The Authority sought to engage the market to work with the Synergy Programme and its stakeholders to ensure the delivery of a best in class, Value for Money (VfM), shared Human Resources (HR) and Finance service that met the needs of service users.
The Synergy Programme was established to bring together a number of Departments and ALBs in line with the Shared Services Strategy for Government: this includes building a common operating model, establishing Business Process Services (BPS) using one technology and one commercial strategy.
The Synergy Programme comprises the following central Government Departments (Departments) and their ALBs (together the Cluster Departments).
- Ministry of Justice (MoJ);
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP);
- Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA); and
- Home Office (HO).
The Authority (DWP) is the lead contracting authority for the Synergy Programme.
The prime driver of the Synergy Programme is to drive significant business transformation across the Cluster Departments. The Synergy Programme, together with the successful suppliers will jointly develop a new Common Operating Model (COM) and introduce a new user-centric service including common data standards.
The COM design will continually evolve throughout the five programme delivery phases. As a result, benefits will also continue to evolve over time. This will help identify additional benefits for the Programme and provide more robust data and narrative to justify the current benefits profile.
To meet the objectives of the Synergy Programme the Authority intended to:
- procure and adopt a cloud-based service leveraging the capabilities offered by a Software as-a-Service (SaaS) ERP platform and associated technologies;
- procure a Systems Integration service to enable the transition (and support business change) to the SaaS ERP platform and associated technologies.
The Authority seeks to deliver value and efficiency across all transaction services, including the separation of technology from service centres.
The COVID pandemic, and the challenging fiscal environment that followed as a result, has heightened the drive and need for more effective and efficient delivery by all Government Departments. Key to this ambition is the ability to capture, manage and improve the quality of Finance and HR (Human Resources) data to enable better informed decisions. The Synergy Programme will drive significant business transformation across four major Departments in support of this ambition.
Additionally, the government has set ambitious objectives to put sustainability at the heart of our government services. Greening government: ICT and digital services strategy 2020 to 2025 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk ) and Greening Government Commitments 2021 to 2025 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greening-government-ict-and-digital-servicesstrategy-2020-2025
The Cluster Departments have circa 250,000 employees between them and has a commonality of currently using the same outsourced BPS Partner, Shared Services Connected Limited (SSCL).
SSCL provide the current technology solution the Single Operating Platform (SOP) shared by DWP, DEFRA and the MoJ. SOP is based on an Oracle eBusiness Suite 12.2.6 instance recently migrated from on premise to being hosted since October 2020 on a PaaS (Platform as a Service) Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
The Home Office have a direct contractual relationship with Oracle having already migrated on to an instance of their ERP SaaS (Software as a Service) platform as part of their METIS Programme
The Authority commenced a bundled procurement for Synergy Technology (including ERP) and Systems Integration Services through a Competitive Procedure with Negotiation (under Regulation 29 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015).
By bundled procurement the Authority means that the Technology (including ERP) and SI suppliers work together in partnership from the outset to jointly propose a cohesive solution and delivery approach which meets the Authority's outcome-based requirements and demonstrate they are a compatible supplier partnership.
The Authority conducted a single procurement process (with the application of a single evaluation methodology that will cover the different or bundled elements of the overall solution) to determine the fit for purpose 'bundle' of suppliers.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Authority did not conduct a lotted procurement or a prime contractor/subcontractor model.
The Authority conducted this procurement in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended).
More specifically, the Authority utilised the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation (CPN) procurement procedure.
The full suite of tender documentation, including specification and specific details of the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation relating to this procurement exercise can be found at the following link under Ref PQQ_98908:
https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.shtml
(https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.shtml)