Public Procurement Gateway (Conclave Programme) Beta Assessment
The report for the Public Procurement Gateway beta assessment on the 07 April 2022
Service Standard assessment report
Public Procurement Gateway (Conclave Programme)
| From: | Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) |
| Assessment date: | 07/04/22 |
| Stage: | Beta |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Crown Commercial Service |
Previous assessment reports
- Alpha assessment report: March 2021 - Not Met
- Alpha reassessment report: July 2021 - Not Met
- Alpha reassessment report: December 2021 - Met
Service description
Conclave is the project name for a digital service which will deliver a new solution for buyers and suppliers involved with UK public sector procurement. Initially aimed for CCS use, it will be used wider in the future to support the Government’s procurement policy reform.
The service for this assessment is now known as the Public Procurement Gateway and will deliver a single sign-on capability to replace the current CCS technical landscape of multiple access points. The single sign-on also includes an identity and access management (IDAM) facility which utilises external databases known as the Central Identification Index (CII) to verify users. The service will allow verified users access to a dashboard, which eventually will host a variety of services which users are subscribed to.
Service users
Buyers and suppliers are many and varied. CCS has in excess of 20,000 supplier organisations covering all areas in the provision of common goods and services. Around 20,000 buyer organisations will also use the service. These are from multiple areas of the public sector including central government departments, arms-length bodies, local authorities, education sector, health sector, charities and the third sector. Buyer users will mostly be procurement professionals using multiple services on the dashboard.
There are additional internal CCS users of the service who will support buyers and suppliers:
- customersService centre agents
- procurement operations - e.g. those handling assisted procurements
- commercial specialist/category team e.g those putting place commercial agreements
- Customer Experience Directorate teams- managing customer relationships with key customers
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 is working with user needs when developing and testing the prototypes
- the team formulated personas that reflect the high level groups of end users for this service
- the team is conducting research with people with access needs and monitored the digital skills of the participants involved in this research
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- during the assessment some user needs were phrased more as hypotheses; make sure to create the space to ideate outside the direct scope of the product
- some of the presented user needs are solution based. The team needs to consider how to formulate these so that they are following the GDS Service manual recommendations
- during this phase of the project the team has worked with 3 high level personas: supplier, buyer and customer service. The team needs to consider how they continue working with these personas in the future. In the current format there is the risk of missing the differences in the needs of various suppliers, buyers, people who do both things as well as customer services people
- when planning participant recruitment the team must make sure that they are recruiting people who are reflecting the variety of groups of end users. For example there are differences in the procurement process in a large department vs. a small public sector organisation
- CCS must support the team recruiting the participants they need
- when testing prototypes the team should consider working with hypotheses
- consider how their user research plans fit within the wider project roadmap
2. Solve a whole problem for users:
Decision
The service met with recommendations point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the problem as users see it is not necessarily to create an account but to buy or sell through a framework. The team is working to integrate with other CCS products to design task based journeys however this isn’t part of their MVP
- the team works closely with the wider CCS service teams and other external stakeholders
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- test prototypes of the service as part of a wider journey to buy and sell as this will have a significant impact on how users interact with this part of the service
- go into Beta only when the team has addressed the identified user needs for which proposed solutions have not been validated and iterated through user research yet
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels:
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is conducting research with customer support staff
- the team is monitoring the digital skills of people invited to participate in user research as well as conducting research with people with access needs
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to work with colleagues who are managing and developing the frameworks to provide a joined-up experience across relevant channels
4. Make the service simple to use:
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team engaged in cross government ID working groups
- the team has done research to understand the different needs between SMEs and large organisations. As the product scales make sure to prioritise content for non-expert users to allow the product to scale easily
- the team have implemented a feedback survey
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider that as task based journeys are implemented, the onboarding could be simplified as the service team will have more information about who the organisation is
- make sure that users invited to create accounts by other users are given the context; do not rely on the team member inviting them to do this
5. Make sure everyone can use the service: Met
Decision
The service met point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has a support model for users but expect the majority of users to self serve
- the service is not citizen facing and suppliers and buyers would expect to access account features through the digital service. CCS is able to support users with specific needs directly
- the team plans to monitor the users’ digital inclusion needs as they scale
- the team conducts accessibility audits to identify areas that need improvement
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to monitor users’ digital inclusion needs as the project scales
- continue to research MFA steps with users with a broad range of needs
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:
- an empowered multidisciplinary team comprised of the necessary key roles is in place
- the team is able to flex up and down in size in order to meet the timescales and delivery of the service
- the team will remain in place post public beta launch in order to continue to learn from large numbers of users and iterate according to their needs
- the design and research team work closely to map journeys to wireframe and prototype ideas including contribution from the content team throughout the process
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider that the current team is only in place until December. The team should ensure that any changes to the team are carefully managed with appropriate handovers and knowledge transfer in place
- continue to involve the content design team in the ideation and design stages and make sure that content isn’t being applied at the end of the process
7. Use agile ways of working:
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team works closely together, with planning sessions, design and ideations sessions and a fortnightly prioritisation session in place to ensure their backlog works for the whole team
- there is good communication across the different teams working across the CCS
- there is an established escalation process with the SRO sitting on both the Executive board and CCS Board and Functional Heads working across all areas of the service
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that all teams are joined up across the whole journey for users so that the PPG is not considered in isolation to the services it gives users access to
8. Iterate and improve frequently:
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team demonstrated that they have iterated the service in line with the findings of their user research and have plans to continue to do so after public beta launch
- the User Researcher, Service Designer and Content Designer are working closely together
- the team acknowledges that the multi-factor authentication journey is a new concept for users which for now requires work to support users with. The team has iterated this, breaking it into steps to make it easier for users. The team has identified risks and are working to mitigate these
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to iterate the service in response to user needs, particularly now that they will have a much larger number of users to draw from
- ensure that they take advantage of the insight from performance analytics to improve the service
- ensure that the service is iterated in the context of the whole journey for users once it is embedded into the consultancy service as a whole
- consider that a further code drop is planned before launch into Public Beta. The team should ensure that this is tested thoroughly with users so that it can be further iterated as needed
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:
- the team has considered user needs for security and privacy
- the team has elected to raise the security mechanism in use by providing an MFA mechanism
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- investigate alternative MFA mechanisms to ensure that users without access to mobile devices or mobile coverage can still use the service
- continue to monitor the suitability of SMS as a MFA mechanism
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has full time performance analyst support
- the team has set up detailed tracking, with plans for further data collection that is considerate of consent and the rules around data protection
- the team has a process in place for ensuring decisions and iteration priorities are data led
- the team has a selection of KPIs that they are monitoring and using to make decisions about their service iterations
- the team have a plan for sharing their data to DATA.GOV.UK
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- create a structured performance framework clearly linking the goals of the service to the defined measures to show how success is measured
- be able to evidence how the iterations made have shown improvements towards success of the service
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 has elected to use existing tools already in use whin CCS and that supportability of the service can be ensured
- the team is making use of existing monitoring and logging tools and reusing existing support and monitoring processes
- the team has suitable tools in place for performance testing
- the team has mechanisms in place to ensure development branches are brought back into the main pipeline
- the team has a process in place for UAT and code review of partner developed code
- testing is built into the CICD pipeline before code promotion
12. Make new source code open:
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team already publishes code to GitHub
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns:
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is communicating with other departments what it is doing
- the service team is making use of partners to enhance the service with current thinking
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- seek to develop and promote patterns than can be reused by others, especially around the use of GOV.UK PAAS
- promote the use of Auth0 to other departments
14. Operate a reliable service:
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team realises the importance of the service but is striking a balance between availability and cost
- SLS’s are flowed through to partner organisations
- the Service Transition Manager has determined what the SLA’s should be
- the team is making use of the appropriate features in GOV.UK PASS to ensure reliability
- the team has suitable monitoring in place to detect problems as they arise
- the team has a process to ensure bidders are not penalised in the event of downtime
- the team has a process in place to inform bidders and other users regarding planned maintenance
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that the current availability is suitable
- ensure that the reliance on partner organisations will not adversely affect the service e.g. Auth0 could be a single point of failure