Arts Council England Invitation to Tender
Title: Consultancy and technical support to Arts Council England’s intranet
and internal communication technologies, including intranet development,
staff training programme and on-going support
Reference number: ART011-0035
Deadline for receipt of tender proposals 12.00hrs Noon on 23/05/2014
Arts Council England champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural
experiences that enrich people's lives.
We support a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries - from
theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections.
Great art and culture inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about
ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better.
Between 2011 and 2015, we are investing £1.4 billion of public money from
Government and an estimated £1 billion from the National Lottery to help create
these experiences for as many people as possible across the country.
Background
In 2013 Arts Council England implemented a new organisational structure. The
change came as a result of the Government’s requirement – made as part of Arts
Council England’s settlement for 2011-15 – that the Arts Council reduces its
administrative costs, as applied to its grant in aid for the arts by the end of March
2015.
Making savings on this scale required a major restructure and a substantial
reduction in staff numbers, as well as calling for new ways of working. Key
features of the new organisation included:

an overall reduction in staff numbers across the organisation of 21 per cent
from 559.5 full time posts to 442 (117.5 posts)

four Executive Directors, reducing from eight, accountable for delivering the
Arts Council’s overall strategy, with the Chief Executive

leadership of art form and cultural
geographically across the organisation

In shaping the new structure, we were guided by the principle of remaining
one national organisation with local presence. Our major offices are now in
London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol, plus some smaller local
offices.
policy
expertise
distributed
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Internal communications has an important part to play in embedding the aims of
the organisation review, and in ensuring that Arts Council England is a porous,
learning and adaptive organisation, open to the flow of information, insight and
ideas. We also want to support staff to be able to exploit the opportunities offered
by new media and other technologies.
Internal communications works with IT to ensure the infrastructure is in place to
enable more collaborative and remote working, and with HR to ensure that training
is provided to enable the new ways of working.
Our key internal communications channel is the intranet - OnePlace – which was
moved onto a Sharepoint platform in July 2013. We also have Lync available to all
staff via their PCs, laptops and smart phones. There is currently a low-medium
level of engagement with these new channels.
We are running on-premise versions SharePoint 2010 Enterprise, Lync 2013,
Exchange 2010, Office 2010 and Windows 7. We have leveraged the power of
enterprise voice and unified communications through the integration of Exchange
and Lync with our VOIP telephone system, Cisco Call Manager.
Arts Council England has the internal expertise to administer the Microsoft server
and application infrastructure and some SharePoint development capability.
Support for, or hosting of, our SharePoint environment is not within the scope of
this tender.
The intranet was developed by a Sharepoint partner, who customised a number of
the ‘out of the box’ elements and features. We are not looking for a full
redevelopment of the intranet, but improvements and changes to what is in place,
and importantly, training and support to make the most of what we have.
Some people feel under-trained and are hesitant to try new ways of working
provided by OnePlace (e.g. document sharing). Some have created team sites
and wish to take them to the next level. Others have received no formal training
and don’t see the need to engage with the intranet.
Further training and support is needed at all levels of the Arts Council to make the
most from the technology, in order to support the changes to our culture needed to
embed the aims of the organisation review.
Some of the behaviours Arts Council England want to encourage internally are:

Engagement in online group conversations on discussion boards. This
could include commenting on intranet articles, online polls and newsfeeds,
and social discussions.

Collaboration across and within teams through team sites, instant
messaging, desktop conferencing, document sharing and team news feeds.
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
Developed leadership communication and engagement, for example
through MySites, blogging, interactive discussions, video messages,
podcasting.

An increase in individual use of MySites, so that all colleagues have access
to improved information about who is responsible for what, and who they
can ask for information or feedback on specific issues and projects. We
also want to encourage staff to get to know each other by sharing some of
their personal interests and experiences.

The use of network or reference groups to develop or test ideas, and the
development of OnePlace / SharePoint champions across the organisation.
We are shortly to undertake a staff digital culture survey, which will provide a more
detailed picture of the current state of staff confidence with, and use of, digital
technology - both within and outside the organisation. The results of the survey will
inform the detailed training requirements as set out below.
Section 1: Specification
1. Introduction
Arts Council England is seeking an experienced Service Provider to perform
services related to consultancy and technical support for its intranet and other
internal communication technology, Microsoft SharePoint and Lync.
Arts Council England requires bespoke support in the internal communications
engagement, training and technical support for its intranet - OnePlace - which is
based on a new SharePoint platform. The Services required include intranet
development, staff training and on-going support.
The objectives of the Services are to

support Arts Council England’s staff to work collaboratively from remote
locations, and to share information, insight and ideas

encourage and support more widespread use of new technology; the Arts
Council’s intranet – OnePlace – and Lync

suggest ways that the existing technology can be further exploited to benefit
staff and ways of working
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2. The Service Provider
Arts Council England is looking for a Microsoft SharePoint Approved Partner. We
would also expect the supplier to have experience of similar projects with similar
sized organisations to Arts Council England.
Arts Council England is looking for a Service Provider that has experience of
embedding Sharepoint within an organisation to positively affect employee
engagement and/or experience of working with organisations that need to work
collaboratively, but are spread across several sites / locations. The Service
Provider must bring expertise in Sharepoint and Lync – both at a strategic level,
but also from an end-user perspective.
Arts Council England is looking for a provider who is good at working one-to-one,
or with larger groups, and can pass on skills, techniques and knowledge to people
with a wide range of current abilities.
3. Arts Council England’s Requirements
3.1 The following services are required by Arts Council England under this ITT:

Advise on, and support, an internal communications campaign using
existing channels the internal communications team has, to promote the
use of OnePlace and Lync as tools to embed the aims of the Arts Council’s
review. The purpose of the campaign is to describe, explain and ‘sell’ the
benefits of Sharepoint and Lync, as tools for collaborative working and
communication.

List the benefits available in terms that can be shown to be achievable once
implemented, so that maximum buy-in for the improvements and training
can be achieved, and so that the ‘campaign’ (as per bullet point above)
mirrors the up-coming activity.

Develop OnePlace’s usability and end-user experience and include
homepage usability, navigation, team site development, interactivity etc as
per the Arts Council’s requests.

Scope out, design and provide a programme of bespoke training sessions
in both Sharepoint and Lync, to fit in with the fluctuating workloads of Arts
Council staff. This programme will include:
o 1:1 coaching for individuals, including the Chief Executive and
Executive Board
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o ‘Super user’ training for internal comms, IT and customer service
teams – to enable them to provide on-going in-house training and
support.
o Up to 15 bespoke training sessions on using OnePlace / Sharepoint
and Lync for collaborative working. These sessions will be held in all
the Arts Council’s offices across England and with all teams, and
include staff members with different levels of confidence and skill.

Provide on-going technical support for both internal comms and IT for the
duration of the Contract, including potential future SharePoint up-grades,
OnePlace redesigns and/or additions, further training as and when required
by the Arts Council.
3.2. Deliverables / outputs required by the Arts Council under this ITT will include:
 List of specific and detailed benefits achievable from enhanced use of
existing technology / systems
 Detailed report of any necessary remedial work and fixes, with estimated
timescales
 Site usability advice and suggestions for improvements
 Improvements agreed with Arts Council and implemented within reasonable
timescales
 Agreed programme of training (as detailed above) with the level of that
training fully scoped
 Training days at Arts Council England offices across England (London,
Brighton, Cambridge, Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Dewsbury,
Newcastle, Manchester), and three to five at the National offices (London,
Birmingham, Manchester)
 On-going support to be provided either remotely, or in person
3.3. All bidders are required to submit their proposals on how they will meet our
requirements specified in Clause 3.1 above and deliver required deliverables
/outputs specified in Clause 3.2 above.
3.4. Outside of scope under this ITT: Support for, or hosting of, our SharePoint
environment is not within the scope of this tender.
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3.5. Project Timetable
End of May - Diagnostics to take place
Beginning of June – Produce report, scheme of proposed remedial and
developmental work
Beginning of June – Agree scope / timescales of work for intranet repair /
development
Beginning of June – Agree timetable / schedule for training programme
Mid–end of June – carry out remedial / developmental work
Beginning of July – Commence training programme with IT, Internal Comms,
Customer Services teams in Manchester or potentially off-site
Late July – First wave of organisation-wide training programme carried out at all
Arts Council offices
September – Second wave of training sessions for those not available in July
August 2014- August 2015 – ongoing support
3.6. Hours of Service
For the initial consultancy / development work – no specified hours
For the training work 09.00 – 17.00hrs on training days
For subsequent support contract 09.00 – 17.00hrs
For subsequent consultancy / development work – no specified hours
3.7. Escalation Procedures
In the event of a major problem, a list of contacts will be required to manage any
problem to a successful conclusion.
3.8. Account Management
In performing the services required under this contract the supplier will report to
Toby Ross, Manager, Internal Communications & Planning, Arts Council England,
The Hive, Lever Street, Manchester, MI IFN.
The Service Provider will be required to allocate the named individual who will be
responsible for the account management of this contract on behalf of the Service
Provider.
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3.9. Customer Support / Service Levels
Customer support and Service levels will be applicable to Services and the details
of the level of service a bidder is able to provide will be required as part of tender
submission.
3.10 Management Reporting/review meetings
There will be regular weekly review meetings during the development work part of
the contract. After that, regular monthly review meetings for the remainder of the
contract to discuss progress, issues arising etc.
Contract Duration and Value
Contract duration is estimated for 15 months. Arts Council England reserves its
right to renew the Contract for a further 24 months and / or request additional
services related to SharePoint development and training.
The total costs of services under the Contract for the contract duration of 15
months is estimated in the range of £30,000 -£35,000 inclusive of VAT and all
associated expenses. For the price evaluation purposes the total fees in your bid
shall not exceed £35,000 inclusive of VAT and all associated expenses.
If Arts Council England decides to renew or request additional services the total
value of such additional services or 24 months extension will be up to £50,000
inclusive of VAT and all associated expenses.
Payment Structure and billing requirements
Payment for the initial diagnostic work, status report and subsequent remedial
action will be made on successful completion of this stage of the work.
Payment for the training programme will be made separately at the successful
conclusion of the programme.
Payment for any support contract will be invoiced separately and paid monthly in
arrears.
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Section 2: Evaluation Criteria
You are required to respond to ALL of the criteria below.
Initially we will evaluate your tender for a relevant Lot to see if you meet our minimum
PASS/FAIL CRITERIA set out below.
Bidders who do not pass all the Pass/Fail criteria (A, B, C and D) below will be
excluded from further consideration in the competition (i.e. their tenders will not be
evaluated further and will be excluded from the competition).
Pass Fail Criteria A
Arts Council England is looking for an organisation with:

Experience of designing, implementing and maintaining Sharepoint
based intranets, preferably for medium sized organisations based on
multiple sites.
 The capability to perform a technical and user-experience current state
assessment on the intranet
 The skills and capacity to carry out a programme of training across
multi-sites on a bespoke basis
Please provide Evidence of the experience of undertaking similar projects
(similar in scale, value and complexity) successfully and supporting references
demonstrating this.
The customer contact should be prepared to speak to the purchasing
organisation to confirm the accuracy of the information provided.
Pass Fail Criteria B
Bidder has submitted a complete tender that accords with every instruction and
requirement set out in this ITT.
Pass Fail Criteria C
The Bidder’s Total Costs in Table A for the term of 15 months does not
exceed £35,000 (including VAT and expenses). Bidders whose costs exceed
this amount will be excluded from further consideration in the tender process.
If you pass all of the pass/fail criteria set out above, we will evaluate your tender
response using quality and price criteria which are set out below.
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Your Bid will be scored out of 100. 70% of the marks will be allocated to your
response to the Quality Questions Below. Each question will be scored using the
methodology in the Table below.
Your overall score for each question will be calculated by multiplying the quality score you
receive with the weighting for that question, set out below. This score will then be divided
by the total maximum available score for the Quality Criterions and multiplied by 70% to
get your final score for that question.
Example: assume Bidder A scores 3 for Question 1: the formula is 3 x 10 = 30, 30/ 235
x 70 = 8.9% for Question 1.
30% of the marks will be available for your Price Proposal. The methodology for
scoring price is set out further below.
Your responses should be supported by evidence/previous successful implementation of
proposed solution for meeting our requirements.
Please note – Though criteria are numbered, this does not relate to any order of
importance
Evaluation Criteria
Quality: 70%
Weighting
Question 1
Please detail how you meet all of our requirements as detailed
above in Specification.
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Question 2
Please provide a clear and realistic project plan to perform all
required consultancy, training and support services specified in
Clause 3.1 above that responds to the aims and constraints set
out in Specification and within the budget and timescale.
10
Question 3
Please identify the risk to delivering this project to time and
budget and your proposals for mitigating them.
5
Question 4
How will you ensure you have adequate resources to meet our
requirements set out in Specification?
Please provide details of your delivery team and their capacity to
provide services for the duration of the contract (resource
allocation).
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Question 5
Demonstrate how you will monitor quality and provide details of
your quality assurances procedures
5
Question 6
Demonstrate how you will meet high levels of customer service
standards throughout the implementation and development
services and please provide details of suggested service level
agreements, management information and reporting based on
any existing arrangements you may have.
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Total maximum available scores
235
Responses to each question above will be allocated a score based on the methodology
contained in the table below. This score will then be multiplied by the weighting in the
column on the right.
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Quality Questions scoring methodology
0
1
2
3
4
5
Poor
No response or partial response and poor
evidence provided in support of it. Does not give
the Arts Council confidence in the ability of the
Bidder to deliver the Contract.
Weak
Response is supported by a weak standard of
evidence in several areas giving rise to concern
about the ability of the Bidder to deliver the
Contract.
Satisfactory
Response is supported by a satisfactory
standard of evidence in most areas but a few
areas lacking detail/evidence giving rise to some
concerns about the ability of the Bidder to deliver
the Contract.
Good
Response is comprehensive and supported by
good standard of evidence. Gives the Arts
Council confidence in the ability of the Bidder to
deliver the contract. Meets the Fund’s
requirements.
Very good
Response is comprehensive and supported by a
high standard of evidence. Gives ACE a high
level of confidence in the ability of the Bidder to
deliver the contract. Exceeds ACE’s
requirements in some respects.
Excellent
Response is very comprehensive and supported
by a very high standard of evidence. Gives Arts
Council England a very high level of confidence
the ability of the Bidder to deliver the contract.
Exceeds the Arts Council’s requirements in most
respects.
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Price scoring methodology: 30% overall
Price: The evaluation of price will be carried out on the Schedule of charges you provide
in response to Table A below
Price
Criterion
30 marks will be awarded to the lowest priced bid and the
remaining bidders will be allocated scores based on their deviation
from this figure. Your fixed and total costs figure in Table A will be
used to score this question.
30%
For example, if the lowest price is £100 and the second lowest
price is £108 then the lowest priced bidder gets 30% (full marks) for
price and the second placed bidder gets 27.6% and so on. (8/100 x
30 = 2.4 marks; 30-2.4 = 27.6 marks)
The scores for quality and price will be added together to obtain the overall score for each
Bidder. The Bidder with the highest score will be the preferred Bidder.
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Schedule of Charges
Bidders must complete the schedule of charges table A below estimating the number of
days and travel and subsistence costs associated with their bid. The total fixed price will
be inclusive of VAT and inclusive of expenses and all costs to be incurred.
TABLE A:
e.g.
e.g. Senior
Consultant/
manager/re
searcher
Junior
Consulta
nt/equiva Total
Days
lent
e.g. £500
e.g. £300
e.g. £200
e.g. 0.5
1
1.5
(firm and fixed costs to meet all Project
ACE’s requirements under this Manager/
ITT)
Director
Total
Fees
Quantity
Inception meeting to
agree plans and
finalise requirements
with ACE
[Insert additional
rows to include other
activities and
deliverables as listed
in Section 3.1 and
3.2]
Expenses
Travel and
subsistence
1
3
850
[Add as necessary]
Sub-total
VAT
Total Costs including VAT and expenses (this figure will be used for the
purposes of allocating your score for the price criterion and must cover
the cost of meeting all our requirements )
Notes: Arts Council England reserves the right to reject abnormally low tenders.
You should not submit additional assumptions with your pricing submission. If you
submit assumptions you will be asked to withdraw them. Failure to withdraw them
will lead to your exclusion from further participation in this competition.
* Arts Council England reserves the right to amend this timetable where required.
Please note any contract awarded will be based on the Art Council’s standard terms
and conditions of contract and you will be required to sign up to these if
successful.
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Section 3: Instructions to tenderers
Please submit your tender offer in accordance with all of the instructions,
requirements and specifications set out in the enclosed documentation.
You must treat these documents and any further information provided by Arts
Council England as confidential at all times and only disclose them if necessary to
prepare a compliant response to the tender.
Nothing in the enclosed documentation or appendixes, or any other
communication made between Arts Council England and any other party, can be
considered a contract or agreement at this stage.
All correspondence in relation to this tender, including tender submissions, should
be address to:
Toby Ross
Manager, Internal Communications & Planning
Arts Council England
The Hive
49 Lever Street
Manchester MI IFN
Tel: 0161 934 4330
Email: Internal.Communications@artscouncil.org.uk
Tender Timetable
Please see below a detailed timetable of when specific events will take place and
specific deadlines which must be met in order to participate in this tender.
Event
Date/Time
Tender Notice posted
2 May 2014
Tender response deadline
Noon 23 May 2014
Clarification meetings (if applicable)*
Week commencing 26 May
2014
Anticipated contract award
End of May 2014
*Arts Council England reserves the right to carry out clarifications via email or by inviting
Bidders to a clarification meeting. In order to ensure that both the Arts Council’s and
Bidder’s resources are used appropriately, Arts Council England will only invite the top two
or three (depending on the closeness of scores) highest scoring bidders to attend a
clarification meeting
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Compliance
Arts Council England reserves the right to disqualify or reduce the evaluation
score of any tenderers who do not fully comply with the requirements in the tender
documentation, in particular the closing time and date.
If you propose alternative goods or services for consideration, you must clearly
mark these as non-compliant. Arts Council England reserves the right to reject any
proposals with non-compliant alternatives. Tenders that are received are not
automatically accepted.
Arts Council England reserves the right to evaluate proposals on a variety of
criteria. The tender with the lowest price will not automatically be accepted.
Prices
You should provide a fixed price cost for meeting all our contract requirements.
Submit all prices in pounds sterling and indicate VAT separately, if applicable.
Prices should be fixed and firm for the duration of the contract.
Please note: Arts Council England reserves the right to purchase all or any parts
of the tendered goods or services at the prices and specifications submitted in
your response.
Contract and duration
Arts Council England will award the contract to the successful tenderer for the
period of 15 months with a right to extend the contract for another 24 months
period.
The Arts Council’s standard terms and conditions for services will form part of the
contract to be awarded. These can be downloaded and reviewed from our
website:http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/Contract_for_Services_o
ver_10K_v1_March_2012.pdf. The Arts Council may also require further terms to
be included in the contract that are specific to the successful supplier‘s application.
The Preferred Supplier will not be permitted to enter into any negotiations on
the terms of the Contract. Any attempt to negotiate amendments will breach
the terms of this ITT and will result in the Preferred Supplier being excluded
from the tender process. In such circumstances Arts Council England
reserves the right to invite the next highest scoring Bidder to enter into the
Contract.
Please note that Arts Council England are required to publish online the final
awarded contract and any associated documentation. If you have any concerns
about the future publication of sensitive information you should raise these within
your tender proposal, highlighting which areas within your proposal you consider
may be subject to exemption, and subsequent redaction, in line with the provisions
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of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). More information about FOIA can
be found at www.ico.gov.uk.
Validity of offer
You must offer your tender for acceptance for 60 days from the deadline for tender
submission.
Please note that by submitting a tender response for consideration you are
confirming that, as an officer for the company/organisation that you represent, you
have read and understood the tender documents and that your offer to Arts
Council England is open for acceptance for 60 days from the tender closing date.
Tendering
If we need to amend any tender documents before the closing date, we will write
to you with any changes. If we extend the deadline for tender responses, we will
advise you.
Arts Council England reserves the right, in its absolute discretion, to cancel or
suspend this tender process at any time and for any reason. If we need to do this
we will notify you in writing as soon as reasonably practicably.
Arts Council England is not responsible, and will not pay for any expenses or
losses you incur during, but not limited to, the tender preparation, site visits, posttender clarification meetings.
Information and questions
If you need us to clarify the documentation or if you have further questions
regarding the tender process, write to the lead officer quoting the tender reference
number. We will try to respond to reasonable requests for further information
within the timescale of the tender.
Arts Council England reserves the right to advise all other tenderers of material
questions and the answers supplied without disclosing the source of the enquiry.
These will be issued via the contracts finder website.
Site visits
If you require a site visit to Arts Council England before submitting your tender,
write to the lead officer. Arts Council England reserves the right to refuse any site
visit requests, but we will explain why we refused.
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Return of Tender
Send
your
tender,
including
all
documentation,
by
email
to:
Internal.Communications@artscouncil.org.uk to arrive no later than 12.00
Noon on 23 May 2014. Any tender received after that time for any reason may be
discounted.
In your tender response, clearly indicate the names and addresses of any subcontractors you intend to use to provide the services, and the scope of work you
will employ them for.
The Arts Council is not responsible if all or part of your tender is not received. In
the event of a dispute, you are responsible to prove the tender was delivered.
Post-tender clarification meetings
Arts Council England reserves the right to ask you to attend post-tender
clarification meetings if necessary these may be carried out via email or by inviting
bidders to attend a clarification meeting. In order to ensure that both Arts Council
England’s and Bidder’s resources are used appropriately, Arts Council England
will only invite the top one or two (the ultimate number will depend on the
closeness of scores) highest scoring bidders to attend a clarification meeting.
Scores will be moderated based on any clarifications provided during this meeting.
You are responsible for all your expenses when attending such clarification
meetings. If required, interviews will take place on w/c 26 May 2014 at The Hive,
Lever Street, Manchester, M1 1FN.
Arts Council England reserves the right to vary all dates in this Invitation to tender,
to terminate this procurement process and/or decide not to award a contract.
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