Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2019-11-21
Buyer: Department for Education (‘DFE’) on behalf of itself and the Secretary of State for Education
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Restricted procedure
CPV classification: 48000000 | 48517000 | 72000000 | 72222000: Information systems strategic planning services | 72222100: Information systems strategic review services
Estimated value: 6000000 GBP
Submission deadline: 2019-12-23
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: (i) a field based data collection for both school and further education establishments via surveyor operated mobile device app;
(iv) functionality to enable secure reporting to schools, colleges, responsible bodies and a variety of other stakeholders.
The DfE is also requiring tenderers to submit a pre-priced fully developed contract variation for the collection and sharing of the DfE’s Net Capacity Assessment (‘NCA’) data, this is further detailed in II.2.4) below.
The CDC2 Programme is the successor to CDC1 Programme and will be undertaken between 2020 and 2025. In addition to the IT solution, the DfE intends to procure 3 Surveying Organisations (‘SO’), an organisation to provide aerial photography of school buildings and a Technical and Quality Management organisation (‘TQM’) to deliver the services required by the programme. This notice relates to the procurement of the cloud based Software as a Service (‘SaaS’) software solution (the ‘IT Solution’).
The IT Solution supplier will be required to work together with the aforementioned suppliers on the CDC2 Programme. Aerial photography for the first tranche of CDC2 schools is expected to be procured and managed directly by the DfE. Please note that the IT solution supplier will be procured first, followed by the procurement of aerial photography, the SOs and TQM, as per the indicative timetable set out in the procurement documents.
— field based data collection for both school and further education establishments via a surveyor operated mobile device app,
— functionality to enable secure reporting to schools, colleges, responsible bodies and a variety of other stakeholders.
Data being collected, stored and processed via the IT Solution has been classified as official and/or official sensitive, as such the IT Solution must be capable of providing sufficient data security at the level of official sensitive.
New data is provided by a large number of internal and external users across a range of devices. The IT Solution will need to be capable of allowing the DfE to draw live or near- live data into an existing internal database via API in a form that enables bespoke analysis by the DfE’s analysts.
The contract for the IT Solution (the ‘Agreement’) will be divided into 2 stages. The first stage will be a mobilisation phase during which the supplier will implement their solution, including API links, migration of CDC data, functional testing and UAT. The second stage will be the operational phase and this will be contingent on the successful procurement of the SO and TQM supplier contracts. Further detail is contained in the ‘Read Me First’ document and the Agreement.
It is envisaged that the initial term of the contract will be 6 years, with option to extend for a further period or periods of up to a maximum overall extension of two (2) years. The initial term begins with an implementation period of 6 months and allows for a 5 month handover period prior to expiry (and the optional extension). This is to accommodate the 5 year CDC2 programme. Applicants are referred to the invitation to tender (‘ITT’) and the accompanying procurement documents for further information on the description of the procurement, the agreement and the DfE’s needs and requirements.
Supplementary to the CDC2 programme and process, the DfE may require the IT Solution to collect data to support the school NCA to understand the use of spaces within a school. This data is used to measure and plan school places provision. Tenderers will be required to submit a pre-priced fully developed contract variation in respect of the NCA requirement. Further details of the NCA are contained in the ITT and the procurement documents. The ITT will request information on how the CDC2 IT solution could support the collection of room level data to facilitate the DfE’s NCA processes. However, it is not known at the time of issuing this notice whether services relating to NCA will actually be commissioned under this agreement. On this basis the pre-priced variation will not be evaluated.
II.1.5) states the estimated maximum total value. The estimated value range is 3 000 000 GBP — 6 000 000 GBP.
The agreement has provision to extend for a further period or periods of up to a maximum overall extension of two (2) years, to be exercised at the authority’s discretion.
The agreement provides the authority with the ability to instruct optional services and the ability to implement the NCA pre-priced contract variation at its discretion.


Award value: 6000000