Section one: Contracting authority
one.1) Name and addresses
Education Scotland
Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park
Livingston
EH54 6GA
Telephone
+44 7580801538
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
UKM - Scotland
Internet address(es)
Main address
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/
Buyer's address
https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/Search_AuthProfile.aspx?ID=AA11402
one.3) Communication
Additional information can be obtained from the above-mentioned address
one.4) Type of the contracting authority
Ministry or any other national or federal authority
one.5) Main activity
Education
Section two: Object
two.1) Scope of the procurement
two.1.1) Title
Provision of Glow Blogs Services for Education Scotland
two.1.2) Main CPV code
- 80000000 - Education and training services
two.1.3) Type of contract
Services
two.1.4) Short description
Provision of Glow Blogs services to Education Scotland
two.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots: No
two.2) Description
two.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS codes
- UKM - Scotland
two.2.4) Description of the procurement
Education Scotland has a requirement to place a contract with an external service provider for ongoing support and development of the Glow Blogs service. Glow is Scotland's national digital environment that offers a number of different services to support learning and teaching across the curriculum.
Glow Blogs is a service that is available to all Glow users to allow them to create, manage and host websites. It is currently a fully managed WordPress multisite environment which resides on an AWS infrastructure. There are around 160,000 sites in the environment and an average of 130,000 daily page views. These sites may, for example, be private and used by learners recording their work or be public for schools to share resources. The service offers users a selection of themes and plugins that have educational value and these must be kept up to date and sometimes customised with factors such as safeguarding in mind.
The AWS infrastructure has a provided a high level of reliability and was designed to be flexible with features such as auto-scaling used. A high level of reliability and flexibility is required due to ever changing user requirements. This has been evidenced by the move to remote working as a result of COVID-19. The WordPress application provides a selection of themes and plugins that provide functionality based on user requirements. Both the infrastructure and application continue to be improved by taking an Agile approach to development and making changes based on user stories.
It is expected that any potential service provider would have sufficient technical knowledge and an understanding of how such a service should be best provided and maintained. It is anticipated that the current offering of Glow Blogs through a WordPress multisite hosted in AWS will continue to be how the service is provided. However, Education Scotland would also consider alternative ways of providing the service, such as a subscription based SaaS model. We would ask that the migration of data is covered in the response if an alternative approach is suggested.
Education Scotland would wish to meet with potential bidders in order to seek views and information from the marketplace on the requirement. Details of this process are set out in Section VI.3 - Additional Information.
two.3) Estimated date of publication of contract notice
21 May 2021
Section four. Procedure
four.1) Description
four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes
Section six. Complementary information
six.3) Additional information
Presentations will take place via Microsoft Teams and shall last no more than 45 minutes. If you are interested in participating, please contact Stephen Phillips at stephen.phillips@gov.scot by no later than 12:00 on 27 April 2021. Please choose a preferred date and time from the following options:
Friday 7 May 9:00 - 9:45
Friday 7 May 10:00 - 10:45
Monday 10 May 10:00 - 10:45
Monday 10 May 11:00 - 11:45
Monday 10 May 16:00 - 16:45
Thursday 13 May 10:00 - 10:45
Slots shall be allocated on a first come, first served basis. If your requested slot has already been allocated, we shall try to offer you an alternative but we cannot guarantee to meet your requested time.
The information provided as part of this process will be used as background to the procurement strategy and tender documents for the requirement. Once this work is completed, we shall be able to undertake a procurement process which is fully compliant with Scottish Procurement Regulations to secure the contract.
Your presentation should cover:
An introduction to the concept of your service; capabilities; brief use case; security of data; high level technical overview; support provided; indicative costs.
This process will be undertaken entirely on a without commitment basis and no undertaking is given that any company invited to present will be included in the tender process. The presentations shall not be evaluated or scored and shall be excluded from evaluation at the tender stage. Please note that at this stage we are not issuing any additional documents to describe the requirement. All tender documentation shall be available at the next stage of the procurement process.
NOTE: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Public Contracts Scotland Web Site at https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=643446.
(SC Ref:643446)