Notice

Clarification questions with answers (published 14 November 2022)

Updated 17 March 2023

This notice was withdrawn on 19 August 2024

This page has been replaced by the digital spine feasibility study.

1. Are there any mechanisms in place for technologies organisations to give their inputs to the requirements for the energy system digital spine?

The successful Supplier will be required to conduct detailed stakeholder engagement as part of the delivery of the Contract and it is expected that industry would have the opportunity to contribute as part of this engagement.

2. Could you please confirm what online registration consists of?

Registering interest by the 4th November - this is the date by which we encourage organisations to register interest in the opportunity. Registering interest does not constitute submission of a tender. Registration remains open up until the Competition Closing date on 21 November 2022 at 2pm.

Further guidance can be found on the Jaggaer sourcing platform.

3. Please could you confirm whether Appendix 1: Processing, Personal Data and Data Subject (within the Energy system digital spine scoping study ITT_10102022’ document) should be submitted as part of bidder’s responses to this tender?

No, this document is not required as part of the bidder’s response to the tender. This is included in the Invitation To Tender for information and the successful bidder will be asked to complete this document as part of contract signing.

4. Would the department consider increasing page limits for questions?

The page limits have been set to ensure concise responses from bidders, and are considered appropriate for bidders to respond to each of the questions asked. The Department will not consider changing the page limits for responses to this tender.

5. Is this tender being run via CCS RM3824 please?

No, this tender is being run as an open competition.

6. Within Declaration 4 - Standard Selection Questionnaire - Question 9.1 you ask bidders to self-certify to having the relevant insurance cover but the values are not stated. Please can you advise what insurance cover values you require.

The values are:

• Employer’s Liability Insurance = £5,000,000
  
• Public Liability Insurance = £5,000,000
  
• Professional Indemnity Insurance = £2,000,000

Bidders are not expected to hold Product Liability Insurance. Terms and Conditions will be reissued to reflect these values.

7. We note in Section 6 of the ‘Energy system digital spine scoping study ITT_10102022’, on Quality Assurance, that bidders should reference any external QA accreditation in bids. Could you please provide examples of the types of external QA accreditation you would require, and whether this is a mandatory (Pass/Fail) criteria?

This is not a mandatory pass/fail question. An example would be following the ISO9011 Quality Management Standards.

8. Will suppliers be asked to present their proposal and respond to questions prior to notification of award?

Bidders will not be asked to present their proposals before notification of award. However, Suppliers may be asked clarification questions on their proposals before notification of award.

9. Will BEIS dedicate resources to deliver the work and requirements of this project? Will we be establishing a joint team with BEIS resources that can help deliver the study

BEIS will not dedicate staff to work on the requirements of this Project beyond the oversight and monitoring of the delivery of the contract. The successful contractor will be expected to ensure they are able to resource the work to the requirements described in the ITT to ensure successful delivery of the feasibility study.

10. Stakeholder engagement requirements. Has BEIS secured involvement from other stakeholders already, if so which are these organisations and please also identify at a high-level how they expect to be involved. How many stakeholder interviews does BEIS expect to be undertaken?

The scope of this work is to explore the feasibility of any energy system digital spine. BEIS may use findings from this feasibility study to inform thinking on any potential future activity and next steps around an energy system digital spine.

11. The only time the ITT mentions the word ‘Discovery’ is in the title ‘ENERGY SYSTEM ‘DIGITAL SPINE’ DISCOVERY STUDY’. Why?

There is an error on page 67 – procurement procedure. The title of this ITT is Energy System Digital Spine Feasibility Study

12. Regarding ‘Annex C - BEIS Standard Terms & Conditions - Digital Spine Prj_840 (1)’.
1. Contract Offer Letter Template - Are you able to please provide a draft template of the contract offer letter?

A basic template has been provided.

13. Annex 1 – This is referred to as forming part of the “Contract” in the definition of Contract under the BEIS Standard Terms but there is no Annex 1 provided in the Terms and Conditions. Can you please confirm this is in reference to Appendix 1 in the ‘Energy system digital spine scoping study ITT_10102022’ document (Processing, Personal Data and Data Subjects)?

Yes, we can confirm this in reference to Appendix 1.

14. Condition 6 (2) – Does the reference to “self-employed individuals” include contractors contracting via genuine umbrella companies?

Such individuals would be considered under the contactor and would apply to 6(4).

15. Condition 26(5) – Please can you clarify which clauses should be cross referenced here? Currently it says “Subject to clause 0 and (7)” but there is no clause 0.

This query has been corrected in the reissued Annex C.

16. 5. Condition 26 (6) – Please can you confirm the missing Condition reference?

This query has been corrected in the reissued Annex C.

17. 6. Condition 33 – Please can you confirm the missing Condition references?

This query has been corrected in the reissued Annex C.

18. How are successful bidders expected to undertake KPI reporting and on which KPIS?

Guidance can be found in Section 8 of the Competition Guidance:

For NZIP KPIs, Project lead organisations will be required to report on KPIs at various intervals for each project, including at the start of the project, during project delivery, at project closure and for three years after project closure. BEIS will supply funded projects with a reporting template to complete at set intervals, and recipients are expected to return the template to their Monitoring Officer upon completion, who will review and quality assure it. At project start, your BEIS Monitoring Officer will provide further details about the calculation of these KPIs and assist with the initial completion and measurement.

For the Contract KPI outlined in Table 8.2, Performance against KPIs will need to be monitored by the Contractor and reported to the Authority on a monthly basis. At project start, your BEIS Monitoring Officer can assist with the initial completion and measurement.

19. Please could you confirm if the ‘thematic energy system workshop’ will be organised, managed and run by BEIS (with the supplier presenting only), or whether the supplier is expected to do this? How will the workshop align to any other workshops the supplier may elect to run for purposes of stakeholder engagement for the project?

BEIS expects to provide a venue, whether physically at the Conference Centre at 1 Victoria Street or virtually, to facilitate a singular thematic energy system workshop and will provide administrative support in organising and managing the event. The Supplier is expected to produce a stakeholder invitation list for the event and will be responsible for deciding how best to present and structure the workshop. The supplier is welcome to organise, manage and run further workshops on a ‘digital spine’ for the energy system as they see fit as part of stakeholder engagement throughout the project.

20. Do you have a proposed framework in mind for the CNI assessment or would you expect this to be defined as part of the scope?

BEIS considers assets for Critical National Infrastructure designation on a case-by-case basis and does not provide a framework for external CNI assessment. The Department encourages bidders to consider existing government advice, including from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and the National Cyber Security Centre’s advice on cyber security.

21. There are a number of terms that are used throughout the ITT that could be subject to a range of interpretations such as ‘current energy system’, ‘future energy system’, ‘access to markets’, ‘planned infrastructure’, that are not formally defined in the glossary. Are these defined anywhere or are you expecting the successful bidder to define these as part of the feasibility study?

This language is common across the energy sector and is used to describe the energy transition. We do not expect the successful bidder to define these terms.

22. The criterion for the contract KPI (Table 8.2) to be Green is 100%. How will you handle delays to the programme that are outside of the supplier’s control (e.g. availability of stakeholders)?

The Contract Terms and Conditions included in the Invitation to Tender will apply to this contract. BEIS will consider the impact of delays that are outside of the Supplier’s control when assessing this KPI and has a change request process in place to deal with delays as quickly as possible, taking into consideration external factors.

23. The evaluated price is the total tender price across all work packages. Is the contract value going to be set at the tendered price or at the budget (£204,000)? Are you expecting to cap individual work packages? How will you assess whether suppliers have provided unrealistic estimates of the resources required (to score highly in the evaluation)?

The Contract value will be set at the tendered price. The tendered price must not exceed the £204,000 excludingVAT budget provided.

It is the responsibility of the bidder to determine the cost breakdown across work packages. The cost breakdown provided as part of the bidder’s proposal will be used as a fixed cost for each work package.

Where a bid appears to be abnormally low, the department must require the bidder to explain their proposed price. The department may only reject the bid where the evidence supplied by the bidder in response does not satisfactorily account for the low price. An abnormally low bid is a bid with a price so low as to make the department question whether it is correct and/or deliverable.

24. Of the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce’s 6 recommendations; how much activity has started to realise the outcomes that will come from these actions and how will these interrelate with this Feasibility report?

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published a joint response to the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce’s recommendation with Ofgem and Innovate UK on 19 July 2022.

25. Who are BEIS’ key suppliers (Large and SME) that they are working with to deliver the Energy Digitalisation Strategy?

Suppliers contracted by BEIS can be found on Contracts Finder, accessible here.

26. The scope and scale of the feasibility could become vast; what are the top three priorities that a supplier should concentrate on. e.g. Detailed Data standard requirements, well researched and documented User Journeys etc?

The requirements for this work are set out in Section 2 of the Invitation to Tender. The successful supplier will be expected to develop a work plan which ensures the requirements in table 4.1, Section 2, are met.

27. Would BEIS prefer one supplier to Bid, or a partnership?

BEIS will treat applications from single suppliers and Consortia equally. Contracts will be awarded in line with the process set out in Section 3 – Evaluation.

28. Has any external supplier been involved in the initial scoping work? If so, who?

The development of this Invitation to Tender has not involved any external suppliers, but has been informed by the publicly available Energy Digitalisation Taskforce recommendations commissioned by BEIS and delivered by the Energy Systems Catapult.

29. Please share links to the pre-market engagement material that took place earlier in the in the year for those of us who weren’t able to attend?

Slides from the information event that were published can be found on the Flexibility Innovation Programme website here.

30. Please can you confirm the type of specialisms that you would expect to part of the supplier team to deliver the study.

Skills and experience is set out in Section 2 Part 5 of the Invitation to Tender.

31. You ask for the successful supplier to present findings at industry forums; please can you confirm if this is within the 6 month delivery timeframe?

Yes.

32.Would BEIS welcome applications that propose a shorter timeline (less than 6 months) for meeting the requirements?

Yes, BEIS welcomes applications that propose a shorter timeline for completing the work.