Awarded to Monitor IS

Start date: Monday 1 April 2019
Value: £561,000
Company size: SME

Information Application Services (IAS), Directorate of Information, Army HQ, Andover

DInfoCom/0054 - THE PROVISION OF INTEGRATION AS A SERVICE (IaaS)

8 Incomplete applications

5 SME, 3 large

4 Completed applications

4 SME, 0 large

• Published: Thursday 14 February 2019
• Deadline for asking questions: Thursday 21 February 2019 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Thursday 28 February 2019 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: IAS currently exploits many Software AG products which enable Application Programming Interface (API) Management, Enterprise Architecture Modelling, IT portfolio management, and an integrated development environment. Provide SQEP resource to exploit the SAG Integration stack of software.; A COPY OF THE STATEMENT OF REQUIREMENT CAN BE OBTAINED FROM pauline.hewish662@mod.gov.uk
• Latest start date: Monday 1 April 2019
• Expected contract length: 1 year plus up to 12 month extension period
• Location: South East England
• Organisation the work is for: Information Application Services (IAS), Directorate of Information, Army HQ, Andover

About the work

• Why the work is being done: IAS currently exploits many Software AG (SAG) products which enable Application Programming Interface (API) Management, Enterprise Architecture Modelling, IT portfolio management and an integrated development environment.; ; Technical advances have seen the proliferation of integration services and IAS and wider defence must invest to keep up with industry best practice. The management and development of multiple APIs, based on a sound API strategy, is essential. Unfortunately, suitably qualified and experienced personnel (SQEP) are not available within the military or civil service communities.
• Problem to be solved: It will provide additional functionality for IAS and wider Defence and make operational efficiencies which will improve business output in the areas of data integration and enterprise architecture and conform to GDPR legislation.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: The users of Application are regulars, reserves, civil servants and contractors across the Army and wider Defence. The users are required to log on to the Ministry of Defence Network and browse to the appropriate url. Access is granted via single sign on.; ; The users need secure, highly performant and available application services to provide information in the right context to undertake their business functions to enable the day-to-day operation of the British Army and wider Defence.
• Existing team: The supplier will deliver within IAS standards, policies and processes and will work alongside other members of IAS. There will be occasions where the supplier will work off-site with other partners (e.g. Defence Infrastructure Organisation, Information Systems and Services)
• Current phase: Live

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: The place of delivery for the contract shall be at such location(s) as agreed between the supplier and the Authority. The primary location is IAS, Army Headquarters, Marlborough Lines, Ramillies Bldg, Zone 7, Monxton Road, Andover, SP11 8HJ
• Working arrangements: The supplier will deliver within IAS standards, policies and processes. Personnel will be expected to work predominantly on-site in Andover, however remote working may be possible via the use of Azure which provides a remote development capability enabling the development service to work with customers and off-site. Once code is ready for deployment it is brought onto IAS on-premise cloud dev/test environments, to be deployed through the DevOps pipeline onto the Army Hosting Environment, via System Integration, security testing and pre-production.
• Security clearance: Security Clearance (SC) will be required for the duration of the role. Incumbents are to follow both the letter and spirit of Army Headquarters security regulations.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: DEFCON 5J (Edn 18/11/16) Unique Identifiers, DEFCON 76 (Edn 12/06) Contractors on site, DEFCON 129J (Edn 18/11/16) Electronic business Delivery Form, DEFCON 513 (Edn 11/16) Value Added Tax, DEFCON 516 (Edn 04/12) Equality, DEFCON 518 (Edn 02/17) Transfer, DEFCON 531 (Edn 11/14) Disclosure of Information, DEFCON 534 (Edn 06/17) Subcontracting and Prompt Payment, DEFCON 537 (Edn 06/02) Rights of Third Parties, DEFCON 550 (Edn 02/14) Child Labour and Employment Law, DEFCON 566 (Edn 12/18) Change of control of contractor, DEFCON 642 (Edn 06/14) Progress meetings, DEFCON 658 (Edn 10/17) Cyber, DEFCON 694 (Edn 07/18) Accounting for Property of the Authority

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:
  • Please request a copy of the Statement of Requirement which includes Annex A, to further understand the essential skills for the four specific areas of responsibility.
  • Area 1 - act as the API Business Lead. Description is in accordance with Page 2 of 7 of SOR.
  • Area 2 - API Developer, to work alongside API Business Lead. Description is in accordance with Page 2 of 7 of the SOR.
  • Area 3 - Platform Architect. Description in accordance with Page 2 of 7 of the SOR.
  • Area 4 - ARIS Technical Lead. Description in accordance with Page 2 & 3 of 7 of the SOR.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Knowledge of Government Digital Service Standard
  • Provide evidence of successful delivery of subscription based software licensing

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 5
• Proposal criteria:
  • Say how you will meet the buyer's requirement (5%)
  • Approach and methodology to meeting the requirements outlined in RFP (5%)
  • Approach for transition of service, running and knowledge transfer (5%)
  • Give examples of KPIs and SLAs that you would be prepared to commit to for this contract (5%)
  • Provide an exit plan for the transition to an alternative supplier at the end of the contract and enabled the transition (3%)
  • Provide evidence of skills/experience of team who'll be doing the work, how they'll work together. List roles, responsibilities and number of people for each stage of work (5%)
  • Provide team structure, CVs and relevant experience of the team who could be part of the service (5%)
  • Provide two referenceable client-focused case studies where your company have provided the desired service capability (5%)
  • Ability to mobilise the team quickly and approach to service continuity (3%)
  • Explain how you plan to retain key resources/skills for the duration of the contract and how you can commit to meeting IAS's continuous need for development activities (3%)
  • Ability to scale up and down resources, whilst ensuring quality and consistency (2%)
  • How the proposal will optimise costs, and generate savings. In particular minimising transition costs between the current team and the new supplier (2%)
  • Identification of the risks and dependencies associated with this requirement and potential mitigation (2%)
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Recent proven experience (last 3-years) in working with the product owner (1%)
  • Recent proven experience (last 3-years) of an open and collaborative working relationship at all levels with excellent communication and co-ordination skills (2%)
  • Has a no-blame culture and encourages people to learn from their mistakes, working as "one team" (2%)
  • Suppliers must demonstrate an ability and willingness to work collaboratively within a multi-vendor delivery environment (2%)
  • Able to communicate effectively with users, technical architects and solve issues amongst complex integrations (2%)
  • Proven ability to add value to IAS through the use of innovation, continuous improvement and cost savings utilising technology (1%)
• Payment approach: Capped time and materials
• Assessment methods: Written proposal
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  50%

  Cultural fit

  10%

  Price

  40%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. How do we request for "Statement of Requirement which includes Annex A"?: As highlighted within the advert at "Summary of the work", a copy of the Statement of Requirement can be obtained from pauline.hewish662@mod.gov.uk
• 2. Can the authority please confirm the IR35 status of the roles within this requirement.: As the Authority is contracting out the services to a third party and the workers do not personally provide their services to the Authority, IR35 does not apply in this instance. IAS would be willing to accept a substitute, have limited supervision in terms of requesting outcomes and no mutuality of obligation to the supplier. Our behaviour and working practices are designed to be in keeping with a service provision.