DDaT20305 - BEIS - Digital Regulation Navigator Project Alpha Phase

Description

Summary of the work We are seeking a partner supplier for the Alpha phase of a digital service on GOV.UK for businesses with questions about applicable UK regulation, as part of the user journey for businesses. We require a multidisciplinary team to further develop 3 high-level service concepts into a viable, cost-effective service. Expected Contract Length Final outputs including exit arrangement completed by 31st March 2021 Latest start date Monday 30 November 2020 Budget Range The total maximum contract value shall not exceed £500,000.00 ex VAT. Suppliers should provide full and detailed breakdowns of costs. This should include staff (and day rate) allocated to specific tasks. Competitive costing will be a criterion against which bids which will be assessed. Payments will be linked to delivery of key milestones. The indicative milestones and phasing of payments will depend on your project plan. One core milestone would be passing an expected alpha assessment. These milestones can be adjusted and agreed with the contractor based on the tender response/details. Please indicate suitable milestones for payment in your bid. Why the Work is Being Done Small businesses are vital to the UK economy. However, small and medium business have cited regulations and red tape as the second biggest barrier to business success (BEIS Business Perception Survey 2018). Complying with regulation costs small businesses time and money they could spend on growing their business. The Digital Regulation Navigator (DRN) is a flagship project within the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) in BEIS that considers how digital solutions could make it easier for small and medium sized businesses, including start-ups and innovators, to find out what regulations apply to them, keep up to date with regulatory changes and navigate the UK regulatory landscape. We also want to ease regulatory burden by making it quicker and easier for businesses to get the right regulatory information at the right time, reducing the time and money they spend on complying with regulations and enabling a self-service approach. Following the completion of a successful Discovery phase, this tender for the Alpha phase requests further development of 3 high level future service concepts into a detailed, viable and cost-effective future service, working with users, GDS and other Departments. This work needs to be completed by 31st March 2021 including a successful wrap up. Problem to Be Solved We’re developing an interactive digital service improving access and understanding of business regulation. It should: ● Help businesses navigate information sources, signposting to easily accessible, user-specific information. ● Deliver a cohesive user journey, by joining up the local and national Government delivered business support landscape (e.g. Growth Hubs, Business Support Helpline). ● Collaborate with GDS to explore integration with their work to improve the user journey for ‘Starting and running a Business’, and GOV.UK accounts. ● Test and develop three high-level service concepts from Discovery into workable prototypes: o My Tracker – A personalised online tracker allowing businesses to manage their compliance activities across their lifetime. o My Finder – An online regulation finder service allowing businesses to identify which regulations apply to them, based on user input. o My Messenger – A chatbot handling high volume, low complexity questions about regulation, escalating to human advisors when needed. We are working towards a service which is usable by businesses across the UK, to inform them about all regulation relevant to them. In Alpha we want to refine the scope and value of this work, to deliver a viable, user-targeted, service-design, which can be implemented and improved over time. Who Are the Users In Alpha additional user research with businesses needs to be conducted to understand their needs further and help revise the scope of the service to prioritise these users and their needs appropriately. This will require close working with BEIS and other Government departments, including Cabinet Office, GDS and DIT. This work aims to support businesses to identify and apply UK regulation to their business and builds on 6 thematic areas of user needs identified in Discovery: 1. Give me the right information at the right time; 2. Make content personalised and relevant to my business; 3. Don’t make me do more than I have to; 4. Be my trusted advisor and make me feel assured; 5. Be my partner not my adversary (related to fear of regulators); 6. Make things action orientated and show me what I need to do. An example user story sitting underneath these themes, which applied across all 3 service concepts to be tested being: “As a small business I want to know if I am on top of my regulatory activities so that I don’t get fined." Work Already Done During Discovery in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 start-ups and SMEs alongside 25 industry experts on how they access, and problems they face, navigating the UK regulatory landscape. We developed 42 user stories designing and iteratively test 3 high level service concepts. Discovery highlighted a single tool could not meet user needs identified so suggested a suite approach. GDS is working across Government on improving the user journey for ‘Starting and running a Business’ on GOV.UK bringing information together in one place, reusing and personalising, personal details capitalising on journey-wide insights. Any solutions must align with GDS’ work. Existing Team BRE is leading a programme of three digital projects focusing on regulatory barriers. Relevant lessons learnt and user research will be shared across projects. You will be working with: ● A policy and project lead. ● The project’s senior responsible owner (SRO). ● A social researcher and a Digital Fast-Streamer to assist with Whitehall engagement, developing benefits/KPIs, analytical and user-driven appraisal and technical approach as needed. ● A delivery manager and specialist BEIS Digital support as needed. ● GDS’s discovery team on ‘starting a business’: Project, Policy and Delivery leads, Developers, Content and Service designers, User Researchers and Data Analysts. Current Phase Alpha Skills & Experience • Demonstrate your recent experience of designing services on GOV.UK, compliant with the Service Standard, including Service Design Manual, Technology Code of Practice, GOV.UK standards. (3%) • Demonstrate your recent experience of working jointly with Government and collaborating with GDS (3%) • Demonstrate your recent experience of working on or delivering a service or digital project involving regulation, describing the approach you took. (3%) • Demonstrate your recent experience of working with Government to successfully pass alpha assessments and deliver a successful alpha phase, describing the approach you took. (3%) • Demonstrate recent experience working on a service involving complex changing policy landscape (like the business support landscape), describing how service helped join up and simplify user journey. (2%) • Demonstrate your experience of prototyping a digital service designed to meet a variety of complex and unique user needs where SMEs and microbusinesses were the main users (2%) • Demonstrate your recent experience of delivering a digital service where the user experience involved highly personalised content. (1%) • Demonstrate ability being able recruit diverse and relevant set of users. Particularly interested in SMEs/microbusinesses/entrepreneurs from the 4 nations of UK including those with accessibility needs. (2%) Nice to Haves Demonstrate your recent experience of delivering services designed to deliver complex (and/or regulatory) information to users unfamiliar with the content. (1%) Work Location Due to the ongoing pandemic, this project will be conducted remotely using productivity solutions such as Microsoft Teams. The team has experience of delivering agile projects remotely having successfully completed Discovery in a similar way. We will keep working arrangements under review during the Alpha and make adjustments as needed. BEIS asks that it be given opportunities to review the work as it progresses, in order to react to any issues which may arise. The BEIS policy lead and delivery manager will be available to pick up issues with the supplier. Working Arrangments We will be working together remotely and expect a transparent and collaborative approach to working with you. We would expect all the usual agile ceremonies to be conducted regardless of work-mode including daily team stand-ups, end of sprint show and tells with a wide selection of stakeholders, end of day discussions between our lead and yours, end of sprint retrospectives etc. In Discovery we were successful at running these using Microsoft teams and other online collaboration tools. For virtual thought and whiteboard collaboration BEIS currently recommends Microsoft Whiteboard or any other suggestions subject to security clearance. Security Clearance BPSS clearance Additional T&Cs We would add an additional clause we also used in our Discovery phase which would allow the Alpha to be paused if needed due to a reason linked to the Covid-19 pandemic No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • How your proposed team’s technical expertise, solution, approach and methodology will ensure the successful delivery of this project. (8%) • Demonstrate how your team’s approach and solution will take high-level service concepts develop them into workable future service prototypes which meets GDS’ Service Standards and other relevant standards (8%) • Proposed team structure and staff expertise (7%) • Project plan and timescales proposed for the work (8%) • Provide details of the key risks and a plan for mitigating against them (5%) • Knowledge transfer into BRE (4%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Approach to ways of working with BRE staff in a transparent and collaborative way 100% remotely. (4%) • Involve BRE staff in key decisions and quality control of work (3%) • Challenge assumptions and status quo (3%) Payment Approach Fixed price Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Procurement timeframe The anticipated procurement timeframes are as follows:Tuesday 3rd November 2020 – Notification of shortlisting outcomeTuesday 10th November 2020– Written proposal deadlineWednesday 18th November 2020– Notification of award outcome 2. Could you please advise who conducted the Discovery work? Deloitte Digital 3. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold? Details of the panel will be available if shortlisted. Likely panel is project lead, the local Delivery Manager and another digital specialist with relevant experience and skills 4. Who is the incumbent and how long they have been the incumbent? There is no incumbent. Deloitte Digital worked with us on discovery between March and May 2020. 5. Can you please confirm who delivered the discovery? I believe Deloitte won the work (https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital-outcomes-and-specialists/opportunities/11493), but this alpha advertisement suggest GDS delivered the discovery. Deloitte Digital. GDS' work is a separate project we will need to deliver closely alongside 6. Is there an incumbent supplier who has been involved in anything related to this project so far? For example, the supplier who conducted the discovery phase. Deloitte Digital worked with us on discovery between March and May 2020. Currently no incumbent. 7. Has another supplier been involved in any capacity (e.g., helping to draft the specification for this opportunity) or will they be involved in any capacity in the selection process? Only civil servants from BEIS and GDS contributed towards the specification and the panel will only be as such too. 8. Are you using standard scoring and, if so, how does a supplier achieve a 3 versus a 2 on this opportunity for the essential and nice-to-haves? If you are not using standard scoring, can you please explain your scoring methodology? I can confirm that the standard scoring for this requirement is being used. So on the basis of your answer in order to score a 2 would mean that your response to the question has "met" the requirement. If you score a 3 then this means that your answer to the question has "exceeded" expectations. Full guidance on this scoring methodology can be found on the Digital Marketplace / DOS website. 9. Has this opportunity been advertised before and, if so, why was it not successful? This is the first time that the Alpha phase of this requirement has been advertised 10. Which supplier was engaged for the discovery phase? Deloitte Digital 11. Has there been any pre-market engagement and, if so, which suppliers have been engaged with? There was no pre-market engagement undertaken for this procurement 12. Just for clarity, can you confirm that at this point you do not require a full written proposal or commercial structure? And that you only require the answers to the essential technical questions and the nice-to-have optional question. If shortlisted then we will be expected to submit the full written proposal with commercials. I can confirm that at this stage this requirement has not yet reached the full written proposal stage or commercial structure. This requirement is currently in the shortlisting stage where responses are received based on essential and nice-to-have skills and then suppliers are shortlisted into a final 5 to take forward to the award stage where a written proposal will be required. 13. Can you publish the discovery work (or at least some, themes and stories) so suppliers can more appropriately respond to the requirements. A defined set of outputs will be published at the written proposal stage for the 5 shortlisted suppliers 14. Do you have a specific focus sector that you have prioritised for this Alpha phase? No, we will work with the successful supplier to ascertain the most pertinent sectors, if applicable. 15. Have you already established relationships with other government agencies (e.g. Regulators) that are sector specific? Is there a preference during the Alpha phase? Some stakeholder engagement has already been undertaken during the Discovery phase and our Whitehall Engagements team maintains relationships with Other Government Departments and Regulators.  Targeted use of these networks could maximise engagement during Alpha. 16. Are you expecting a connector to legislation.gov.uk to be developed during the Alpha phase? Do you expect a connector to be developed into the gov.​uk site? We would like to explore what integration with GOV.UK would look like during Alpha. For example, this might include considering viable connectors and/or developing a test API 17. Can you please explain in more detail what you are looking for in an answer to this question: 'Demonstrate ability being able recruit diverse and relevant set of users. Particularly interested in SMEs/microbusinesses/entrepreneurs from the 4 nations of UK including those with accessibility needs.' Within the answer you will need to demonstrate your ability to work with a diverse range of users to conduct research for example develop and test prototypes to ensure that they identify and address different user requirements. Diversity of users includes the size and nature of businesses (SMEs, microbusinesses and entrepreneurs) as well as geographical diversity (across the UK). 18. During discovery BEIS identified three service concepts were developed: My Tracker, My Finder and My Messenger. Are BEIS looking for a partner supplier to develop service models which sit across these concepts or is the aspiration to develop service models within these concepts separately? We are open to suggestions as to how best to deliver the three concepts and whether the supplier feels that they would be operable as a joint service or would be better as three separate products. However, the proposed solution must provide a seamless user journey that works in synergy with a digital project being developed by the Government Digital Service in line with GOV.UK guidelines. 19. If Deloitte Digital are eligible to bid for this opportunity, can the outputs of the discovery be shared so Deloitte Digital do not have a competitive advantage. We will be providing all relevant outputs from the Discovery at the written proposal stage for the 5 shortlisted suppliers. 20. If Deloitte Digital are eligible to bid for this work then what steps will you take to stop them having a direct advantage (for example they have access to the discovery output including the 42 user stories)? This requirement has been published in accordance with the Public Contract Regulations 2015 (PCR) to ensure fair, open competition. All suppliers have been provided the same information and will be assessed against same criteria as stated in contract notice.  All relevant outputs from the Discovery will be published at written proposal stage for the 5 shortlisted suppliers so no supplier will have a direct advantage. Feedback on bidders’ responses will be provided to the successful and the unsuccessful bidders after the responses have been evaluated. This opportunity is open to all capable suppliers on the Digital Outcomes and Specialists framework. 21. Will BEIS be providing support for the recruitment of SME/businesses for user research/design/testing? We would expect the successful supplier to recruit participants in user research/design/testing. BEIS colleagues will contribute to the development of any materials that will be used with participants. 22. Can we provide more than one example of how we meet your criteria in response to each question please? For example, we may have 2-3 examples of how we can demonstrate your criteria relating to recruiting SME users. Bidders can provide as many examples as they are able within the word limit. 23. Has the supplier who was engaged in the Discovery Phase (Deloitte Digital) already been selected to engage in the Alpha Phase or are they also eligible to bid for this opportunity? No supplier has been selected to engage in the Alpha Phase, this is what this opportunity is for. This DOS opportunity is open to any supplier who is currently on cohort four of the DOS framework. 24. What are the outputs from the discovery phase – can we be provided access them? A defined set of outputs will be published at the written proposal stage for the 5 shortlisted suppliers. 25. A requirement is to 'deliver a cohesive journey' – is the intention to pull in data from other Gov systems rather than signposting the user to other sites/ resources? If the former then how many systems are in scope? Data can be pulled in from other sites / resources, but output data needs to be made available for GOV.UK to use via a digital solution e.g. an Application Programming Interface. GOV.UK will also pull in information from Companies House via its API, and work with the GOV.UK Account as this moves into production. 26. A requirement is to 'deliver a cohesive journey' – is the intention to pull in data from other Gov systems rather than signposting the user to other sites/ resources? If the former then how many systems are in scope? Data can be pulled in from other sites / resources, but output data needs to be made available for GOV.UK to use via a digital solution e.g. an Application Programming Interface. GOV.UK will also pull in information from Companies House via its API, and work with the GOV.UK Account as this moves into production. 27. A requirement is to 'deliver a cohesive journey' – is the intention to pull in data from other Gov systems rather than signposting the user to other sites/ resources? If the former then how many systems are in scope? Data can be pulled in from other sites / resources, but output data needs to be made available for GOV.UK to use via a digital solution e.g. an Application Programming Interface. GOV.UK will also pull in information from Companies House via its API, and work with the GOV.UK Account as this moves into production. 28. A requirement is to 'deliver a cohesive journey' – is the intention to pull in data from other Gov systems rather than signposting the user to other sites/ resources? If the former then how many systems are in scope? Data can be pulled in from other sites / resources, but output data needs to be made available for GOV.UK to use via a digital solution e.g. an Application Programming Interface. GOV.UK will also pull in information from Companies House via its API, and work with the GOV.UK Account as this moves into production. 29. Have any technology choices been made for the project? Not at present - we are open to suggestions from the successful supplier 30. Is there an organisational strategy for technology that should be followed for this phase? If so, can you provide details of this? Services built on and accessible via GOV.UK have to adhere to the service standards. You can find out more in our service manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual. GOV.UK is moving towards containerised applications running in ECS Fargate. Most are written in Rails.