Contract for the Provision of Health Research Authority Principal Operational Systems: Development, Maintenance and Support

Concepts

• information technology
• hra
• database and operating
• supplementary systems
• support services
• custom software development
• hra’s principal operational systems
• intricacies of the system
• health research authority
• decommissioning of the existing system

Location

London

Description

This Voluntary Ex-Ante Transparency (VEAT) notice is published by the Health Research Authority (HRA) for the purpose of extending an existing contract for the development, maintenance and support of two principal and six supplementary systems/portals/sites, pending completion of a transition by the HRA to a new microservices architecture for the systems/portals/sites. This notice does not constitute an award for a new contract. The HRA intends to rely upon Regulation 72(1)(b) for this extension on the basis that decommissioning and transition services cannot be provided by another provider and to appoint another provider would cause significant inconvenience and substantial duplication of costs to the HRA given the intricacies of the system and the procurement to appoint a new provider for the future provision of similar services. The value of the extension does not exceed 50% of the original value of the contract. Please see section II.2.4 and Annex D1 for more detail.

Total Quantity or Scope

The original procurement (see above reference) was for the provision of Development, Maintenance and Support services for the HRA’s Principal Operational Systems, including: • Custom software development • Technical architecture management, including software architecture design • Production, maintenance, and enhancement of Technical documentation • Software QA & QC • Software development process management • Software project management • Issue tracking and task management software (JIRA or equivalent) hosting • Development and testing environment provision and management • Software deployment management • 24/7 Windows server support and maintenance • Microsoft Internet Information Services administration. • Firewall management • Provision, management, and maintenance of source control (Microsoft TFS) infrastructure • 1st line help desk support • Helpdesk VoIP/telephony infrastructure • 2nd and 3rd line support • Systems availability monitoring • SQL Server database administration and performance tuning • Additional professional services as required The existing contract award was then published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) on 16 March 2016, reference number 2016/S 053-088027 (ITT60042), with a value of £3.7m + VAT. The existing contract was for an initial period of 3 years with the option to extend for a further period(s) of up to two years. The HRA further extended the contract from 1 April 2021 to 21 April 2023 with a financial increase of £1.03m for that extension period, to allow for the HRA to procure replacement services and allow time for crucial exit and transition services. The HRA considered that it could rely upon Regulation 72(1)(b) and/or 72(1)(e) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015) for this extension. A modification notice was not published for this extension and the HRA relied upon Regulation 72(1)(e). Due to significant challenges in the implementation of the replacement services, the HRA has changed its strategic approach to developing a microservices architecture for its systems/portals/sites. The HRA therefore intends to further extend the existing contract to 30 June 2025 to allow for a further exit/migration period and the decommissioning of the existing system and the appointment of a new delivery partner to build the new microservices architecture. The extension to 30 June 2025 will increase the existing contract value by up to £1.672m + VAT. The HRA intends to rely upon Regulation 72(1)(b) for this further extension on the basis that the decommissioning and transition services cannot be provided by another provider for technical and economic reasons and to appoint another provider would cause significant inconvenience and substantial duplication of costs to the HRA given the intricacies of the system and the planned procurement to appoint a new provider for the future provision of similar services. The value of the extension does not exceed 50% of the original value of the contract.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
• 48600000 - Database and operating software package
• 72200000 - Software programming and consultancy services
• 72250000 - System and support services
• 72253100 - Helpdesk services
• 72253200 - Systems support services
• 72310000 - Data-processing services
• 72320000 - Database services
• 48800000 - Information systems and servers

Indicators

Legal Justification

The HRA research systems and platforms are core HRA services, and as such, continuity of these services is critical for the HRA to fulfil its statutory responsibilities as a health research regulator. The purpose of the HRA Research Systems digital transformation Programme (RSP) is the replacement of the existing research systems under the existing contract. The previous contract extension was to ensure that the existing research systems and platform, provided by the existing provider, would be maintained and progressively decommissioned as the RSP migrated the HRA research systems to a different platform. Whilst some progress had been made, a strategic review of the RSP took place in early 2022 and resulted in the decision to move away from the originally planned migration and to a new microservices architecture instead . A tender for the new RSP Delivery Partner (RSPDP) will be conducted imminently. Following appointment of the new RSPDP, which is anticipated to be around February 2023 (subject to the procurement timelines), development work on the new microservices architecture will commence and is expected to require at least 30 months to complete. This impacts on the RSP timelines for migrating off HRA’s existing systems and the need for a further extension to ensure continuity of services and progressively decommission in line with the new RSP timeline and the newly appointed RSP supplier. A new contractor cannot realistically provide the services and cannot provide the decommissioning and maintenance services for the existing systems, due to their bespoke nature as well as potential risks of data corruption and loss which would cause a significant inconvenience for the HRA given the need to maintain continuity of these core services. A technical assessment was conducted which considered the realistic interoperability issues and timescales for transition, and confirmed that a change in contractor was likely to lead to a significant disruption to services and substantial duplication of costs. Recent work on a data migration strategy and mapping of the analytical needs of the business has also identified that there is significant backend system knowledge held only by the existing supplier, which would make transition to a new contractor significantly inconvenient for the HRA as well as resulting in a substantial duplication of cost given the resource and time that the HRA would need to invest in rationalising the data as well as the costs of the new procurement. As such, there is a credible argument that a new contractor cannot be appointed for economic and technical reasons and therefore the contract can be modified pursuant to Regulation 72(1)(b). The price increase in relation to the extension is up to £1.672m against an original value of £3.7m and as such, is less than 50% of the original contract value. On the basis of the above, the HRA considers that the extension of the contract to 30 June 2025 would fall within the safe harbour of Regulation 72(1)(b). The HRA is voluntarily publishing this notice in the interests of transparency surrounding the modification to the existing contract.