Website Development & Managed Hosting Partner-INFORMATION COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE-2024ICO00394

Description

Which phase the project is in Live Existing team You will be working most closely with: an ICO Product Owner, Engineer and Tester who are responsible for the product backlog, roadmap and tasks to support the development and maintenance of the product; UCD experts who feed in user research and support with visual and interaction design; communications team members who are responsible for the content, and; a scrum master, business analyst and other roles as needed supporting on development work. Address where the work will be done The ICO's head office is in Wilmslow, Cheshire. However, it's expected that the work will be completed remotely. Working arrangements The supplier's team would work closely with the ICO's staff. We run two-week agile sprints. The supplier team members would attend regular standups, refinement sessions, reviews and retrospectives, all remotely via video/audio and screen sharing. All work would be completed in the ICO's Azure environment. Azure DevOps is used curently to manage our backlog, user stories and deployments. We would expect to also have regular meetings to review the ICO-partner relationship, including performance over the previous period and financials, each month remotely. We also require to meet for strategic planning sessions around once each quarter, face-to-face at either the ICO or partner's offices. Provide more information about your security requirements: Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Provide more information about your security requirements (optional): All must have Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Latest start date 2025-06-20 Enter the expected contract length: 2 years Extension period: 1 year Are you prepared to show your budget details?: Yes Indicative maximum: A maximum budget of £7,896,000 Inc VAT for the 2 year initial term. Please see further information on budget below. Indicative minimum: £1,038,000 Provide further information: The maximum stated budget stated is an indicative estimate which includes Website Development & Managed Hosting AND Digital Vision Programme works and does not constitute a commitment by the ICO to spend the full amount. Services will be called-off on a Statement of Works basis. Confirm if you require a contracted out service or supply of resource Contracted out service: the off-payroll rules do not apply Summary of work The ICO is seeking an experienced digital partner to transform its digital services, to help achieve its mission to empower organisations and citizens through information. Organisational customers need clear, accessible guidance to meet their obligations under GDPR, freedom of Information, and cookie regulations -- ensuring they understand their responsibilities with confidence. Citizens must be empowered to exercise their rights to their personal information, and around public information with ease. We require a partner to maintain and develop our existing digital services whilst managing our hosted environment. The partner will also help us start with user needs, and bring the latest technology and techniques to transform and enhance our website and digital services to meet those needs and inspire trust and confidence. Expertise in Umbraco, Azure hosting, and integration technologies is essential to deliver new capabilities while supporting our existing setup. Expected work may include but is not limited to: login area, personalisation, AI-enabled search and summarisation, creating digital tools and making them available for re-use, visual design, navigation, and information architecture. All work must align with GDS and ICO standards. It is anticipated the contract will work on a combination of Fixed Price and Time & Materials pricing models. The maximum stated budget is an indicative estimate and does not constitute a commitment by the ICO to spend the full amount. The contract is expected to work on a Fixed-Price basis for Website Development & Managed Hosting and a call-off basis for Digital Vision Programme works. Where the supplied staff will work No specific location (for example they can work remotely) Who the organisation using the products or services is Information Commissioner's Office Why the work is being done The ICO needs a partner with the skills and experience to help us deliver our emerging digital vision: to be a trusted, data-driven regulator that empowers citizens and organisations to act with confidence and integrity and demonstrates to industry how to use data and AI responsibly. We want to embrace technology to provide transparent, actionable, and tailored guidance and support via our digital channels, setting new benchmarks for regulatory excellence. By fostering innovation and collaboration, we want to lead the way in building trust in a rapidly evolving digital world. The work is needed to meet constantly evolving user needs and expectations identified by user research, from the ICO's staff, and from opportunities brought about by technology. It's needed to start on expiry of our current contract. The business problem you need to solve Organisational customers need to be able to find guidance about how to meet their obligations under information rights legislation, understand it, and feel confident that they know what to do. Our research shows that often, organisational customers are overwhelmed by the amount of information on our site and aren't confident they've found everything they need. They can feel that they cannot always get a definitive answer to their question. Increasingly, they want the guidance to be relevant to them. In relation to transactional services, organisations and individuals want those services to be simple to use and they want to be updated at every stage. The ICO wants customers to be able to self-serve digitally as long as in doing so it improves information rights outcomes, so that staff can spend their time helping customers where their needs are more complex. First user type: As a data controller (organisational customer) First user type: As an information rights practitioner First user type: As an information rights practitioner (including small business owners), First user type: As a citizen First user type: As a citizen