Closure Report
Project Summary
Background
This project was to procure a new Software-as-a-Service application for Hope Park Counselling Centre to replace their existing MS Access database.
This followed a previous project which had documented requirements and potential solution options for the replacement.
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Objectives and Deliverables |
Objective met/ delivered? Yes/No |
Comments |
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O1 To set out a procurement strategy |
Yes |
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D1. Procurement Strategy document |
Yes | Completed by Procurement Manager, with input from Project Manager |
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O2 To formally specify requirements for replacing the database |
Yes | |
| D2. A Pre Qualification Questionnaire | Yes | Issued by Procurement as part of tender |
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D3. A requirements document specifying mandatory and non-mandatory requirements |
Yes | Created by Project Manager, including functional and non-functional requirements, with input from stakeholders in Hope Park and IS |
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O3 To invite bids from prospective suppliers and request quotes |
Yes | |
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D4. An advertisement / Invitation to Tender |
Yes | Advertised and ITT on Public Contracts Scotland website |
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O4 To evaluate and select a supplier and product |
Yes | |
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D5. Evaluation criteria, evaluation sessions with suppliers, selection review with evaluation panel |
Yes | Criteria set out using standard procurement scoring definitions, scenario demos undertaken with the two bidders |
| D6. Privacy Impact Assessment (for GDPR) and Equality Impact Assessment (for accessibility) | Yes |
Hope Park have completed a DPIA for their existing MS Access database. Further DPIA discussions will be carried forward into the implementation project. An EqIA has been completed by the Project Manager, and reviewed by the Disability Information Officer |
| O5 To contract with the selected supplier | Yes | |
| D7. A signed contract with the supplier, with payment | Yes | Contract signed by supplier and UoE based on the standard Software as a Service agreement template with schedules. Payment being made in line with supplier's payment terms. |
Analysis of Resource Usage:
IS Staff Usage Estimate: 50 days
IS Staff Usage Actual: 47.6 days
IS Resource Variance: 4%
Other Resource Estimate: £0
Other Resource Actual: £0
Other Resource Variance: 0%
Outcome
- Following a successful evaluation, we awarded a contract to the winning supplier to supply their software to Hope Park. Thanks to the entire project team for their effort in making this happen.
Explanation for variance
- The actual effort spent by IS staff in reviewing the procurement question sets was less than estimated, as the standard set of questions were agreed to be used - with little variation.
- Only the standard integration requirements and questions (e.g. EASE integration) were included in the Invitation to Tender, meaning there was no requirement for a Software Developer to join the project and evaluation team, which again reduced actual effort compared to that originally estimated
Key Learning Points
- Regarding the evaluation of supplier responses to the procurement questions, Hope Park felt they were best qualified to evaluate only the functional questions - consider for future procurements who is best placed to lead the evaluation in those sections without an obvious owner, e.g. Implementation and Training, and Product Development.
- One of the bidders did not provide responses to individual questions in the tender, and had instead provided more generalised information - we had to ask them to resubmit their response, and there was a delay in discovering that they had not initially provided what was required as it initially appeared they had (but instead they had multiple uploaded the same document)
- As a recommendation, Procurement Office to quality assure the responses within 48 hours after the bid deadline to make sure responses are in the right format and answering the individual questions, and confirm
- Again as a recommendation, Procurement Office to clarify in the PCST advert the requirement for individual responses (if not already clearly stated) - perhaps one response per question section
- One of the potential bidders gave extensive and valuable feedback about our procurement process, which led to some recommendations in consultation with the Procurement Office:
- The functional questions were pitched at the right level, and the right number of questions
- Review the balance of functional and non-functional questions - there were too many non-functional questions
- Generally, ensure the number and type of questions are proportional to the risk, impact and value of the tender (in this case, approximately £100,000)
- Procurement questions review project to remove all instances of duplication between questions (this other IS Applications project was already underway in parallel)
- Consider length of deadline for supplier responses, and increase where feasible (to 4 to 6 weeks approximately), and if the project timescale doesn’t permit this, escalate as an issue for the project
- Procurement Office to investigate any bugs that caused the PCST envelope 1 (ESPD) to also show the technology questions from envelope 2
- Procurement Office to investigate with PCST the options for question format, e.g. a text format or other options instead of an MS Word attachment format
Outstanding Issues
- None noted - the implementation will be a separate project