Website design and build for Cafcass

Description

Summary of the work The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) need help to design/build a website to help Children, Families, Professionals, potential or current employees access information about Cafcass. The appointed supplier is expected to complete the Discovery, Alpha, and Beta stages of the project and deploy a Live service Expected Contract Length One year Latest start date Monday 8 August 2022 Why the Work is Being Done The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) need help to design and build a website to better help Children, Families, Professionals, and potential or current employees access information about Cafcass and the work we do. The appointed supplier is expected to complete the Discovery, Alpha, and Beta stages of the project and deploy the website into the Live service (see the additional information section below). Cafcass aren't tied to a particular technology or CMS, the hosting service will be procured during the website build so that it is ready for the Live release. The appointed supplier for this tender will also be expected to input into hosting requirements. We have begun our next phase of Digital Transformation, striving to make best use of the resources we have by driving improvement through technical innovation. This 'Online Services' project is one of four strands within our Digital Transformation Programme. In addition, the current Cafcass website contract ends towards the end of 2022 and stakeholder engagement has identified a number of areas of improvement which warrant a website rebuild. Problem to Be Solved We want to work with a partner to build a website by January 2023. www.cafcass.gov.uk is a popular website which serves multiple types of visitors. We recently conducted a stakeholder survey which rated the overall perception of the website in the Good Average category. We are looking to provide a contemporary replacement which improves this rating by ensuring our target audiences are at the heart of the design and build process. We want the website to: > be the place where the Children, Families, and Professionals we work with can easily find the information they need to > be accessible and engaging for all audiences on all devices > be a tool to attract and recruit new talent > signpost people to other services > provide content that is tailored to the target audiences The website must comply with the requirements of Cyber Essentials, the GDPR, and the WCAG (2.1 to level AA). The site must also align to the Government technology code of practice, standards and guidance. As part of the project you’ll need to ensure that Cafcass site administrators and content managers are fully skilled up, so that we can manage the website after your involvement has finished. Who Are the Users Children & Young People Cafcass are appointed to ensure the voice of the child is heard during court proceedings. Children may be going through an adoption process, care proceedings or their parents may be separating which has led to court involvement. The target age group for this audience category is: 8 > 18 Parents, Guardians, Carers, and other Family Members These are the responsible adults involved in the court proceedings, or their relatives Professionals Professional who may visit our website looking for information include: Social worker, legal professionals, DAPP Professionals, SPIP Facilitators, Support workers, FGC Coordinators, Charity workers and staff from other agency we work with Job Seekers People looking for employment with Cafcass Cafcass Staff People working for Cafcass who may be looking for information themselves or to signpost other people to. Early Market Engagement Not required Work Already Done Cafcass have completed initial stakeholder consultation to identify the requirements identified here and those which potential providers reaching the assessment stage will be expected to respond to. In addition to this Cafcass have completed an initial card sort excersize to identify categories for content to help inform the information architecture. Both of these processes have been completed to help inform the procurement and Discovery stages. The supplier is expected to use this input and complete the Discovery, Alpha, Beta and deploy the website into the Live service (see the additional information section below). Existing Team The supplier will be working primarily with the Online Services project team and our stakeholder groups; > Head of Communications (Senior Responsible Officer) > Senior Communications Manager (Business Lead) > IT Programme Manager (Project Manager) > IT Technical Analyst > Communications officer(s) > Cafcass' managed IT service provider > Stakeholder groups (such as the Children and Families we support, Cafcass Staff, Interested professionals such as; social and legal workers) Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Significant experience and expertise in UX and user led website design • Significant experience and expertise of developing digital services which engage Children as a target audience • Significant experience and expertise of developing digital services that are accessible for everyone on any device • Significant experience and expertise of developing digital services that adhere to the Government technology code of practice, standards and guidance • Significant experience and expertise of developing digital services using industry standard, non-proprietary, Content Management Systems (CMS) Nice to Haves • Experience of bringing innovative ideas to business problems when designing digital solutions • Good understanding of public and/or voluntary sector organisations delivering front line services to children and families, and the pressures facing staff in such organisations Work Location We anticipate the team will be primarily remote. Our head office is based in London. Working Arrangments The team will work remotely and communicate via Microsoft Teams, Email and Telephone. Some site visits may be required to support the Discovery phase. Security Clearance Not required Additional T&Cs The intention is that a separate procurement process will be conducted for the hosting and live support of the website. The supplier of this contract is expected to take the website through the build process and deploy to the Live environment. This tender excludes hosting and support of the live service. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria Functional criteria to be provided to shortlisted suppliers (58%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Fighting climate change Please outline your company’s sustainability policy, including but not limited to, your plans for ensuring that your company has net zero, or negative greenhouse gas emissions (2%) • Equality, – tackling economic inequality Please explain how your company will help tackle inequality by creating employment and training opportunities for disadvantaged groups, disadvantaged young people (2%) • Equality, diversity and inclusion – reducing the disability employment gap Please outline what you have done to increase the representation of disabled people in your workforce (2%) • Equality, diversity and inclusion – tackling workforce inequality Outline your company’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy and explain what steps you have recently undertaken to promote this agenda. (2%) • Collaboration Please describe the steps you would take to ensure you collaborated effectively with Cafcass staff and staff from our IT suppliers (2%) • Health and wellbeing Please describe your company’s health and wellbeing policies, and what steps you take to ensure that they are being positively applied across your workforce (2%) Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 58% Cultural fit 12% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please could you clarify the available budget for this project? Budget is secured, but Cafcass prefer not to declare the amount. Providers should ensure their cost proposal offers as best value as possible to Cafcass. 2. Do you have any preference on CMS system? Cafcass aren't tied to a particular technology or CMS, the hosting service will be procured during the website build so that it is ready for the Live release. The appointed supplier for this tender will also be expected to input into hosting/CMS requirements. It is however important that the solution is based on an industry standard, non-proprietary CMS as opposed to a custom-built CMS. 3. Do you have any information as to the functionality and features of the website from your discovery or can we take the scope being similar to the existing functionality on the current website? We have completed a scoping exercise and identified the detailed functional requirements, suppliers making it through the initial sift will receive these via email to respond to as their written proposal. 4. Could you let us know what is in scope for the current Discovery phase, including the expected outputs? Scope and outputs are as defined in the Government service manual (copy & paste link below):https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-workshttps://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works 5. Could you advise how you see the completion of the discovery phase within this procurement? We are not clear what this question is asking. If you could clarify we would be happy to respond. 6. What are your expected timelines through to project start? Our broad timeline is to commence on Monday 8 August 2022, and to be live with the website within 6 months. 7. Are you looking for a change of CMS platform? Cafcass are not tied to a particular technology or CMS and are happy to learn how to use a new CMS. It is however important that the solution is based on an industry standard, non-proprietary CMS as opposed to a custom-built CMS. 8. By “non-proprietary” do you mean open source? We would like to avoid CMS which have been custom built by the web developer. We may need to migrate between hosting and support providers in the future, and therefore need to avoid being tied to a single provider. 9. What is the size of your team of site administrators and content managers? Approximately 12 personnel will be involved in administration and content management. 10. Does the contract end for your current website service represent an immovable delivery deadline? No, we are happy to arrange short extensions to the existing contract to ensure the service remains live while working on the development of the new site. This said we do want to be live with the new site within 6 months of contract award. 11. Is there a budget for each phase, Discovery, Alpha, Beta? We have one budget to complete all phases of this tender. 12. We are interested in applying for the redesign of your website as listed on the gov.uk Digital Marketplace.We are setup as a supplier with gov.uk Contracts Finder, however your opportunity does not appear to be listed there. When we try to apply on the Digital Marketplace it wants us to 'Create a buyer account'. However, we're a supplier not buyer (and buyer accounts require a public sector email address). This opportunity is restricted to suppliers who are already registered on the Digital Outcomes and Specialists Framework which is a pre-existing public sector framework agreement. The majority of our procurement requirements are channelled through pre-existing public sector framework agreements set up by the Crown Commercial Services (CCS).Thank you for your interest but it will not be possible for your company to tender on this occasion unless you are already on the framework. 13. Our initial instinct is that a hosted CMS such as Contentful or Netlify would be fit for purpose for this opportunity, but it is not specifically stated in the text that such an approach would be acceptable. Could you make such a statement? Cafcass is open to the use of a hosted CMS solution. However, our current policy is that any solution should be hosted in the UK as we may be collecting sensitive personal data from our service users. 14. In order to make a decision on whether we can bid for this opportunity, we would need to know what your budget is. I understand that you would prefer not to disclose the budget, but could you at least give us a range e.g. 20-30K, 30-50K, 50-70K etc? The objective of this procurement is to redevelop our current website -www.cafcass.gov.uk – so that it better meets the needs of key user groups, particularly children and families. We are not planning any major changes to the scope of the website, but we do want to significantly improve usability navigation, search, accessibility, and the overall information architecture. We believe that this is sufficient information for suppliers to come to their own view on the likely scale of costs. 15. How much of the existing content will be used on the new site, and is content migration within scope? The current content will be reviewed and updated (or deleted) prior to the launch of the new website. We are currently assuming that existing content will be migrated 'manually' but we would welcome any suggestions of how this process could be automated. 16. Should the new design build upon the existing look and feel, or are you looking for a complete rebrand? In our survey, website users liked the branding - e.g use of colours and graphics. So, this exercise is more focussed on providing a more 'modern' website and bringing about significant improvements to the overall information architecture, navigation, and search. 17. What were the main areas for improvement identified in your recent stakeholder survey? The main areas for improvement identified- The ability to easily find the right information- The overall information architecture and organisation of existing content, with information better targeted at our key audiences (children and parents, professionals, and job seekers). - The need for a more 'modern' website that makes greater use of video- Improved accessibility and ability to access all content from a mobile phone 18. We work with a Gartner leader recognised CMS/DXP vendor that combines CMS software and hosting in a Platform-as-a-Service, pricing typically starts around £60k per annum, would this be considered within the parameters of this opportunity? We will be evaluating the overall costs of the new website when we look at final bids – i.e. initial development and ongoing hosting and support. We would therefore consider this approach if you can demonstrate that it is cost effective compared to other approaches.