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience?: As per the buying process under DOS there are two rounds to the procurement process. 1) Shortlisting Stage, 2) Assessment Stage. Further information on the buying process can be found via the links below.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-buyers-guide

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-sell-your-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-services

At present the anticipated procurement timeline following shortlisting of Bidders is as follows:

RfP issued: 08/10/18
RfP Response: 22/10/18
Presentation: 26/10/18
Contract Award: Early December 2018

Please note the above dates are subject to change at DWP’s discretion.
41. We understand you have already selected Cloudera EDH to run on Nutanix. Have you selected any other tools/products for the complete new MI and Analytical Platform including any decision on-prem / cloud hosted (IAAS/PAAS/SAAS) solution?: Final decisions regarding ‘on-premise’ and/or ‘on cloud’ hosting are still pending and will be informed by security concerns e.g. data and access. Hosting and tooling will have to be compatible and meet the needs of a multi tenanted platform.
42. Are you ok to have managed services model of engagement?: The successful supplier will be working as part of a blended team . The Department will expect the successful supplier to be responsible for specific deliverables which will be agreed for each SoW along with roles and responsibilities of each party.
43. In addition to the technical capabilities you are seeking, are you also looking for project / programme management and scrum master capabilities to lead elements of delivery?: In addition to the key technical capabilities detailed DWP will be seeking the successful bidder to provide the appropriate level of project / programme management and scrum master capabilities to lead elements of delivery they will be responsible for.
44. Your RFP mentions Data Visualisation / BI tool experience as an essential and PowerBI and Qlik experience as nice-to-have experience. Can you please outline the expected tools to be used for the platform at this stage to assist us in identifying the right individuals to support?: The project is planning to leverage the core technologies within the Cloudera distribution where possible. However final selection has not been made and will be informed by user needs and an on-going evaluation process.

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