Level 2 support for HM Passport Office Digital Services

Description

Summary of the work Deliver a service management function that meets performance, cost and functional service obligations as well as 2nd line engineering support, security monitoring services and common support services such as event monitoring. Expected Contract Length 2 years. Latest start date Tuesday 1 September 2020 Why the Work is Being Done HM Passport Office’s (HMPO) 2020 vision has moved passport applications online for the majority of customers. New online services require a continuation and development of robust Level 2 support provision. Problem to Be Solved HM Passport Office needs a service management function that meets performance, cost and functional service obligations as well as 2nd line engineering support, security monitoring services and common support services such as event monitoring that will deliver the following benefits: • Governance structures that link and demonstrate collaboration with the applications development and operational lifecycles • Correct routing of security incidents and events in the applications, hardware and operating systems • Performance and availability monitoring and data capture and capacity management • Log file management and job scheduling • Information governance: Provision of audit, archive and data reporting • Service transition: Delivery of service transition, integration and assurance capabilities to plan and transition new services for HMPO Provide Application and Operational Support for defined set of services integrated into Live Service Capabilities using common tools, shared knowledge and data. Provide a physical viewpoint of the service management for HMPO systems split into a geographical and architectural model. Ensure that the service and support systems are available to all operational areas as per current distribution of Home Office and other managed data centres across the United Kingdom on a 24/7 basis. Who Are the Users As part of the Digital Services Support Team, HM Passport Office needs to be able to confidently provide level 2 support to ensure the integrity and reliability of digital passport application services. Work Already Done Level 1 service desk is in place as a shared service. Level 2 Support is currently provided as a service. Level 3 Application support is provided by the development team. Existing Team There is currently a team of 12 staff providing Level 2 support. This is a mixture of Consultant Engineers, Technical Leads and DevOps Engineers. The supplier will be working with: - An existing shared Level 1 service desk. - Two mixed (multi-supplier and HMPO staff) software development teams building and improving the services - The Cloud platform team (multi-supplier and HMPO staff) providing development operations support to the teams and managing the production and pre-production platforms. The supplier will also be required to work with the other internal/ external organisations that have interfaces with the services being supported. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Experience providing support to services involving a high volume of transactions on a 24/7 basis. • Experience of Case Working Services in the following areas; Digital Application Processing, Investigation Case Work Management, processing applications from 3rd parties, providing a repository for policy and guidance documents. • Demonstrate experience of managing and supporting Platform Services that includes Video Interview services, and Access management for in house developed systems and hosting environments. • Proven ability to support print and personalisation services. This includes connectivity that enables 3rd parties to print documents, Shared Signing Systems using PKI technology and 2D Barcode. • Experience of managing and supporting the Following Data Services: Terminal Repository, Data Analytic Suites, Data Staging Facilities, Data Validation Applications, Life Events Verifications and Bulk Data processing Tools. • Experience providing application support and fault diagnostics to public-facing web services that enable applicants to validate and check their application data, report events and allow interfaces with 3rd parties. • Experience providing support to complex cloud-based applications using the following technologies: Java, JavaScript (Node.js), RabbitMQ, Kibana, and Grafana. • Experience providing support to government online services meeting the Digital Service Standard Nice to Haves • Experience providing Cyber Security and monitoring. • Stand up an established team who have a good working relationship –can work well together and blend their skills set to meet demanding objectives and deliver Level 2 Support. • Proven experience of working in an agile development environment • Experience providing incident support and contributing to problem management in ITIL-based service management Work Location HMPO Offices in London and Glasgow. Capacity required across 2 sites. People and services will be required to work in a distributed way. Working Arrangments We expect the supplier to: - Work collaboratively with the existing Level 2 support team and cross-functional teams transforming passport application provision - Align service design and development with the HMPO strategic technical architecture and technologies Security Clearance SC Clearance is required. HM Passport Office will support the clearance process No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 7 Proposal Criteria • Approach and methodology – the technical solution and how it would be set-up and maintained. • Estimated time frames for implementation. • Demonstration of Knowledge Management and how processes and procedures would be documented, and skills transferred to other staff/Civil Servants. • Identification of risks and dependencies and approaches to manage them. • Value for money • Evidence of ability to provide high quality professionals • Evidence of ability to manage team changes (eg succession planning/substitution plan) to minimise impact on service and costs. • Demonstrable experience of working in an Agile collaborative environment to deliver similar project(s) to a customer. Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Take responsibility for their work • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Share knowledge and experience with other team members. Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 15% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. The location for this post is London and Glasgow HMPO Offices in London and Glasgow. Capacity required across 2 sites. 2. Is there an incumbent in post? There is an incumbent in post. HM Passport Office is unable to advise if the incumbent will be submitting a bid. The incumbent may submit a bid should they so wish. The evaluation process will be fair and in line with policy. 3. Would you consider a partnership bid, where the lead contractor is on the framework? Yes. The lead contractor must act as the prime. The contract would sit with the prime and the partner would be a subcontractor to the prime. 4. Who is the incumbent? Automation Logic 5. As the DOS Call Off contract is a development contract and not a support contract; and moreover contains no terms of clauses for managed service, SLA’s or any reference to ITIL. Noting further that the addition of such clauses would clearly be material and not allowed under the regulations. Can you explain how you intend to use this development framework for support and why you are not using a support framework like Tech Services? The current contract is fulfilled using the DOS Outcomes Framework Agreement. It was agreed with the Commercial Team that we would re-procure these services using the same Framework Agreement.We used the following guide on the CCS Website to confirm that this route to market was still appropriate.https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-suppliers-guide 6. Will the incumbent providers team of 12, potentially be in scope for TUPE? The current contract is provided through the DOS Framework Agreement therefore TUPE will not apply to the new contract. 7. Can suppliers quote examples from HMPO as long as they address the specific skills / experience requested in the essential and nice to have criteria? Or will you mark us down for using examples from HMPO? Suppliers can quote HMPO examples and will not be marked down for doing so. 8. Please can you confirm the incumbent organisation you have in place currently? Automation Logic 9. Please can you confirm whether TUPE will apply given the nature of the services within scope and the nature and duration of this contract? The current contract is provided through the DOS Framework Agreement therefore TUPE will not apply to the new contract. 10. Essential skills and experience (2): '' Investigation Case Work Management'' – are you referring to a specific product or service or did mean experience around case work management and investigation? This refers to skills and experience in relation to generic applications that may be used to manage investigative casework. It is not supporting a web-site. 11. Nice to have skills and experience (1): Experience providing Cyber Security and monitoring – did you mean monitoring of Cyber security incidents / threats? Yes. The requirement is to monitor and manage all alerts and resolve all incidents including Cyber related ones. 12. Under ''Experience providing Cyber Security and monitoring'' – could you elaborate on what you mean by ''monitoring''? Using established dashboards to monitor and address pre-categorised security events and alerts for triage and assignment to appropriate resolver groups as defined by HMPO ITIL processes and associated service run-books. 13. ''Experience of managing and supporting the Following Data Services: Terminal Repository, Data Analytic Suites, Data Staging Facilities, Data Validation Applications, Life Events Verifications and Bulk Data processing Tools.'' – Could you elaborate on what you mean by Terminal Repository, Data Analytic Suites, Data Staging Facilities, Data Validation Applications and how they are used at HMPO currently? These are all specific HMPO applications:Term R = AWS hosted, serverless data platform which will host HO datasets for multiple applications access and use.DAS, DSF, DVA = a group of services that provide data manipulation, validation and analysis capabilities.Used for those purposes by HMPO. 14. In order to meet the desired procurement outcome, are there any specific areas of the current service that require improvements or enhancements? Ongoing automation of BAU support processes and continuous improvement. 15. Please provide an indication of the level of scaling/growth that may be required over the term? The DSST currently compromises:1xDM (independent contractor)1x Tech Lead3x Senior Ops5x Consulting Ops3x Junior Ops.It is anticipated that growth will be required to meet increasing demand as service transitions to live BAU support ramp up, protective monitoring remits establish, and certificate management demand is known.Difficult to quantify but likely to need + 4 Ops (2x Snr, 2x Cons) 16. Of the 12 resource's presently delivering the service are any in the scope of TUPE regulations i.e. due to length of service, proportion of time spent supporting HMPO? No - The current contract is provided through the DOS Framework Agreement therefore TUPE will not apply to the new contract. 17. Please can you clarify what, (if any), evaluation will be placed on the Presentation, which is stated under ‘Additional assessment methods’. The presentation will be assessed against the Essential and Nice to Have Skills. The request for written proposal will provide further details of the presentation stage. 18. Essential skills and Experience – Experience providing support to services involving a high volume of transactions on a 24/7 basis.Q. Please can you define what constitutes a ‘support service’ and provide indicative metrics on a ‘high volume of transactions’? The DSST provide L2 application support to 24/7 live services in accordance with extant run-books or through ongoing KT and run-book authoring as new services are transitioned to live.Current digital volumes are:c.10,400 customer transactions per day. For each of these there will be multiple feeds and queries between service components dependent on the requirements of each transaction.This is between 25 –33% of total applications for passports depending on seasonal variations.Moving forwards, the aim is to greatly increase the digital uptake of passport applications so future volumes will nudge ever upwards as new feature releases are made. 19. Essential skills and Experience – Experience of Case Working Services in the following areas; Digital Application Processing, Investigation Case Work Management, processing applications from 3rd parties, providing a repository for policy and guidance documents Q. We note that ‘Digital Application Processing’ and ‘Investigation Case Work Management’ are capitalised terms and refer to HMPO’s current application estate, please can you confirm that bidders (other than incumbent providers) are able to achieve full marks where they can demonstrate experience of delivering similar services. Yes, examples provided will be reviewed and judged based on their similarity to HMPO’s own services.You will only obtain 3/3 if you exceed the requirement. 20. What are the working time requirements of the support service? e.g. UK Business Hours with out-of-hours on-call for priority 1 Service hours are 24/7:Core hours 9am – 5pmOut of hours 9pm – 7am Mon-Sat & SunOoH on an on-call basis for P1s and P2s only.Ad hoc, but planned, BAU maintenance work at any hour to be covered. 21. Is it envisaged that the team will be working in a reactive, ticket-driven mode, or is the expectation of a continuous improvement/optimisation-based service? DSST services both reactive and proactive demands which need to be optimally managed and completed. It is additionally required that the supplier adds value through continuous improvement and automation activity subordinate to live service support. 22. What is the average monthly volume of support tickets expected to be addressed by the service? Current indicator is 305 per month, this includes SIT (security tickets), INC (incidents), JIRA (requests).It is expected that this volume may increase as more HMPO services transition into live support, but the increase is not predictable. 23. How much of the team will be split between London and Glasgow? The strategic intention is to site this service provision in Glasgow. The split will need to be worked out in line with other HMPO transformation activity. In the short term there will probably need to be at least a 50% London presence. 24. Are you looking at Glasgow becoming the central hub for this service in the long term? Yes. 25. Are you looking at fixed price for the entire contract? If so, what’s the outcome the chosen supplier will be delivering against and how do you see flexing up/down to work? Fixed Price for current defined services. Day rates linked to those used to obtain the fixed price for additional services if required. 26. Are you looking at fixed price for the entire contract or a fixed monthly fee (more like managed capacity) – please can you clarify? Fixed Price for current defined services. Day rates linked to those used to obtain the fixed price for additional services if required. 27. Hello, can you provide a brief explanation of each of the data services and their technology platform? Kind regards These are all specific HMPO applications:Term R = AWS hosted, serverless data platform which will host HO datasets for multiple applications access and use.DAS, DSF, DVA = a group of services that provide data manipulation, validation and analysis capabilities.Used for those purposes by HMPO.