Contract and award service (previous name: "Award a contract for goods and services") - Alpha reassessment
The report for Crown Commercial Service's "Award a contract for goods and services" Alpha reassessment on the 12th of December 2021
Service Standard assessment report
Contract and award service (previous name: “Award a contract for goods and services”)
| From: | Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) |
| Assessment date: | 15/12/2021 |
| Stage: | Alpha Reassessment |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Crown Commercial Service (Cabinet Office) |
Previous assessment reports
- Alpha assessment report: November 2020, Not Met
- Alpha assessment report: June 2021, Not Met
Service description
This service aims to do two things:
It will allow buyers to self-serve their procurement activities when purchasing goods and services from CCS frameworks and it will start the journey to consolidate the CCS procurement digital estate; the strategic platform that will be used for this consolidation is a SaaS platform from Jaggaer called eSourcing.
Right now, the UX within eSourcing for buyers creates friction, users cannot self-serve successfully as the setup and running of procurements is complex and brittle, so we will be replacing the buyer experience with a refreshed UX whilst using eSourcing as the underlying system of record.
Service users
Buyers
- experienced procurement agent: experienced buyer from the Central Government who understands procurement well overall
- Subject Matter Expert Commissioners: work and have training in a specific field (for example IT, health care, marketing).
- procurement agents in growing organisations: are responsible for all types of procurement within their service from small to large scale
- novice buyers: work is a small-medium sized organisation or authority. They are used to doing low value procurements but have now been asked to handle a procurement over £50k via a further competition
Suppliers
- corporate bid managers: are senior managers in a large company with a dedicated Bids team. They are very experienced, but time pressured as they are dealing with multiple, often complex, projects at the same time
- Subject Matter Expert Bid Managers: are senior directors and co-founders of an SME with a specialism. They evaluate bid opportunities at the same time as doing the work
- administrative assistants: work for a large organisation that is signed up to a lot of procurement portals using one generic email address
In addition, as the first version of our service will serve the Digital Specialist and Programmes agreement the service team will ensure they are targeting the following supplier user groups.
- eSourcing suppliers: are focused on working with their team to turn around compelling briefs and submit them before a deadline to win work on agreements their organisation is part of
Sector: SME
- digital specialists suppliers: use the Digital Marketplace and DOS framework to place domain experts into roles across the government, they understand the framework
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision:
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has followed many of the recommendations from their previous assessment and demonstrated a good understanding of the end to end user journey and its transition points
- the team has used a range of appropriate user research methods including diary studies, workshops, surveys and interviews to develop personas
- the team has included assisted digital users and established a relationship with the Able Network which they planned to continue in private beta
- the team has done some research with suppliers and are introducing elements to improve the supplier experience where they can (for example getting better information up front from buyers). The team explained suppliers are part of a different workstream within CCS, and will continue to use eSourcing
- the team have included 2-3 additional agreements in their roadmap, which will enable them to do further research on procurement users’ needs in relation to different procurement frameworks in private beta
What the team needs to explore
The team has captured a wealth of insights in re-discovery but the research for alpha felt light and the panel felt there were some key gaps and risks.
Before their beta assessment, the team needs to:
- demonstrate how their user research is helping them shape the service and iterate their designs
- continue to develop their understanding of their inexperienced /novice user group and ensure they include a range of novice users in research. For example, alongside headteachers with < 3 years experience, the team might consider civil servants, such as lead technical architects who are new to procurement and having to use these tools for the first time
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision:
The service met point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had a very good understanding of the end-to-end journey and where the service sits within the wider CCS landscape
- the team displayed a good understanding of the problem for users of the service
- the team has worked hard to turn user needs into a service proposition
- the impact of COVID on users’ interactions with the service was researched
- the team has tried to understand the problems for the wider public sector and charities
- the team has been working closely with the ‘Get help finding the right agreement’ and ‘Shopping service’ teams
- the team have considered how other frameworks would fit into the service, roadmapped their plan and timeline for incorporating others, and are maintaining an active and transparent relationship with service owners of the other frameworks
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue researching the buyer needs of the framework agreement itself, pain points and issues with the current DOS framework, and whether the new DSP will meet buyer needs in terms of the range of suppliers and services available through it
- ensure that they try to make the process as simple and as user friendly as possible, not just by adding more and more guidance and upskilling the users to a complicated process
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision:
The service met point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service has strong assisted digital and user support routes in place via multiple channels
- the team has conducted some user research with user with accessibility needs, and has been engaging with the Cross Gov Able network to find participants to test their prototype
- the team has a good plan for accessibility in Beta (both internal and user testing)
- the team has conducted testing with new to procurement users in Alpha
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- head teachers are often used to test services as procurement is only a small part of their work and many are inexperienced with it. However, they would still represent more experience and/or awareness than others. The team should consider putting out a survey to find civil servants and other buyers who have had to use the frameworks with varying levels of support from their internal procurement teams. For example, IT professionals running IT projects are often new to this process
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision:
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has an empowered Service Owner and has worked within the organisation to develop the profession of service ownership
- the team is a multidisciplinary team, blended with civil servants and contractors, with focus on training and coaching the civil service team
- a number of different roles within the team attended user research sessions
- there were good resource plans for the team moving into beta
- the team found good ways to work closely with key stakeholders outside of the team, bringing policy and delivery in step
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to work closely with GDS / CDDO to ensure ongoing alignment to the Service Standard and Technology Code of Practice
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision:
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- users will authenticate using the Open ID Connect-compliant Conclave service
- security is baked into the development process with automated vulnerability scanning and security checking tools
- penetration testing is planned for before any public release of the service
- the proposed architecture has been through a rigorous assurance process including both an architectural review board and TDA
- risks associated with the RPA approach are understood and accepted by the CDIO
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to liaise with Jaggaer to expedite development of API functionality so that RPA components can be phased out as soon as possible
- further investigate ways to restrict the permissions granted by credentials shared with the third-party RPA provider, in order to adhere to the principle of least privilege
- have an independent penetration test carried out prior to the service being made available
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision:
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team have chosen to build using open-source technologies that are already in use in the organisation (PHP and the Symfony framework alongside Wordpress)
- the service will be hosted in GOV.UK PaaS
- integration with the Jaggaer API has been tested as part of the Alpha
- modelling multiple differently structured frameworks using the Agreements Service will be tested early on in the Private Beta phase
- risks associated with the brittleness of the RPA solution have been somewhat mitigated by contractual obligation and SLAs agreed with Jaggaer, who have taken responsibility for ensuring RPA compatibility with future updates to their system
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- be careful that the complexity of modelling framework structures, questions and dependencies between them doesn’t spiral as new patterns are introduced. New features and patterns in the Agreements Service should be driven by precise needs and constrained as much as possible to the requirements, rather than trying to be a general purpose form builder
- continue with robust automated testing of the end-to-end journeys, including frequent integration testing against a non-production Jaggaer environment to check the desired RPA behaviour is maintained