CONTRACT NOTICE – NATIONAL

1 Authority Details

1.1

Authority Name and Address

1.2

Address from which documentation may be obtained

As in 1.1

1.3

Completed documents must be returned to:

2 Contract Details

2.1

Title

Careers Assessment/psychometric

2.2

Description of the goods or services required

About Careers Wales

Career Choices Dewis Gyrfa Ltd (CCDG) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Welsh Government which was formed on 1 April 2013. Trading as Gyrfa Cymru Careers Wales, we are contracted to provide all age, independent and impartial careers information and advice and guidance service for Wales.

We deliver a remit set by the Minister for Economy and Transport and support the Welsh Government’s strategic objectives as identified in the Programme for Government and related Welsh Government policies. The overall focus for our service is to help people make effective decisions and become independent in managing their careers. This includes making realistic career decisions and plans, and ensuring successful progression and positive outcomes for individuals, who we support to gain appropriate training, further learning or employment. Our work helps to develop the nation’s skills base and to support the effectiveness of expenditure on education and training, thereby contributing to the economic and social well-being of Wales.

Our vision and mission

Our vision is for a Wales where individuals are inspired to take control of their careers.

Our mission is to ensure clients achieve their potential.

More information about Careers Wales can be obtained on the about us section on careerswales.gov.wales

Introduction:

We play an important role in helping individuals across Wales make well informed decisions about courses, qualifications, training and ultimately job opportunities relevant to them. This plays an important part in employers having access to well prepared, motivated and appropriately qualified individuals in the labour market.

As an organisation we deliver our services in pursuit of the following high-level outcomes:

• Improved efficiency of labour markets by reducing skills mismatches

• Increased participation and attainment in education and training, reducing the number of people who are Not in Education, Training or Employment (NEET)

• Increased accessibility and simplicity of all age employability support and referral to appropriate provision, reducing youth and adult unemployment and economic inactivity

• Maximise the efficiency of post compulsory education by supporting well considered decisions regarding learning options and pathways, thereby reducing churn and minimising incidence of failure to complete courses

• Promoting greater parity of esteem between academic and vocational pathways, particularly ensuring young people and their parents are aware of apprenticeship pathways and are supported to access them as appropriate.

As part of our WG remit we are requested to provide a range of online services to our customers to meet the full range of customers career needs. This includes a wide variety of content and many applications that support self-awareness, decision making, opportunity awareness and help individuals with their career management skills. To add to our range of online services we are looking to procure two key products:

• Up to date national job information that is representative of the current labour market which includes all key data associated with a specific job so users are able to build up a realistic picture of the requirements and future opportunities in respect of specific jobs.

• A range of online career assessment/psychometric quizzes for users to match their skills and interests to jobs, broadening their horizons on the types of jobs they may be suited to.

NOTE: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Sell2Wales Web Site at https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=103597.

The buyer has indicated that it will accept electronic responses to this notice via the Postbox facility. A user guide is available at https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/sitehelp/help_guides.aspx.

Suppliers are advised to allow adequate time for uploading documents and to dispatch the electronic response well in advance of the closing time to avoid any last minute problems.

2.3

Notice Coding and Classification

2.4

Total quantity or scope of tender

Product Requirements: What we want

We are looking to tender with an organisation who can provide us with the products outlined below for a 1-year period. The contract start date will be the 1st April 2021.

1. Career Assessment/psychometric quizzes (Career Assessment tool):

Careers Wales are looking to procure a careers assessment tool to be made available as part of the CW online provision of services for our customers. Careers Wales have the ambition to establish careerswales.gov.wales as an internationally recognised careers information advice and guidance resource that supports the learning and personal development of users in Wales, as they acquire career planning and management skills to make their learning/career choices on the website.

The assessment tool must provide a process for the user to work through, so they reflect on their interests, qualifications, skills, personality and learning styles associated with occupations. The tool will provide a robust mapping process that presents jobs back to the user based on the completed questionnaire/assessment process.

Careers Wales is looking to procure a version of a career assessment tool that will;

• compliment and augment the occupational information made available through the successful supplier

• provide the user with an opportunity to explore career ideas through the completion of the assessment tool that results in a list of suggested occupations based on their responses.

• be accessed through a Single Sign On (SSO) utility as part of the integration to careerswales.gov.wales website. Customers will use their CW login details to have direct access to the assessment tool.

• be available in both the English and Welsh Language.

• be complete at the point of tendering (as opposed to a product which is developed on behalf of Careers Wales) but must be able to meet the requirements as specified. It is recognised that some configuration may be required to conform to Careers Wales digital style guide and CW SSO solution.

• provide up to date occupational information containing specific details to support the user as they consider their career choices.

• help the user think more widely about their career ideas and consider different ones, countering gender stereotyping and promoting non- traditional occupations

• provide the user with the facility to save the results of the assessment tool and occupational information and return at a future date so that no previous steps are needed to be repeated.

• provide a management tool to report on users engagement and data on users progress within the assessment tool, broken down by provider if the user is associated with one (information available as part of the SSO).

• access to analytics on the use of the assessment tool eg Google analytics

Access to the assessment tool will be free to users from Wales (or educated in Wales) who are registered and logged on to careerswales.gov.wales. Details of estimated data usage are 50,000 (fifty thousand) single users per annum and pricing should be based on this usage.

The main users of the assessment tool are young people in education at KS3, KS4 and post 16 learning. Careers Wales are committed to providing an all age service so the tool must be suitable for an all age audience or different variations of the tool made available to cater for this.

Those using the assessment tool must be able to save their data at any time/stage, exit the site and return to continue at any stage/time.

The data the user saves must be saved to a secure space that only the user can access through logging into the careerswales.gov.wales website.

The data will be owned by the user, CW is the data controller and must fully comply with CW’s data protection registration.

Users must be able to change languages from Welsh to English and vice versa at any stage of their use of the assessment tool without losing data or having to repeat the exercise.

Explanation must be available to help the user interpret the questions and results as they go through the assessment tool.

Users must be able to review the responses given as a result of using the assessment tool together with a rationale that helps the user understand why the particular occupations have been suggested which will be saved for future reference.

The language used and the means of display must be engaging, and easy to navigate and be adaptable to meet the style of the website.

Be capable of handling 2000 requests/users per second at predicted peak usage several times throughout the day. Be capable of serving 100 requests per second on average (active and inactive) with the ability to scale on demand.

The assessment tool should be available to users 99.95% of the time.

All users must be able to access the assessment tool at all times (24/365 days) excluding planned down time.

The assessment tool must be mobile responsive and meet accessibility standards as laid out on the gov.uk website

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-for-public-sector-websites-and-apps

2. A suite of occupational information

As part of the career planning process users need to think broadly about their career options and be able to access occupational information that helps them decide if that route is for them. To that end CW wishes to procure a suite of occupational information covering the full range of occupations that is representative of the current labour market and consistent with the latest Standard Occupation Classification (SOC).

The information will be accessed in a number of ways on the careerswales.gov.wales website as part of the standard content made freely available to users, so there is no need for a user to login to access this information. The information will be available through an A-Z list, job title search, industry/sector section and through subject links.

The information content will be written for the web so that it is easy to read and understood by the target audience.

This information will be available in a standard format across all the occupations and must include the following sections:

• Job role

• Pay

• Hours of work

• Qualifications

• Entry routes (how to become)

• Skills and qualities

• Relevant subjects

• Related jobs

• Useful links

The information will be classified according to SOC level 4 (level 5 if the new SOC 2020 categories provide this additional level) for each occupation and will be tagged by CW so it may be used in multiple places on the careerswales.gov.wales website and used across different communication channels including:

• Social media – posts may include occupational data to signpost to online applications and content

• Video – range of video productions which will be made available online may contain occupational information (website, YouTube, other SM)

• Quiz – for example we use riddle to produce online quizzes to present info on a particular sector. Occupational information may be used as part of the quiz

• Publications – we produce a lot of hard copy literature to send out to customers or use at specific events. Occupational information may be presented in the publication

• Webinars (live, recorded) – we run several webinars each year on a specific sector and will utilise occupational data to support the presentation

• Widget – for key stakeholders of Career Wales to embed on their website to access this occupational information, signposting back to Careerswales.gov.wales

The occupational information will be reviewed by the successful tenderer and updated electronically twice in the contracted year enabling CW and/or third parties on behalf of CW to access the software, translate to Welsh and publish the information to the site.

The successful contractor must have robust quality assurance processes in place to ensure that the occupational information is always accurate, current, authentic and drawn from corroborated sources with differences between England and Wales identified and stated including range of entry qualifications.

The information will be presented on the Careerswales.gov.wales website through the existing Job Information application, so all occupational content must be made available via an API feed to fit into the respective sections outlined above.

All occupational information must be mapped across common industries/sectors to enable the user to search for occupations by these groups. CW will map the industry/sector to SIC and our own industry classification to make use of the industry information on other applications and content areas of the site.

The relationship between subjects and jobs is key for young people in learning who will form career ideas by linking their strengths, interest and like for a subject to potential jobs. A list of common subjects studied at KS4 and Post 16, both academic and vocational will be made available by the supplier and mapped to those occupations where the subject is required or desirable.

Welsh Language

CW has a statutory requirement to provide its services to the public in both English and Welsh. It is therefore essential that the tenderer has an interface available with the product/software that will enable a Welsh translation to be completed directly onto the site for ongoing updates as needed. This applies to the occupational information, as well as the assessment tool and accompanying content.

Tenderers should note that translation services do not form part of this procurement. The translation services will be provided by CW or services contracted by CW. Access to the product/software will therefore be required for CW and/or third-party translators to input the Welsh language data to mirror the English language version. Tenderers should also note that they will be required to consent to the text of their product being translated into Welsh by CW or a third party on their behalf.

Technical requirements:

The main body careerswales.gov.wales web architecture is based on a lightweight microservices approach. Integrating systems must connect to the integrated gateway service through utilisation of a series of Application Programming Interfaces (API) and a Central Authentication Service2 Single Sign On (SSO).

Where possible, tenderers should utilise non-proprietary technologies that are universally acknowledged as industry standard. For example HTML.

Specifications:

• Data locale UK

• Relevant API Endpoints to support swagger

• Logical endpoints with structured data returns

• Availability (uptime) – frequency of updates/data changes

3 Conditions for Participation

3.1

Minimum standards and qualification required

Tendering Terms

CCDG reserves the right to reject or disqualify a Tenderer where:

The tender is submitted late, is completed incorrectly, is incomplete or fails to meet the CCDG's submission requirements.

The Tenderer is guilty of serious misrepresentation in relation to its application and / or the process; and / or

The Tenderer contravenes any of the terms and conditions of this tender; and/or

There is a change in identity (including where applicable the make up of consortia), control, financial standing or other factor impacting on the evaluation process affecting the Tenderer; and/or

The disqualification of a Tenderer will not prejudice any other civil remedies available to CCDG and will not prejudice any criminal liabilities that such conduct by a Tenderer may attract.

CCDG further reserves the right to:

Cancel the tender process at any stage for any reason.

Require a Tenderer to clarify their submission in writing or by means of a clarification meeting and / or provide additional information. (Failure to respond adequately may result in the disqualification of a Tenderer).

Amend the terms and conditions of the tender process; and/or award only part of the contract.

CCDG reserves the right to withdraw from the tendering process at any stage or to vary the scope of the products required and CCDG shall not be liable to any tenderer as a result of this action. In the event that the tender process is cancelled no part of the tender submitted shall be returned to the tenderer. It should be noted that CCDG will not be liable for or pay expenses or losses whatsoever which may be incurred by any tenderer in the preparation of a submission.

Tenderers acknowledge and agree by their submission that their tender remains open for acceptance by CCDG for six months from the closing date for receipt of tenders.

Communication

All contact must be made through Sell to Wales who will facilitate appropriate contact with other relevant persons.

Tenderers must not in any way canvass or solicit information from any other employee of CCDG or its agents and / or advisers.

Clarification

Should any Tenderer wish to raise any questions or obtain any further information not contained in the tender or not otherwise publicly available all questions / requests must be submitted via www.sell2wales.com

If a question or request for clarification or further information is not made by the date referred to above, CCDG reserves the right not to respond but may, at its own discretion, endeavour to respond to the Tenderer and provide the Tenderer with any additional information to which CCDG has access, but CCDG shall not be obliged to comply with any such request and does not accept any liability or responsibility for failure to provide any such information.

CCDG will endeavour to respond to queries within seven working days and will advise Tenderers if a longer response time is required due to the nature of the query.

Tenderers are encouraged to identify issues on which they would like clarification as early as possible in the tendering process and must raise a clarification if any aspect of this tender is not clear to the Tenderer.

Right to Amend

CCDG reserves the right to issue supplementary documentation at any time during the process in order to clarify any issue or amend any aspect of the tender. All such further documentation issued by CCDG during the tendering process shall be deemed to form part of the tender and shall supersede any part of the tender to the extent indicated. CCDG may exercise the option to extend the tender period and postpone the tender return date, in the event that subsequent documentation is issued or for any other reason.

Confidentiality

CCDG and its advisors will keep confidential the tenders and any other information supplied by tenderers during the tendering process and will use best endeavours to prevent any disclosures by their officers and employees.

Tenderers must be aware that at key stages in the project CCDG may be obliged to disclose detailed information relating to tenders to relevant monitoring authorities and to make the key project documents available for private inspection by such authorities.

Whilst CCDG will be reasonable as regards the protection of commercially sensitive information, it can only do so in the light of the latest published guidance on this area.

Freedom of Information and Environmental Information Statement

CCDG is subject to The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“Act”) and The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (“EIR”).

As part of CCDG’s duties under the Act or EIR, it may be required to disclose information concerning the procurement process or the Contract to anyone who makes a request.

If the Tenderer considers that any of the information provided in their tender is commercially sensitive (meaning it could reasonably cause prejudice to the Tenderer if disclosed to a third party) then it should be clearly marked as "Not for disclosure to third parties” together with valid reasons in support of the information as being exempt from disclosure under the Act and the EIR.

CCDG will endeavour to consult with the Tenderer and have regard to comments and any objections before it releases any information to a third party under the Act or the EIR. However CCDG shall be entitled to determine in its absolute discretion whether any information is exempt from the Act and/or the EIR, or is to be disclosed in response to a request of information. CCDG must make its decision on disclosure in accordance with the provisions of the Act or the EIR and can only withhold information if it is covered by an exemption from disclosure under the Act or the EIR.

Canvassing and non-collusion

Except as specifically authorised by CCDG, Tenderers shall not approach any other Tenderer or member of CCDG’s staff with a view to seeking information in respect of any part of their submission or proposals or attempting to support or enhance their prospects of their tender being selected.

Publicity

No publicity regarding the project or the award of the contract will be permitted unless and until CCDG have given express written consent to the relevant communication. In particular, no statements should be made to the press or other similar organisations regarding the nature of any tender, its contents or any proposals relating thereto without prior written consent.

Costs

All Tenderers are solely responsible for their costs and expenses incurred in connection with the preparation and submission of their tender and the tendering process. Under no circumstances will CCDG, or any of its advisers, be liable for any costs or expenses borne by the Tenderer or any of its consortium members, subcontractors or advisers in this process or for any economic loss or other loss of profit incurred by any Tenderer in relation to the project.

Welsh Language

CCDG is committed to promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language, and to not treat the Welsh language less favorably than English in line with the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. The successful Bidder should be aware of the provisions of the Measure and ensure that in implementing the contract the Welsh language is promoted and facilitated and not treated less favorably than English.

Compliance with Legislation

Tenderers are deemed to understand fully the processes that CCDG is required to follow under relevant European and UK legislation, particularly in relation to The Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (as amended).

Compliance with all relevant legislation is required both in the contract award procedure and during the term of any resultant contract

Jurisdiction and governing laws

All aspects of the tendering process shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales as applied in Wales and each Tenderer submits to the jurisdiction of the English and Welsh courts.

MODERN SLAVERY ACT 2015.

CCDG has obligations to meet in order to comply with this legation. Any supplier with a turnover in excess of £36m per annum should submit a copy of your organisation’s policy in relation to The Modern Slavery Act 2015 if you fall within the legal reporting requirements.

CCDG has adopted the Welsh Government ‘s code of practice on ethical procurement in supply chains. We would like to bring to the attention of our perspective suppliers guidance on the code of ethical supply chains as published by the Welsh Government.

https://gov.wales/topics/improvingservices/bettervfm/code-of-practice/?lang=en

Adopting the code voluntarily is not a requirement of this tender.

Disclaimer

None of CCDG, its advisors, or directors, officers, members, partners, employees, other staff, agents or advisers of any such person:

Makes any representation or warranty (express or implied) as to the accuracy, reasonableness or completeness of the information in the tender. Any persons considering making a decision to enter into contractual relationships with CCDG following receipt of the tender should make their own investigations and their own independent assessment of CCDG and its requirement for the Products and should seek their own professional financial and legal advice; or

Accepts any responsibility for the information in the tender or for its fairness, accuracy or completeness, nor shall any of them be liable for any loss or damage (other than in respect of fraudulent misrepresentation) arising as a result of reliance on such information or any subsequent communication. Only the express terms of any written contract relating to the subject matter of this tender as and when it is executed shall have any contractual effect in connection with the matters to which it relates. Any such contract will be governed by English and Welsh law.

Nothing in the tender or other contract documents is or should be relied upon as a promise or representation as to CCDG's ultimate decisions in relation to this project.

No oral acceptance by CCDG of any offer or outline submissions within an offer shall be valid or binding on CCDG.

In order to further ensure a fair and competitive process, CCDG requires that all actual or potential conflicts of interest are disclosed, identified and resolved to CCDG ’s satisfaction prior to the submission of Tenders or immediately notified to CCDG in the event that any actual or potential conflict of interest comes to the Tenderer’s attention following the submission of a Tender. In such circumstances CCDG may require further information from Tenderers but reserve the right to disqualify a Tenderer from further involvement.

CCDG reserves the right to exclude Tenderers from the procurement process should actual or potential conflicts of interest be found by CCDG to confer an unfair competitive advantage on one or more Tenderers or to otherwise undermine a fair and competitive procurement process and, following consultation with the Tenderer, such actual or potential conflicts are not resolved to the satisfaction of CCDG.

4 Administrative Information

4.1

Type of Procedure

Single stage

4.2

Reference number attributed to the notice by the contracting authority

N/a

4.3

Time Limits

4.5

Language or languages in which tenders or requests to participate can be drawn up

4.6

Tender Submission Postbox

5 Other Information

5.1

Additional Information

Tender bid and scoring criteria

Any organisation wanting to bid against this tender must supply the following detail

Weight (30%) – Total 30 marks

Full costs for the 1-year period, including any up-front development costs, including licence fee to use the assessment tool and occupational information and any maintenance costs to be included. Payment will be made at the start of the contract period, starting on the 1st April 2021.

The contract will be awarded based on the following scoring methodology:

The lowest price submitted will be awarded 30, Lowest price/ tenderers price x weighting – we will use a weighting of 30%

Occupational information (20%) – Total 120 marks

The following are essential requirements, in the tender documentation describe how each of these will be met. Each will be scored out of the following marks

a) To provide all occupational information split into each section as specified in this tender (10 marks)

b) All occupational information to be available in Welsh and English equally (20 marks)

c) Each occupation to be mapped at level 4 SOC (10 marks)

d) Occupational information to be available through search, A-Z, Industry and Subject categories (10 marks)

e) The information content is easy to read and understood by the target audience (10 marks)

f) The range of occupations are representative of jobs currently available in the labour market, new occupations added and old ones deleted to keep in line with market changes. (20 marks)

g) The full suite of occupational information is under constant review (QA) and updated in line with any changes needed (updates on Careerswales.gov.wales will be scheduled in at 2 points during the contracted period) (20 marks)

h) The occupational information must include specific information, entry requirements, qualifications, registered bodies that are relevant for Wales (20 marks)

Assessment Tool (20%) – Total 120 marks

All the following are essential requirements, in the tender documentation describe how each of these will be met. Each will be scored out of the following marks

a) The user will access the assessment tool through their login to Careerswales.gov.wales (10 marks)

b) The user can exit and re-enter the assessment tool at any point and not lose data (10 marks)

c) The user can switch languages at any point without losing data or having to repeat the exercise (10 marks)

d) Explanations are available to help the user interpret the questions as they go through the questionnaire/quiz (10 marks)

e) The results of the questionnaire are linked directly to the occupational information (20 marks)

f) There is a rationale provided so the user can understand how the results were derived (15 marks)

g) The language used and the means of display must be engaging and easy to navigate. (15 marks)

h) The management tool will be available to report on the full range of activities started and/or completed by users in the assessment tool, available at a provider level where the user is identified to one as part of SSO. (20 marks)

i) The levels of accessibility that the product(s) conform to and detail any other recognised standards that apply to support users who have additional learning needs and or, disabilities (10 marks)

Technical (20%) – Total 120 marks

Describe how the integration of the product(s) proposed will meet the technical requirements set out below. Each requirement is essential. In your description, give details of the technologies used or will be developed and the extent to which the product(s) can be integrated into the CW systems to meet the requirements. Each will be scored out of the following marks

a) Integrating systems connect to the CW integrated gateway using API and Central Authentication Service Single Sign On (SSO) (15 marks)

b) All user specific personalised data and document storage to comply with GDPR (15 marks)

c) Technologies that are universally acknowledged as industry standard are used (15 marks)

d) An interface is available to facilitate the translation of the content into Welsh by CW or third parties on their behalf with the solution that the tenderer is proposing to develop or currently has in place (15 marks)

e) Client data is secure during use of the system as it is transferred between the software and careerswals.gov.wales infrastructure in a secure manner. (15 marks)

f) Access to the code/data on the various sections of the occupational information so that it can be tagged to quick reference sections throughout careerswales.gov.wales. (15 marks)

g) Access to any API specifications in place or to be developed (15marks)

h) Evidence that the transfer of data between the sites as the product is being used is secure (15 marks)

Describe how you will support acceptance testing to ensure that all the technical requirements are met or have a solution that meets the customer needs to achieve go live on the 1st April 2021

Once the product(s) has been accepted describe how ongoing technical support will be provided to ensure that all functionality is maintained.

Environment (10%)

Careers Wales Embrace Sustainable Development principles in all aspects of procurement to ensure that environmental, social and economic factors are considered within the framework of value for money. Please describe how you

• reduce waste to landfill;

• recycle materials;

• reduce water consumption;

• manage business mileage.

The scoring methodology

1. Very Good or Fully Compliant Submission -which meets all requirements and is fully explained in comprehensive detail – between 90 to 100% of the marks available

2. Good or Fully Compliant Submission -which meets all the requirements and is explained in reasonable detail between 70% and 89% of the marks available

3. Satisfactory or Compliant Submission -which meets the essential requirements and is explained in adequate detail 50% to 69% of the marks available

4. Weak or Partially Compliant (Minor issues) Submission where some areas fall short of requirements and is poorly explained 30% to 49% of the marks available

5. Unacceptable or Non Compliant (Major issues) Submission which fails to meet requirements and is not explained 10% to 29% of the marks available

Careers Wales will select the preferred organisation on the basis of:

• Price (30%)

• Quality - ability to meet requirements (occupational information 20%, assessment tool 20% and technical 20%)

• Environment – 10%

The tender will be awarded to the company achieving the highest score out of 100

Tender submission details and deadline

Interested organisations must supply Careers Wales with a fully costed tender bid by 4.00pm on Monday 7th September 2020. Any questions asked will be answered by Wednesday 2nd September.

Bids must be sent via Sell2Wales.gov.wales

•

Careers Wales intends to appoint the organisation and notify all other organisations of the outcome by Friday 18th September 2020.

(WA Ref:103597)

5.2

Additional Documentation

5.3

Publication date of this notice