Main Delivery Partner - VOA BST Programme

Description

Summary of the work To operate as the core delivery partner with the ability to resource and execute the delivery of an Agency wide, integrated, end-2-end solution using Agile in accordance with GDS service & technology standards. This will require partnering with government and other supplier resources to form the required delivery organisation. Expected Contract Length 12 months, the possibility for 12 month extension Latest start date Thursday 1 April 2021 Budget Range £5 - £8 Million annual spend, with possibility of annual extension. Why the Work is Being Done The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) provides valuations and property advice to support taxation and benefits to the UK Government and local authorities, as well as providing valuation and surveying services to public sector bodies. The agency sets the valuation bands for around 26 million domestic properties and assesses over 2 million non-domestic properties for business rates. To meet VOA strategic ambitions, support more frequent revaluations and resolve issues and inefficiencies caused by aging technology, the agency is running a programme that is redesigning its overarching business architecture including all business processes, and delivering an integrated technology solution. Problem to Be Solved The Business Systems Transformation (BST) Programme was initiated to redesign VOA's business processes and deliver an integrated technology solution; which enables the VOA to continue to meet its statutory obligations, resolve issues and inefficiencies caused by the use of aging technology and meet the requirement for more frequent revaluations. This is to be achieved by redesigning our core business processes, building a new data model and business rules engine, with more flexible data structures, implementing a case management system with customer interface and new valuation tools, all in accordance with the Government Data and Digital strategies. Who Are the Users The 4 basic groups of users ares: - VOA Operational teams who are responsible for delivering the obligations of the Agency on a day to day basis, case workers and valuations - VOA Operational Support Services responsible for planning, productivity monitoring, continuous improvement, response to legislative change - Public and Local Authorities who are responsible for billing and collection - Domestic home owners, business owners, Agents and other Government departments Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done The programme started at the end of 2019 and progressed through the pre-delivery phases with the move to the delivery phase planned for April. Key artefacts created during these phases (but not limited to) are: - High-level roadmap with initial view of delivery phases - Detailed Business Process Mapping - MVP Defined - HLD - Prioritised Backlog with initial T-Shirt estimates - Business Change Plan Existing Team There is an established programme team that has taken the programme successfully through concept and up-to the end of the pre-delivery phase. This is a mixed team of internal HMRC IT, civil servants, and external staff. This team will remain, but as we enter the delivery stage the programme we will be materially ramping up, and will be joined by a number of external “best of breed” technology partners to work alongside the existing team and the main delivery partner (which is subject of this tender). Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Expert in Agile Delivery: work with a partner that has a proven track record of delivering medium to large scale programmes using Agile (SAFe) to GDS Technology & Service standards • Case Management & Work Flow: We are looking to work with a partner that has a clear and proven track record of delivering Case Management and Workflow solutions at scale • Capability available at Scale: access to experienced capability covering scrum / scrum leadership, project management, business analysts, solution analysts, development, testing and QA at scale to ramp-up from April 2021 • PMO: Demonstrate experience PI planning, release train and reporting services in support of Agile • Business process mapping: Demonstrate expertise in capturing and articulating processes, functions and user needs in line with BPMN2 standards • Experience of leading and working in mixed teams: Demonstrate track record of creating an environment allowing mixed teams of Internal and mixed 3rd parties to achieve common outcomes and objectives • Upskilling: Proven ability in upskilling internal team members during delivery to minimise hand-over as the programme transitions into normal operations • Technology: Proven experience of running programmes that have encompassed the following technologies: MS Azure, MS Dynamics, MS SQL and/or Oracle, SharePoint and/or Documentum • Tooling: Must be able to demonstrate experience in Confluence / Jira Nice to Haves • Geospatial - Have experieice awareness of Geospatial Technology • Rules Engine - Experience of work with rules engine technologies Work Location All services will be carried out in centres located: - Worthing - Telford - Manchester These are considered the base locations for the purposes of the contract. For as long as the COVID-19 situation is ongoing, the location from which the tasks will be completed will be agreed between the client and the Partner. Working Arrangments The supplier will be required to co-locate with the existing teams, mixed teams comprising both internal staff, and other external technology partners, 5 days per week. Travel will be required to other HMRC Programme Offices. No additional expenses chargeable to HMRC for travel or accomodation in agreed base office locations per SOW. Travel expenses will be paid in line with HMRC Travel & Subsistence policy. We expect the successful supplier to provide upskilling to permanent staff to increase internal capability. Security Clearance Must have BPSS before on-boarding commences Must be SC eligible. SC process can start after employment commences. Clearance costs to be met by supplier Additional T&Cs https://www.gov.uk/guidance/terms-and-conditions-of-digital-marketplace-frameworks An additional set of mandatory HMRC terms covering taxation/GDPR will be required to be accepted in full by the chosen supplier and will be made available at stage 2 of the process. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 6 Proposal Criteria • Experience in delivering Case management solutions using Agile • Capability and experience of individuals proposed for named key roles • Ability to ramp-up/onboard organisation to meet agreed delivery requirements • Proposed Approach to delivery using Agile within mixed internal and 3rd party teams • How the approach to delivery meets programme and user needs • Estimated timeframes for the work • Based on requirements and proposal, have identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • Proposed team Team structure • Value for money • Proposal for outcome based approach Cultural Fit Criteria • It is critical that the selected partner can not only fit into this environment but increase its overall collective strength. • The supplier must be able to own thier identified deliverables whilst acting in the best interest for the programme as a whole. • Building inhouse skills - Within VOA we want to grow its in-house skills: How would you support this and what skills, time and expertise would you make available and where? • Engagement - Tell us how you aim to engage and communicate with VOA. • Engagement - Tell us how you aim to engage and communicate with our Programme Leadership Team who will be running the programme • Engagement - Tell us how you aim to engage and communicate with other in-house and external provider colleagues who will be part of the same team and work activities • Collaboration - Tell us how you would deliver in a multi-supplier environment ensuring a productive work approach with all involved parties • Collaboration - Tell us how you would employ a “badge at the door” mindset; Ensuring HMRC and VOA's interests are reflected in the approach to work and outputs delivered • Collaboration - Tell us how you would demonstrate trust, openness and transparency in engagement • Values and Behaviours - Demonstrate how you have successfully adhered to a client’s code of practice or adopted their organisational behaviours ensuring cultural fit; especially HMRC's "Respect at Work" campaign • Values and Behaviours - demonstrate how you will ensure inclusivity and collaboration Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold? There will be a mixed scoring team; which will consist of a senior members of the programme leadership and HMRC Commercial team 2. Who is the incumbent and how long they have been the incumbent? We have been working with a number of suppliers for various elements of the programme during the early phases. As such, engaging a delivery partner for the delivery phase represents a new piece of work and there is no existing incumbent. 3. Can you please advise the timelines of this procurement (e.g. shortlisted companies notified, anticipated contract award)? Also, can you confirm if shortlisted suppliers will have the opportunity to present? Current expectation is shortlisted supplier notification early February 2021. There will be a supplier presentation element which has been included/advised within the assessment criteria. Contract award is currently planned for late March 2021 4. In the opportunity notice you indicate there is an existing external partner as part of the team please can you confirm who this is? Details of the partner(s) we are currently working with are not relevant to this tender. 5. In the opportunity notice you indicate there is an existing external partner as part of the team please can you confirm who this is? Details of the partner(s) we are currently working with are not relevant to this tender. 6. Do you expect this to be a single supplier award or a framework of several suppliers and is partnering acceptable? We are looking the for the subject of this tender to awarded to a single supplier. 7. Please can you confirm if there is an incumbent supplier? We have been working with a number of suppliers for various elements of the programme during the early phases. As such, engaging a delivery partner for the delivery phase represents a new piece of work and there is no existing incumbent. 8. Are you able to elaborate on what is meant by scale in this context – number of users etc We are looking for the selected partner to operate within a programme that is transforming all value streams/business processes across the entirety of the VOA at the same time as introducing new capabilities such as case management platform, geospatial, valuation rules engine and a new data model. The intended solution will captureCirca 3,500 users.Manage the valuation records for over 26 million domestic properties and over 2 million non-domestic properties.The operation of approximately 30 distinct end-2-end processes of varying levels of complexity and scaleTightly integrate with 3rd party solutions and internal legacy systems. 9. Are you able to elaborate on what is meant by scale in this context – number of users etc We are looking for the selected partner to operate within a programme that is transforming all value streams/business processes across the entirety of the VOA at the same time as introducing new capabilities such as case management platform, geospatial, valuation rules engine and a new data model. The intended solution will captureCirca 3,500 users.Manage the valuation records for over 26 million domestic properties and over 2 million non-domestic properties.The operation of approximately 30 distinct end-2-end processes of varying levels of complexity and scaleTightly integrate with 3rd party solutions and internal legacy systems. 10. Please can you expand on the use of MS Dynamics and Sharepoint on the BST Programme – is it a core technology we will need to work with, or do we just need to integrate with systems built on those commodity platforms?What skills in Dynamics and Sharepoint are required in the Delivery Partner team? The case management solution (Dynamics) will be the core platform at the centre of the intetrated solution we are delivering; which will enable the smooth and efficient execution of the business processes it manages.We would expect the partner to be able evidence their experience in the delivery of solutions involving the technologies identifed in the Essential Requirements - Technology. 11. Could the Authority please share the names of roles which will need to be SC cleared. All staff involved in working on the programme will need to be SC cleared 12. The Authority references that specialist partners may be engaged to deliver specific technologies. Will the Main Delivery Partner be given the opportunity to deliver these if the capability exists in its organisation? Would this work be tendered for or explored with the Main Delivery Partner first? The tender for the main delivery partner and best-of-breed technology partners are the subject of separate commercial processes and will in fact run in parallel. As such, the possibility of the Main Delivery Partner providing this capability will not be explored first. 13. If specialist technology delivery partners will be engaged, can the Authority please provide more detail on what will be included in the scope of the Main Delivery Partner’s workload? Is this an Systems Integrator role focussed on Project Delivery, Governance, and Business Transformation/Change? The main delivery partner will be focused on project delivery including project managers, scrum masters, business analysts, user researchers, service design, testers, integration architects, and development capability in areas not covered by the technology specialist partners and governance. The partner will be required to support the business transformation/change work; although an internal business change team will be running this activity. For further detail on the project environment please refer to previous clarification answers provided. 14. If specialist technology delivery partners will be engaged, can the Authority please provide more detail on what will be included in the scope of the Main Delivery Partner’s workload? Is this an Systems Integrator role focussed on Project Delivery, Governance, and Business Transformation/Change? The main delivery partner will be focused on project delivery including project managers, scrum masters, business analysts, user researchers, service design, testers, integration architects, and development capability in areas not covered by the technology specialist partners and governance. The partner will be required to support the business transformation/change work; although an internal business change team will be running this activity. For further detail on the project environment please refer to previous clarification answers provided. 15. Can VOA please provide details of the technology stack referring to the Rules Engine mentioned under Nice-to-have skills and experience. There is still work to be completed to fully understand the complexity of the functionality required around the defined rules; as such, the final decision on the technology stack required to meet this is still to be finalised. 16. The notice describes Key artefacts created to date (below). Is it possible to provide more details of the work delivered to date, in order to assist in scaling the delivery team size and develop an outline delivery plan?• High-level roadmap with initial view of delivery phases• Detailed Business Process Mapping• MVP Defined• HLD• Prioritised Backlog with initial T-Shirt estimates• Business Change Plan We will not be sharing any further documentation from the phases competed at this stage of the selection process and are not looking for a proposed delivery plan. Please refer to previous clarification answers provided for further general guidance on scaling. 17. Can you publish the alpha report please? We will not be sharing any further documentation from the phases competed at this stage of the selection process. 18. Have you made a decision on case management tool? Are you considering using MS Dynamics for case management? MS Dynamics has been selected as the tool for Case Management 19. Who is the incumbent supplier(s) for the alpha and beta phases? We will not be providing details of the suppliers we have been working with during the early stages of the programme. 20. 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? No supplier has been or will be involved in the drafting of this or any future commercial specifications related to the requirement. No supplier will be involved in the selection process. 21. 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? We will be using standard scoring 3 - Exceeds requirement, 2 - meets requirement, 1 - does not meet requirement. We can't advise on the approach suppliers take to respond to the quesionnaire 22. Has this opportunity been advertised before and, if so, why was it not successful? No, this opportunity has not been advertised before. 23. Has there been any pre-market engagement and, if so, which suppliers have been engaged with? No, there has been no pre-market engagement. 24. Who is the lead agency (HMRC or VOA)? And which agency scores the answers at this stage and at the shortlisting stage to determine the winning supplier? This is a VOA led programme using technology services provided by HMRC CDIO. This agreement is part of that service offering and will follow CDIO’s commercial engagement and selection processes. The scoring at this stage with be CDIO capability directly deployed to the programme. Future stages will continue to be assessed by this group (but widened) and will also include VOA. 25. Has a technology choice already been made with respect to the Rules Engine Software? If so, is it Pega Systems or Oracle Intelligent Advisor (formerly Oracle Policy Automation)? Please refer to previous clarification answers provided regarding the Rules Engine Software. 26. What technology choices have already been made? All technology selection decisions follow the HMRC CDIO design authority processes. The selection of Dynamics as the core integration platform has been finalised recently resulting in the need to review the HLD and selection decisions for a number of supporting technologies that are on-going. 27. Can you share more information, including the outcome of the Beta phase? At this stage of the selection process, we will not be sharing any further documentation from the phases completed. 28. What technology choices have been made for the case management system with customer interface and new valuation tools? Are there any restraints on the technology choices? Please refer to previous clarification answers provided on the Case Management System. 29. Which supplier(s) have performed the pre-delivery phase? Is the pre-delivery phase supplier responsible for the t-shirt estimates and would the delivery partner get the chance to review? We will not be providing details of the suppliers we have been working with during the early stages of the programme.The T-Shirt estimates have been created through a collaborative process involving the current programme team and subject matter experts from the Agency (VOA) 30. Is the detailed business process mapping complete?If not, please provide a % estimate completion. All "To-Be" business process mapping has been comepleted to level-4 for the intial release in April 2022; there will be further process mapping requirement as part this scope of work for future deliveables beyond this. 31. Could you please let us know who has done the Discovery and Alpha work – all the organisations. We will not be providing details of the suppliers we have been working with during the early stages of the programme. 32. Could you please explain why Dynamics was chosen as the case management platform and whether you would be open to an approved capability that has demonstrated recently in a central government agency over 30% cost savings compared to dynamics The programme followed HMRC CDIO standard processes for all product selection, we do not intend re-opening this decision. 33. Will the supplier selected for this tender have input as to the choice of rules engine software used, or will HMRC/VOA make the decision independently? When do you expect the decision to be made and how does this align with the timeline of this tender (e.g., by the shortlisting stage, before the winning supplier starts work, etc.)? The programme follows HMRC CDIO standard processes for all product selection. The selected supplier will not have a role in the selection of the rules engine, as this decision will have been made before this tender process is completed. 34. When will you choose the rules engine technology? All technology decisions will be made during the next 2 months 35. Have you chosen the specialist delivery partner for MS Dynamics? None of the specialist delivery partners have been selected at this time. 36. You mention a parallel procurement exercise, which framework will you choose? We will be working with the HMRC Commercial Category team to agree the sourcing strategy for each of these. 37. Any reason why you are not publishing the results of the Alpha and the suppliers involved? The decision has been taken not to share any further documentation at this stage of the the process. 38. Who will decide the rules engine technology? HMRC or VOA? The programme follows HMRC CDIO standard processes for all product selection. HMRC CDIO own all decisions on technology used within HMRC & VOA. There are many factors that go into the selection of a technology; any decision that HMRC CDIO make are in partnership with the customer; which in this case is VOA. 39. You ask for a case management and workflow partner, are you looking for an MS Dynamics partner? Yes, this will be one of the specialist technology partners mentioned that will be the subject of a different commercial process. 40. When did you decide on MS Dynamics as the CRM? December 2020 41. Who decided on the CRM choice? HMRC or VOA? The programme follows HMRC CDIO standard processes for all product selection. HMRC CDIO own all decisions on technology used within HMRC & VOA. There are many factors that go into the selection of a technology; any decision that HMRC CDIO make are in partnership with the customer; which in this case is VOA. 42. Are you looking for a big SI to lead or a smaller partner who specialises in Microsoft technology? This questionnaire to suppliers is for the programme delivery partner (a big SI). Separate commercial processes will be run to select specialist technology in other areas such as MS Dynamics and Geospatial 43. When will you choose geospatial technology? All technology decisions will be made during the next 2 months 44. Which organisation will make the geospatial technology choice, HMRC or VOA? The programme follows HMRC CDIO standard processes for all product selection. HMRC CDIO own all decisions on technology used within HMRC & VOA. There are many factors that go into the selection of a technology; any decision that HMRC CDIO make are in partnership the customer; which in this case is VOA. 45. What technology are you using for hosting the solutions? Cloud will be the predominate hosting solution, and we will leverage HMRC's enterprise Cloud service for the provisioning of the environments wherever possible. MS Dynamics is provisioned as SaaS. 46. Which supplier implemented MS Dynamics? MS Dyanamics has not yet been implemented, although we are working closely with Microsoft who will work with our selected partner to assure the design and build progress as efficiently as possible. 47. Can VOA please advise details of the Case Management & Work Flow platform used: version, cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) or on prem hosting, thank you. Case managemment workflow platform is based on MS Dynamics SaaS. It will integrate with other services within Azure (e.g. MS PowerApps, Office 365 & SharePoint) 48. The notice describes the base locations for the contract, but goes on to say due to COVID-19 location is to be agreed between the client and the supplier.Are locations restricted to UK only, or is it possible to propose offshore resources? Due to data restrictions and planned working practices, all resposnes should be on the basis that resource are required to be onshore in the UK. 49. What is the weightage of this DOS stage 1 responses? We will be using standard scoring 3 - Exceeds requirement, 2 - meets requirement, 1 - does not meet requirement. We can't advise on the approach suppliers take to respond to the quesionnaire 50. Which rules engine technologies are being evaluated? Have any vendors/technologies been ruled out? Once our high-level requirements for this area are finalised, we will be following HMRC CDIO standard processes for product selection. At this stage there have been no final decisions on the technologies that may or may not be used to address these requirements 51. Which rules engine technologies are being evaluated? Have any vendors/technologies been ruled out? Once our high-level requirements for this area are finalised, we will be following HMRC CDIO standard processes for product selection. At this stage there have been no final decisions on the technologies that may or may not be used to address these requirements 52. Is Oracle Intelligent Advisor (OPA) being considered to be the rules engine technology? Once our high-level requirements for this area are finalised, we will be following HMRC CDIO standard processes for product selection. At this stage there have been no final decisions on the technologies that may or may not be used to address these requirements 53. Which vendors /technologies are being considered for the rules engine? Once our high-level requirements for this area are finalised, we will be following HMRC CDIO standard processes for product selection. At this stage there have been no final decisions on the technologies that may or may not be used to address these requirements 54. In the “Problem to be solved” section it is stated that business rules engine are to be used for rules management. Is the Authority considering to use built in business rules tools within MS Dynamics 365? Once our high-level requirements for this area are finalised, we will be following HMRC CDIO standard processes for product selection. At this stage there have been no final decisions on the technologies that may or may not be used to address these requirements 55. Do you have an idea of the size of the team that would be required to deliver on this requirement? We have a general idea of sizing based on t-shirt estimates, the budget for this tender gives the scale of capability we are looking for a supplier to have access to in order to fulfil this requirement 56. Is there a roadmap in place for the composition and size of teams you’d require in the future? We have created an indicative roadmap for the scale of teams required based on t-shirt estimation, the structure and sizing of the teams will be explored during the next phase of the selection process 57. Please could you throw some light on what you mean by reporting services under‘PMO: Demonstrate experience PI planning, release train and reporting services in support of Agile’? The programme has an existing overarching Programme office; we would expect the successful supplier to provide ongoing delivery reporting in line with Agile methodology (e.g. burndown rates, blockers, etc..); with the aim of managing risk, performance and enabling successful delivery. 58. Please could you expand on what you mean by articulating processes under‘Business process mapping: Demonstrate expertise in capturing and articulating processes, functions and user needs in line with BPMN2 standards’. Capturing and representing business processes in a business process model that aligns to BPMN2 standards 59. Geospatial technology is a wide term, is there anything specific you’d like us to evidence in our responses? Demonstrating previous experience in delivering solutions that integrate with geospatial technology products such as ArcGIS or Opensource 60. On a previous answer it states there will be separate commerical processes for specialist services in Microsoft Dynamics and Geospatial. Will there also be a separate commercial process for a specialist rules engine delivery partner? Yes 61. Which government framework will the separate commerical processes (e.g. for Microsoft Dynamics, Geospatial, rules engines) be published? We will be working with the HMRC Commercial Category team to agree the sourcing strategy for the specialist partners. 62. Which government framework will the separate commerical processes (i.e. for Microsoft Dynamics, Geospatial, rules engines) be published? We will be working with the HMRC Commercial Category team to agree the sourcing strategy for the specialist partners. 63. Can we use more than one example in a question? Yes, happy for you to use multiple examples to best demonstrate your experience, although you will clearly be limited by the space available, so ensure examples provided are a clear demonstration of the requested capability.