Teaching Workforce Directorate Portfolio – Data Transformation, Data Management and related Services

Description

Summary of the work DfE requires a supplier or consortium with exceptional knowledge of data architecture to join up and analyse transactional service data to drive better decision making in the Department, and enhance Department’s data and digital services aligned to GDS standards. Capabilities required from the ‘Data’ and the ‘Technical’ job family Expected Contract Length 2 years with the option to extend up to 6 months if required subject to DfE governance approvals. Latest start date Monday 3 April 2023 Budget Range The contract period of 2 years has an indicative contract value up to £2,912,000 excluding VAT. Budget approval is subject to Cabinet Office spending controls, service assessments and internal DfE governance. Each Statement of Work (SOW) will outline the work package required, associated budget and payment approach. Suppliers will need to provide clear costs to enable tracking. DfE does not commit to any minimum spend. A pricing template will be provided to shortlisted suppliers at proposal stage. Why the Work is Being Done This portfolio will support the Department for Education’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. DfE are looking for a supplier to support the delivery of this programme of work and its associated outcomes by delivering strategic data transformation and data-related work packages. This requirement is for fully outsourced services out of scope of IR35. Problem to Be Solved The Department for Education is committed to becoming data, evidence and expertise driven. The Strategic Data Transformation Programme forms a central part of this. The aim of the programme is to think ahead, collect the right data, harness the benefits of data, share insights, maximise use, and continuously innovate and improve. The programme will be developing new services and infrastructure to meet emerging priorities. It is essential to collect relevant, proportionate data from the outset, and document, share and use it appropriately. Teacher Services use data sets across service lines to deliver more user focussed services and improve features. These Teacher service lines help improve understanding of how an individual might move from expressing an interest through to training, qualifying, career progression and ultimately retirement. The supplier will be required to support DfE with rich, timely and accurate data on teacher career paths. This will enable DfE to develop and understand the impact that a given service or policy has had, or could have in the future, on that career path. Outcomes will transform how DfE use performance data to improve services, policies and gather insights to Teacher Services 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. The Strategic Data Transformation programme will support the Departments priorities to inform policy change and drive the delivery of user-centred services to ensure 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 on the DSP framework but a copy of the slides were issued to all DOS suppliers 7th December to provide a detailed background all the requirements. We have since developed our procurement strategy following feedback from suppliers and recent Government announcements. A presentation has been shared and the slides set out the updated plans for the requirements. Work Already Done Teacher Services supports digital services including: ● 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) ● Find Postgraduate Teacher Training Courses Find postgraduate teacher training courses - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ● Claim additional payments for teaching: https://www.claim-additional-teaching-payment.service.gov.uk/additional-payments/landing-page Existing Team This is a new requirement. There is no existing team or incumbent supplier. Technical Teams involved in the programme across internal DfE staff and other Suppliers comprise skills and expertise from a range of disciplines including but not limited to: architecture, product managers, engineers, security, policy, user experience, service design, software development, finance and commercial to deliver the outcomes set out within individual Statements of Work. The successful supplier or consortium for this contract will deliver outcomes in relation to the full scope of the Data job family in the Profession Capability Framework in alignment with the Teacher Services programme. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Evidence of successful agile delivery working closely with policy colleagues in complex multi programme DDaT driven environments, delivering digital and data products/services to meet user needs and strategic objectives. • Evidence of supporting organisations to understand benefits of analytical data, data-science, and collaboration techniques used to identify user needs, develop and deliver data-science products and solutions resulting in improved decisions • Experience of successfully implementing a data warehouse like Google BigQuery, to collect/transform data for analysis using data science techniques. Include evidence that you set up/applied appropriate governance measures. • Demonstrable experience using data science techniques and building solutions, including reports, models, and dashboards to successfully change behaviours and decision- making of data consumers, and achieve innovative outcomes for organisations • Explain your approach to data science. Include details of processes and tools and how you monitor and measure the impact of your work • Demonstrate experience of evolving/defining data governance with empowered agile teams at programme level. Include supporting/collaborating around wider governance within that organisation and what this enabled you to deliver. • Explain your approach to ensuring that the transactional data that is an input to any analytical or data science-based solutions (machine learning etc.) is of sufficient quality. • Demonstrate your experience of analysing transactional data architectures across multiple digital services and how you recommended and implemented positive changes to these architectures/data models without adversely affecting service delivery. • Provide evidence of migrating data structures from SAAS products such as customer relationship management systems to well-designed data platforms • Explain your approach to evidence of effectively communicating actionable insights and findings to audiences with differing levels of data literacy. Nice to Haves • Describe how you analyse failure within a service and your approach to identifying and resolving root causes whilst advocating for change through documentation. • Explain how you will report, monitor and measure the impact of emerging trends in data tools, analysis techniques and data usage within the contract • Give evidence of successfully coaching people in data analysis skills and tools, including outcomes you have helped them achieve Work Location The Supplier shall deliver the services remotely on its own premises. The Supplier may request onsite working. The Buyer shall consider such requests and may at its absolute discretion agree onsite working arrangements with the Supplier. The primary location will be detailed in each Statement of Work (SoW) DfE sites include London, Manchester, Coventry, Bristol, and Nottingham. There is no parking. All work must be conducted in line with the Buyer’s security policy and securely within in the United Kingdom. Working Arrangments Detailed working arrangements will be contained within each Statement of Work. Each Statement of Work (SOW) will outline the expected outcomes, associated budget, and payment approach. Each work package will set out a knowledge transfer deliverable to improve DfE internal capability, build and support the applications/services, and provide business continuity of services. The Supplier will be expected to scale and flex at pace to demand. Security Clearance DfE requires all supplier staff to have Baseline Personnel Security Standard clearance – enhanced security requirements will be detailed in the individual SOW. Work must be conducted securely in the United Kingdom. DfE will not sponsor higher security clearance than is necessary for the individual 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. Consortia bids welcome. Suppliers invited to Stage 2 Proposal will be issued with a Financial Risk Viability Assessment Tool, this document must be completed. Contract and Supplier Management will form a key part of governance arrangements and suppliers will be expected to cooperate, fostering healthy working relationships and quality delivery. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Please note: Stage 1: Essential Criteria: Pass/Fail and Stage 2 Proposal: Scored according to criteria set out below: • Methodology and approach to delivery of Data Transformation, Management and related Data Services • Technical Merit • Methodology and approach to delivering innovation and value for money in Data Services • Methodology and approach to change and continuous improvement in a Data Services environment • Methodology and approach to risk, security, good practice, standards within Data Services Cultural Fit Criteria • Methodology and approach to collaboration, transparency and knowledge transfer • Methodology and approach to drive behavioural and cultural change • Methodology and approach to working with clients with differing levels of technical expertise • Social Value: Methodology and approach to wellbeing, diversity and inclusion and tackling inequality • Social Value: Methodology and approach to sustainability • Please note: Cultural fit will be weighted at 10% and Social Value 10% Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 45% Cultural fit 20% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you advise how we can gain access to the Early Market Enagagement presentation and the slides setting out the updated plans for the requirements? Please raise a clarification and include your contact email details as the messages we receive are anonymised. 2. Can you share the Early Market Enagagement presentation and the slides setting out the updated plans for the requirements.Can you share as shared document (google doc, etc...).Or please provide your email, so we will send request in email. Please raise another clarification and include your contact email details as the messages we receive are anonymised. 3. Can you provide more specific information on the data sets that will be used for this program? The purpose of this programme is to use data to deliver efficiencies in existing services, and provide better quality, up-to-date data about the teaching workforce in England and allow DfE to create better policies without having to incur additional costs. 4. How will the data collected be used to inform policy change and improve services for teachers? The data will enable DfE to deliver user centred services whilst transforming the way people become teachers, improve their user experiences and the support they receive at each step of their career. It will enable new policies and user journeys to be added to the service in a faster and more cost-effective way. 5. Can you provide more details on the technical expertise required for this project and what type of team will be needed to deliver the outcomes? We are seeking capabilities from the ‘Data’ and the ‘Technical’ job family. Details of the skills and expertise these roles require can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/digital-data-and-technology-profession-capability-framework Our indicative requirement will be at a senior level. 6. Can you provide more information on the pre-market engagement event that was held, and the feedback that was received from suppliers? There is a PowerPoint for suppliers detailing our requirements and which incorporates feedback from suppliers. The slides were sent to DOS 5 suppliers. Please raise a clarification and include your contact email details as the messages we receive are anonymised if you require a copy. 7. Please can you confirm the desired technology platform, i.e, Microsoft, AWS, Google? The desired technology is Google BigQuery. 8. What are the timelines for this project and what are the deliverables that are expected to be completed at each stage? The deliverables and the associated timescales / milestones for each deliverable will be set out within each Statement of Work (SOW). 9. Could you clarify what you mean by SaaS products. Are you referring to inter cloud migrations or on prem to cloud? Inter-cloud moves, for example moving data from a Microsoft Azure hosted Dynamics CRM to another cloud database. 10. Roughly how many individuals do you expect the awarded supplier(s) to deploy at peak demand? This will be a two year contract and the demand will scale up and down over the life time of the contract. 11. How many workstreams do you expect the awarded supplier(s) to be working on concurrently? This contract will be awarded for two years and the number of concurrent workstreams will scale up and down throughout at that time scale. 12. Do you have any SLAs for deploying teams? We will use Statements of Work to provide the lead time, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and milestones. We will also provide a draft copy of the order form and contract to suppliers at stage two. 13. Are DfE open to other technologies? Or is google bigquery already embedded and is a strategic data platform in DfE? No to other technologies for this requirement as it is already live and in production. 14. Explain your approach to data science. Include details of processes and tools and how you monitor and measure the impact of your work” is asking for an approach rather than evidence – is this correct? Answering this in 100 words is quite challenging. The Suppliers approach should detail evidence in the response. Shortlisted Suppliers at Stage 2 will be expected to provide their detailed approach to the Contract. It is up to the Supplier to determine how best to respond to the criteria that provides evidence of capability within the set word count. 15. Explain your approach to ensuring that the transactional data that is an input to any analytical or data science-based solutions (machine learning etc.) is of sufficient quality.” is asking for an approach rather than evidence – is this correct? Answering this in 100 words is quite challenging The Suppliers approach should detail evidence in the response. Shortlisted Suppliers at Stage 2 will be expected to provide their detailed approach to the Contract. It is up to the Supplier to determine how best to respond to the criteria that provides evidence of capability within the set word count. 16. Explain your approach to evidence of effectively communicating actionable insights and findings to audiences with differing levels of data literacy” is asking for an approach rather than evidence – is this correct? Answering this in 100 words is quite challenging. The Suppliers approach should detail evidence in the response. Shortlisted Suppliers at Stage 2 will be expected to provide their approach to the Contract. It is up to the Supplier to determine how best to respond to the criteria that provides evidence of capability within the set word count. 17. Describe how you analyse failure within a service and your approach to identifying and resolving root causes whilst advocating for change through documentation.” is asking for an approach / process rather than a specific example of where this has been provided. Answering this in 100 words is quite challenging. The Suppliers approach should provide evidence in the response. Shortlisted Suppliers at Stage 2 will be expected to provide their detailed approach to the Contract. It is up to the Supplier to determine how best to respond to the criteria that provides evidence of capability within the set word count. 18. Explain how you will report, monitor and measure the impact of emerging trends in data tools, analysis techniques and data usage within the contract” typically we would expect to explain our methodology and approach at the next stage of the bid process when more information has been shared with us, so that we can adapt to better meet client needs. Please clarify if you prefer a evidence for where we have done this or an approach? The Suppliers approach should provide evidence in the response. Shortlisted Suppliers at Stage 2 will be expected to provide their detailed approach to the Contract. It is up to the Supplier to determine how best to respond to the criteria that provides evidence of capability within the set word count. 19. Will additional travel expenses be provided for client onsite working if the work is remote? Travel expenses will not apply for outside IR35 work arrangements 20. Please can you confirm if the presentation referred to in Early Market Engagement section is the document named ‘Second Market Engagement pack – Teacher Services Digital’? Yes the name is just how it is locally stored. 21. Are there any learnings/points of improvement from the implementation of services referenced in the section ‘Any work that’s already been done’? Teacher Services build upon the service ownership model and will continue to innovate, experiment, challenge, and iterate user centred services. 22. Please confirm what level of knowledge transfer is expected on the programme in relation to the requirement of ‘approach to collaboration, transparency and knowledge transfer’. Is this limited to the programme or is this more of a holistic knowledge transfer of how data can and should be used across all areas of DfE? Each Statement of Work will set out the commensurate level of knowledge transfer and the methods to do this expected for that programme. It could include specific knowledge transfer or a more holistic knowledge transfer. 23. Please can you explain what exactly is meant by “Evidence of successful agile delivery working closely with policy colleagues”? A fundamental part of Teacher Services is the belief that policy and delivery should be seen as one and the same. We seeks a supplier that can deliver within this agile model. 24. Please confirm if there are standard governance measures which are already established and deemed appropriate. Are you able to share any documentation around these? A draft copy of the contract will be shared at the second stage, This will include governance. There are other standards to adhere to, including https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-standard and https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/agile-government-services-introduction 25. 'Experience of successfully implementing a data warehouse like Google BigQuery, to collect/transform data for analysis using data science techniques. Include evidence that you set up/applied appropriate governance measures’ – please clarify what type of governance is being referred to here please? i.e. Project/data/quality This is mainly Data and Technical governance, although delivering any service for DfE will involve a level of project/service governance. 26. This is mainly Data and Technical governance, although delivering any service for DfE will involve a level of project/service governance. All decision making is in line with Government and DfE best practice and legislation. That will include researching appropriate tools, testing proof of concepts, and ensuring the product met user needs and technical requirements 27. Who will operate and maintain the Data Warehouse after the project concludes? The data insights team. 28. Is there a preference to use technical tools which are already in use across the DfE? If so, what are they? Yes, the preference are in broad terms: Ruby On Rails / .Net, PostgreSQL, Google Big Query, Terraform, Docker, AKS. This is not an exhaustive list, but all our source code is open and available to view on GitHub here: https://github.com/DFE-Digital 29. Please can you confirm what the Department for Education considers as transactional data as referenced in the section ‘Summary of the Work’? DfE consider transactional data to be the data used to run the service, i.e. the data stored in the databases directly coupled to the digital user interface that describes user transactions as opposed to analytical data that we define as data used for data analytical / reporting purposes. 30. If DfE requests onsite working, as described in “Work Setup” within the DOS notice, will travel expenses be permitted in this scenario? The Supplier shall deliver the services remotely on its own premises.The Supplier may request onsite working. The Buyer shall consider such requests and may at its absolute discretion agree onsite working arrangements with the Supplier. This will be on a case by case basis 31. In the fifth and tenth essential, and the first and second nice-to-have skills and experience questions, you ask for descriptions and explanations. Can you please confirm that you are not expecting case studies for these 100-word responses? You can use references to evidence/experience in the way that you set out your response. Given the word limits it expected that your response would be in summary form. Shortlisted Suppliers at Stage 2 will be expected to provide their detailed approach to the Contract. It is up to the Supplier to determine how best to respond to the criteria that provides evidence of capability within the set word count. 32. Would the Authority be able to confirm when it expects to release an ITT to Suppliers that are successful at Stage 1 evaluation? The DfE anticipates that it shall notify suppliers shortlisted to Stage 2 Proposal week commencing 20th February 2023. This is indicative only. 33. Please confirm the Essential criteria in Stage 1 are scored as Pass/Fail and not scored as 1 to 3 Essential criteria at Stage 1 is scored 0-3 with the 5 highest scored suppliers invited to Stage 2 proposal, the Suppliers must meet all the essential criteria but Stage 2 proposal is scored and also weighted. Scores at Stage 1 are not weighted. 34. Is the Authority able to please confirm its anticipated timeframes between Contract Award and work starting/mobilisation? The DfE is working towards an indicative timeline for an award late March, early April and a contract mobilisation of April but cannot confirm timeframes. All decisions are subject to due diligence. There are a number of procurements running consecutively for the Teacher Services Portfolio which means flexibility is required. 35. Would the Authority please confirm who will be on the Evaluation Panel scoring the question responses? (not names just job titles please)? There will be 3 panel members who all obtain the required technical skills, experience and in depth knowledge for this requirement and work to be delivered in this area. 36. Can you please share, or direct suppliers to any further information on the “Strategic Data Transformation Programme” you reference in the “Problem to be Solved” section of the DOS notice? The Governement's roadmap for digital and data is here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/roadmap-for-digital-and-data-2022-to-2025/transforming-for-a-digital-future-2022-to-2025-roadmap-for-digital-and-data. This blog from a recent Teacher Services Deputy Director also provides insight https://dfedigital.blog.gov.uk/tag/teaching-services/ 37. The third essential skills and experience question describes “implementing a data warehouse like Google BigQuery”, whilst a recent clarification question response states that “the desired technology platform is Google BigQuery”. Could you please confirm whether any other platforms are allowable? Experience on other platforms may be relevant but Google BigQuery is the existing stack and the platform that is allowable. 38. Can DfE confirm the primary interfaces and any adjacent projects or programmes with which the team will have to collaborate during the course of this Contract? Teacher Services Division supports digital services for prospective and current teachers, schools, colleges, and training providers. The supplier team will be supporting DfE Teacher Services Division to deliver support for those users accessing online digital services, some of which are listed in the ‘Any work that’s already been done’ section above.