Technical Job Family and QAT

Description

Summary of the work A supplier/consortium who can provide appropriate technical job family and QAT job family capability/expertise to deliver outcomes across the Teaching Workforce Directorate portfolio to build and iterate high-quality services from pre-discovery through to Live, working in multi-disciplinary blended teams with other suppliers and civil servants. Expected Contract Length Two years with option to extend up to six months if required, subject to governance and approvals. Latest start date Monday 14 March 2022 Budget Range Up to £5,400,000 Budget approval is subject to Cabinet Office spending controls, service assessments and DfE governance. Each Statement of Work (SOW) will outline the work required, associated budget and payment approach. Suppliers will need to provide clear costs to enable tracking. DfE does not commit to any minimum spend. Why the Work is Being Done The portfolio supports the Department’s Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, published in January 2019. This sets out the Government's priorities for making sure a career in teaching continues to be attractive, sustainable, and rewarding. The Government’s vision is for all our young people to have access to a world-class education – no matter where they are from or their background. The key to accessing a world-class education is the teacher in the classroom. Problem to Be Solved We know many people have a desire to become a teacher, but not enough have the chance to try it out, with many put off by the long and complicated application process. Also, teachers at the start of their careers don’t always get the support needed to build successful careers, and too many end up leaving. We are transforming the way people become teachers and the support they receive at each step of their career. This involves developing and iterating integrated services that: • encourage people to consider teaching, get school experience, including in Further Education, and then apply for a postgraduate teacher training course. • register trainee teachers and provide financial support helping them train. • help find teaching jobs and early career development with extra professional support. • claim financial support offered to retain teachers in hardest to fill subjects. • access professional qualifications (NPQs) to develop in role/progress to leadership positions. • help people retrieve their Teacher Reference Number and other professional qualifications information. • access pensions support. With these services in house, we expect to be able to transform how we use performance data to improve services, policies and gather policy insights. Who Are the Users Our users are prospective and current teachers, schools, colleges, and training providers. For candidates this includes requesting further information on the steps to become a teacher including training, funding, and understanding how to start out on their career . For teachers this includes supporting them through the various phases of their career, including applying for vacancies, applying for retention payments online, supporting continuous professional development, and receiving their pension as a retiree. For schools, colleges, and training providers this includes improving their user experience and reducing administrative burdens. Examples of this include: • As a teacher in my early career, I may need to claim early-career payments. • As a candidate teacher I need to understand Initial Teacher Training provision to gain the qualifications needed. • As a School Leader I need to collect and supply information about teachers, in order to drive the service. We also support internal users with the data needed to inform policy changes and interventions. The portfolio's aim is to drive the delivery of user-centred policies and services that support the Department’s strategic priorities by making sure the journey to becoming a teacher and developing a teaching career better meets users’ needs. Early Market Engagement A pre-market engagement event was held in September 2022 to provide suppliers with more detailed background on the requirements. We have since developed our procurement strategy following feedback from suppliers and recent Government announcements. A presentation has been shared and is available on request and the slides set out the updated plans for the same requirements Work Already Done Teacher Services supports digital services including: ● Professional Development for Teachers and Leaders Professional development for teachers and leaders (education.gov.uk) ● Get into Teaching Get tailored guidance in your inbox | Get Into Teaching GOV.UK (education.gov.uk) ● Apply for Teacher Training Create an account or sign in - Apply for teacher training - GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk) ● Teacher Vacancies Service Find a job in teaching - Teaching Vacancies - GOV.UK (teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk) ● Claim additional payments for teaching: https://www.claim-additional-teaching-payment.service.gov.uk/additional-payments/landing-page Existing Team The successful supplier/consortium will deliver outcomes in relation to the DDaT Profession Capability Framework Job Families for Technical Job Family and for Quality assurance testing (QAT) Job Family aligned with the Teacher Services programme. Typical size for a product team is up to ten, with a skills mix such as Product Manager, Delivery Manager, Business Analysts, Developers, Policy Designers, User Research and Designers, with support from Technical Architects & DevOps. Working with internal DfE staff and other suppliers from a range of disciplines including architecture, security, policy, user experience, service design, software development, finance and commercial to deliver the outcomes. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Detail recent experience of successful agile delivery in a multi programme digital, data and technology driven environment, delivering digital and data products/services to meet user needs and strategic objectives. • Demonstrate recent experience of taking products and services successfully through different phases of the delivery lifecycle and assessment process or similar including governance. • Demonstrate recent experience of successfully working to short lead times and changing demand when providing skilled Technical specialists/teams who could deliver the planned work to the required standard. • Detail recent experience of providing services to successfully support planning, creating, managing and operating cloud infrastructure. • Detail recent experience of providing services for the successful development, Technical Architecture and DevOps of agile projects using open-source tools and languages using both Ruby on Rails and .Net core. • Detail recent experience of successfully providing services in operational automation using Terraform. • Detail recent experience of providing services to support a successful Continuous Delivery approach to software development, including examples of tooling for pipelines, build automation, and test execution and reporting. • Detail recent experience of providing services to successfully build, support and manage containerised applications using Docker. • Experience of successfully operating performant digital services at scale. • Detail recent experience of providing services in Technical Architecture, including successful high level system design, technical project management, and engineering-focused oversight. • Evidence of working with clients to resolve performance issues promptly, transparently and collaboratively. • Evidence of experience successfully working in blended teams with digital delivery and policy civil servants/client staff, including supporting the professional development of civil servants/client staff where relevant. • Detail how you have created a blame-free, supportive culture around service outages and other incidents, documenting them and successfully learning from them. Nice to Haves • Evidence of successfully leading, coaching and upskilling people in agile methods and techniques in order to build internal capability . • Provide evidence of ability to successfully identify the right type of prototype for the situation and deliver low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes, including ability to prototype in code. • Detail recent experience of successfully using logging and monitoring tools, including the ELK stack. • Detail recent experience of contributing usefully to open-source software Work Location Remote working and DfE sites such as London, Manchester, Coventry, Bristol, and Nottingham. One primary location will be detailed in each SOW. Some co-locating will be required. Working Arrangments Day to day delivery will be governed by standard agile methodology, with appropriate ceremonies to be undertaken. The work will be primarily within blended Teams. By default, the SOWs will be inside IR35 but some may be outside, and we will seek both inside and outside rates. Scope and prioritisation of work is decided by the product owner with input from the Senior Responsible Owner. A requirement of each SOW will be to improve DfE internal capability via knowledge transfer. Security Clearance All supplier staff need Baseline Personnel Security Standard clearance – any enhanced security requirements will be detailed in the SOW. Suppliers must complete a supplier security assurance form. Work must be conducted securely in the United Kingdom. DfE will not sponsor higher security clearance than is necessary for the SOW. Additional T&Cs Standard Framework and Call-Off Terms and Conditions apply. Suppliers must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) May 2018; Data Protection Act 2018; Law Enforcement Directive and any subsequent amendments to date including providing sufficient guarantees to meet GDPR requirements in line with Procurement Policy Note 02/18 May 2018. Expenses must comply with DfE Travel and Subsistence Policy. Primary work locations stated in SoWs will not attract expenses. No parking is available. Contract and Supplier Management will form a key part of governance and suppliers will be expected to cooperate, fostering healthy working relationships and quality delivery. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Using examples from your experience, detail your approach to building and operating robust digital services which can adapt to emerging needs and requirements. (4.5%) • Using examples from your experience, detail your approach to communicating progress, timelines, and constraints effectively to a wide set of users and external stakeholders including at a senior level. (4.5%) • Using examples from your experience, detail your approach to contributing to a department or similar client’s software development community, guidance and best practice. (4.5%) • Using examples from your experience, detail your approach to introducing performance monitoring into a service (4.5%) • Using examples from your experience, detail your approach to making and influencing decisions based on user needs, available technology and value for money. (4.5%) • Using examples from your experience, detail your approach to training, coaching and transferring knowledge to permanent staff within a client organisation (4.5%) • How you would ensure undisrupted and frictionless continuous integration and continuous deployment for the services, including a proposal for different pre-production and testing environments. (4.5%) • Describe your approach and methodology to develop applications based on user needs in collaboration with multiple organisational stakeholders. (4.5%) • Provide an overview of your business structure, its operating model and how teams will be scaled up and down when needed. (4.5%) • Explain and evidence your processes for on-boarding and retention of resources, which meet our requirements for inside IR35 engagements and maintain continuity. (4.5%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Experience of collaboration with multiple organisational stakeholders, especially non-technical stakeholders, to achieve successful outcomes for both the organisation and users. (3.4%) • Describe how you will reinforce a culture of service and continuous improvement in all teams. (3.3%) • Describe how you will work transparently and collaboratively with the project teams and seek actionable feedback to resolve any issues quickly and efficiently. (3.3%) Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 45% Cultural fit 20% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please can you clarify the cultural fit criteria as there seem to be some missing? • (Social Value) Provide evidence of your approach to diversity and inclusion to identify and tackle inequality in employment, skills and pay. (3.4%) • (Social Value) Provide evidence of your approach to, and your ability to, manage the team's wellbeing. (3.3%) (Social Value) Provide evidence of your approach and commitment to the long-term sustainability of product approaches and digital delivery within the public sector or similar. (3.3%). 2. Can you define what “operational automation” means? Is this in the context of building infrastructure-as-code, establishing business process automation or something else? Detail recent experience of successfully providing services in operational automation using Terraform” - this refers to infrastructure-as-code. 3. Can you confirm latest start date is Monday 14 March *2023*. There seems to be an error in your listing. Yes, Monday 14th March 2023 is the start date. 4. "Please can we have a copy of the mentioned slides from the pre-market engagement event that was held in September 2022 All suppliers on the framework were sent the pre-engagement slides on Wednesday 7th December. The slides were sent from the following email address: matthew.jackson@education.gov.uk 5. We only provide Software Testing, Quality Engineering and Quality Assurance roles. Would a joint bid with a partner organisation be OK Yes, this is allowed as if accepted by the buyer as below. The supplier bidding for the procurement acts as the prime supplier contractually, subcontracting the other third parties for some of the work 6. Can you define what you mean by “operating” in this question: “Experience of successfully “operating” performant digital services at scale”. "Operating performant digital services" refers to service resilience, which may include aspects such as load handling, monitoring, and incident processes. 7. Can you define what you mean by “performance issues” in this question: “Evidence of working with clients to resolve performance issues promptly, transparently and collaboratively”. "Performance Issues" refers to issues with the performance of the product, such as bugs or defects. 8. In the question “Detail recent experience of providing services for the successful development, Technical Architecture and DevOps of agile projects using open-source tools and languages using both Ruby on Rails and.Net core.” are you looking for one example where Ruby and.Net were being used to deliver a single service or are you looking for one example for each? Within Teacher Services we are predominately Ruby but have some .Net core apps as well. You can provide one or more examples and should evidence either just Ruby, or both Ruby and .Net. 9. For clarity on this question. “Detail recent experience of providing services for the successful development, Technical Architecture and DevOps of agile projects using open-source tools and languages using both Ruby on Rails and.Net core.” – Will we get marked down for one example in juts Ruby on Rails? Or do we need to include a.Net example too? Within Teacher Services we are predominately Ruby but have some .Net core apps as well. You can provide one or more examples, but you must evidence both Ruby and .Net experience.  Please note, the essential criteria specified both Ruby and .Net, and so evidence of just Ruby will not meet the essential criteria.  The response to question 8  which referenced "just Ruby" was an error. 10. For clarity on this question. “Detail how you have created a blame-free, supportive culture around service outages and other incidents, documenting them and successfully learning from them”. – Are you looking for our processes around around service outages and other incidents? And how we’ve integrated with client internal teams to support and build confidence? Yes