COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT · Web view2018-05-03 · The Commonwealth Secretariat is an inter-governmental agency of the Commonwealth member countries with its HQ on Pall Mall, London

COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIATMARLBOROUGH HOUSE, PALL MALL, LONDON SW1Y 5HX

IN STRICT COMMERCIAL CONFIDENCE

Invitation to Tender

For the provision of Third Line IT Support, Maintenance and

Monitoring to the Commonwealth Secretariat

May 2018

Reference Number: 449-2018

Return Date: 12:00 Noon, Thursday 17th May 2018

Contract Award: June 2018

Contact Email: [email protected]

Contents

1. Introduction_____________________________________________________________32. Purpose_________________________________________________________________33. Instructions to Bidders__________________________________________________34. Evaluation Weightings___________________________________________________45. Tender Timeline_________________________________________________________56. Information for Bidders__________________________________________________57. Specification____________________________________________________________7

Tender Submission Documents

Part 1 – Bidder Details_____________________________________________________11Part 2 - Suitability Assessment Questions__________________________________12Part 3 – Technical Questionnaire___________________________________________12Part 4 – Commercial_______________________________________________________18

Appendices

Appendix 1 - Standard Terms and Conditions______________________________19Appendix 2 - Code of Ethics________________________________________________19

ITT 449/2018 – THIRD LINE IT SUPPORT, MAINTENANCE AND MONITORING TO THE COMMONWEATH SECRETARIAT

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1.IntroductionThe Commonwealth Secretariat is an inter-governmental agency of the Commonwealth member countries with its HQ on Pall Mall, London. The Commonwealth Secretariat implements decisions agreed by Heads of Government and Ministers through advocacy, coalition–building, information sharing, analysis, technical assistance, capacity-building, and advice on policy development.

2.PurposeThe purpose of this tender is to find and appoint a suitable supplier for the provision of Third Line IT Support, Maintenance and Monitoring to the Commonwealth Secretariat. The appointed supplier shall be awarded a contract that will be effective for 2 years.

See Specification in Section 7 for details on the services required.

3.Instructions to BiddersThis is a one stage tender process with a written submission to this Invitation to Tender (ITT).

Bidders must submit all documents as set out in Part1 – Part 4 no later than the return date.

The tender documents are to be returned by post and email to the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Post:

ProcurementTender Response (449-2018)Commonwealth SecretariatMarlborough HousePall MallLondon SW1Y 5HX

Email: [email protected]

All queries must be in writing via the email address above.

Following all stages of the tender process, the bid received that is deemed the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) shall be awarded the contract based on the evaluation weightings below.


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mailto:[email protected]

4.Evaluation WeightingsThe scoring methodology that will be applied is as follows:

Information only – the information provided will not be scored, but failure to provide it may result in the PQQ submission being disqualified from the tender process.

Pass/ fail – responses to the questions that are scored as a "fail" will result in disqualification from the tender process and the remaining sections of the response will not be evaluated further.

Scored – responses will be awarded a score as described below and at the beginning of each section.

Suitability Assessment – Pass/Fail

You will be excluded from the tender process if there is evidence of convictions relating to specific criminal offences including, but not limited to, bribery, corruption, conspiracy, terrorism, fraud and money laundering, or if you have been the subject of a binding legal decision which found a breach of legal obligations to pay tax or social security obligations.

In addition, there are mandatory pass/fail questions.

Technical Pass/Fail & 60%

Mandatory Minimum Requirements

Within the technical questions, there are mandatory pass/fail questions.

Scored – 60%

The following scoring mechansim will be used to score each question in these sections:

Score Description0 Does not meet the specification or has not responded to the

question

1 Low Fit – Meets most of the specification, but is missing in areas

2 Fit – Meets the specification as required

3 Good Fit – Meets all of the specification well and exceeds expectations in some areas

4 Excellent Fit – Exceeds expectations in most or all areas

The following formula will be applied for each question:


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o Points Scored ÷ Points Available × % weightingo The scores for each of the questions will be added to give a total

Technical/Quality Score

Unanswered questions or sections that are left blank shall be awarded a 0.

Questions that exceed the word count shall be awarded a 0.

Commercial – Pass/Fail & 40%

Mandatory Minimum Requirements

Within the Commercial section, there are mandatory pass/fail requirements.

Scored – 40%

For the scored element of this criteria, the lowest price bid shall be awarded the full points, all other bids shall be awarded a percentage from the benchmark. E.g. (lowest price/other bid)*weighting = Score.

5.Tender Timeline Please note the following timeline may be subject to change if required.

Activity DateITT published 03rd May 2018Deadline for questions for be asked

10th May 2018

Return ITT to Commonwealth 12 Noon 17th May 2018 (UK Time)

Preferred Bidder Selected 31st May 2018Contract award 14th June 2018

6.Information for Bidders Unless indicated otherwise, all prices should be quoted in Pounds Sterling.

Prices quoted should exclude VAT but must indicate clearly where VAT is applicable and where items might be zero-rated.

The bidder must ensure that they have all the information required for the preparation of the tender submission and that they are satisfied about the correct interpretation of terminology used in this documentation. The bidder must also ensure that they are fully conversant with the nature and extent of the obligations should the tender be accepted.

Tenders are to be valid for a minimum of 120 days from the closing date for the submission of the tenders.

The Commonwealth Secretariat reserves the right to cancel the tender at any time during the process.

Bidders shall bear all costs in completing a tender submission.


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Bidders shall not disclose details of the ITT to third parties without prior agreement from an authorised officer of the Commonwealth Scretariat.

Bidders are required to submit transparent pricing with no hidden costs or charges.

The Secretariat will carry out an evaluation of the tender bids using the weighted criteria method as described. Following both stages the Secretariat will select a preferred bidder which will be taken forward to contract award. The Secretariat reserves the right to appoint a reserve preferred bidder which the Secretariat would take forward to contract award if any contract negotiations with the preferred bidder are unsuccessful.

By taking part in this tender all bidders commit to the following:

Bidders certify that they have not canvassed or solicited any officer or employee of the Secretariat in connection with this tender submission and that no person employed or acting on behalf of the bidder has done any such act.

Bidders will not canvas or solicit any officer or employee of the Secretariat in connection with this tender submission.

Bidders confirm that they shall automatically be subject to termination on grounds of misrepresentation and failure of duty to disclose.


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7.Specification Purpose

To provide an 3rd line Support, Maintenance and Monitoring on the Commonwealth Secretariat’s infrastructure.

Background

The Commonwealth Secretariat is an intergovernmental organisation whose mission is to support member governments, and partner with the broader Commonwealth family and others, to improve the well-being of all Commonwealth citizens and to advance their shared interests globally.

The Secretariat (Client) relies heavily on the use of Information Technology for delivery of its services, and the IT Services section is charged with the role of ensuring that the existing office and associated systems are fully functional at all times, thereby contributing to staff productivity and improving the quality of the Secretariat’s output. The Secretariat now seeks a competent firm (Contractor) to provide IT Support Services.

Scope of Work

1. Remote support

3rd line support to be provided by certified engineers through email, telephone and Instant Messaging for the infrastructure detailed in Annexe 1.

2. Onsite Support

3rd line support to be provided when necessary for the infrastructure housed at Marlborough and Commonwealth House. The contractor should charge per person hour.

3. Access to a ticketing system

The Client will be provided with access to a ticketing system for raising and tracking support tickets.

4. Documentation of the infrastructure

The contractor will document the infrastructure in a format to be provided by the client, and delivered within one month of start of the contract.

Updated documentation to be delivered every 12 months.

5. Upgrades


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The contactor will provide advice on necessary infrastructural updates, and will undertake infrastructure upgrades when requested to by the secretariat.

6. Monitoring

The contractor will provide 24/7 remote monitoring for the infrastructure. Alerts on critical and major faults will be issued to the client by SMS and email.

7. Skills TransferThe supplier will conduct a skills transfer exercise for staff of the Secretariat every 12 months. This will be conducted on premises at Marlborough House for half a day per session.

8. Service Level Agreement

The following Service levels shall be applicable for the infrastructure support.

8.1 Categorization

Initial categorization of the fault into critical, major or minor severity will be made using the criteria listed below:

i. Critical – Priority 1 – Service or Services unavailable – A critical incident which prevents continuation of business, or which causes significant operational difficulties such that immediate or continuous corrective action is required.

ii. Major Faults – Priority 2 – Service Fault – A major incident which causes significant operational difficulties but which does not prevent a continuation of business and does not require immediate or continuous corrective action.

iii. Minor – Priority 3 – All other Faults – or faults with workarounds – An incident affecting a small number of users with little affect to business objectives.

iv. Information – Priority 4 – Information required by the Client.

8.2 Service Levels – Response Times and Service Credits

Response Times Service Crediti. For Critical Faults response time

more than 30 minutes without explanation and approval from the Client

1% of the quarterly maintenance and support charges, per incident

ii. For Major Faults For response time more than 2 hours without explanation and approval from the Client


iii. For Other Faults response time 1% of the quarterly ITT 449/2018 – THIRD LINE IT SUPPORT, MAINTENANCE AND MONITORING TO THE COMMONWEATH SECRETARIAT

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more than 8 hours without explanation and approval from the Client

maintenance and support charges, per incident

iv. For Information requests response time more than 2 weeks without explanation and approval from the Client


8.3 Service Levels - Resolution Times and Service Credits

Resolution Times Service Credit

i. For Critical Faults resolution times more than 48hrs for Temporary Fix and more than 2 months for Permanent Fix.


ii. For Major Faults resolution times more than 72hrs for Temporary Fix and more than 2 months for Permanent Fix


iii. For Other Faults if no resolution after agreeing on the fix and time between the parties


9 Reporting

Monthly reports to be submitted to the Head of IT for work undertaken.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and Incident reports will be submitted with 24 hours of a temporary resolution for Critical and Major faults.

10 Contract Management

The primary contact for Contract Management is the Head of IT at the Commonwealth Secretariat.


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Annexe 1

Typical Services

The types of Service Area Calls to be handled by Tier 3 include:

1. Support for Infrastructure Incidents, including but not limited to: Hardware (e.g., servers, midrange servers, mainframe, switches) Database support and Platform support (Predominantly a Microsoft

Environment) Network components and circuits (e.g., WAN, LAN, VPNx)

2. Electronic transactions and interfaces, including but not limited to: Secure FTPs and any other nominated by the client

3. Service Requests, Incident and Problem Management Apply emergency hotfixes when necessary Troubleshooting (Onsite/remote) Document all Incidents Escalated to Tier 3. Maintain incident register Document Root Cause Analysis Produce regular reports on incident management

4. Change Management Document all changes to configurations as they occur Send client log of work performed or work in progress on a monthly basis

5. Expert Liaison Technical Liaison for Equipment specification Skills transfer to 1st and 2nd line support

6. System maintenance Administration, and Maintenance of a Windows Based Network on Virtual

and Cloud environments Installation, administration and Maintenance of Storage Firewall installation, Port management and configuration, administration

and maintenance Network devices installation, configuration, administration and

maintenance Conducting Availability tests on Core infrastructure Major SW/HW upgrades to network backbone, including routers, WAN

additions, etc. Alert Client to dangerous conditions for instance (but not limited to)

-Memory running low-Hard drive showing sign of failure-Hard drive running out of disk space-Controllers losing interrupts-Network Cards report unusual collision activity

Overall Data Centre support services.7. Monitoring

Directory replication monitoring and management SQL DB management monitoring and management Web filters, Email spam filters Management Overall application disk space management


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Tender Submission Documents (449-2018)Note - Bidders must complete and return all tender submission documents below:

Part 1 – Bidder Details Part 2 – Suitability Assessment QuestionsPart 3 – Technical Questionnaire Part 4 – Commercial

Part 1 – Bidder Details – for informationPlease provide details relating to your registered offices, legal status and date of incorporation.

Company Name

Company Number

Company Address

Date of incorporation

Post Code

Contact Name

Job Title

Telephone Email

In the event of utilising a third party, on your behalf for any part of the services, please provide the full details of the secondary supplier:

Company Name

Duration of working relationship,

Company Address

Reason for use

Post Code

Please provide audited annual turnover for the past three years:

Previous year Year 2 Year 3Annual Turnover £ £ £

Please provide the contact details of two reference clients. The referees will not be contacted until the final stage of the tender process. Please provide references from similar international organisations or public sector bodies if possible.

Reference 1 Reference 2

Company Name Company Address


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Post CodeTelephoneEmail

Part 2 - Suitability Assessment QuestionsGrounds for Exclusion

You will be excluded from the tender process if there is evidence of convictions relating to specific criminal offences including, but not limited to, bribery, corruption, conspiracy, terrorism, fraud and money laundering, or if you have been the subject of a binding legal decision which found a breach of legal obligations to pay tax or social security obligations.

1. Within the past five years, has your organisation (or any member of your proposed consortium, if applicable), Directors or Partner or any other person who has powers of representation, decision or control been convicted of any of the following offences?

Please Mark ‘X’ In The Relevant Box Yes No

(a) Conspiracy as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(b) Corruption as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(c) Bribery as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(d) The offence of cheating the Revenue as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(e) The offence of conspiracy to defraud as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(f) Fraud as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(g) Theft as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(h) Fraudulent trading as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(i) Fraudulent evasion as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(j) Destroying, defacing or concealing of documents or procuring the execution of a valuable security as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.


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(k) The possession of articles for use in frauds as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(l) Any offence considered to be Counter Terrorism as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(m) Money laundering as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(n) Any Sexual Offences as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

(o) Drug trafficking as defined by the legislative or judicial bodies in your jurisdiction.

2. Within the past three years, please indicate if any of the following situations have applied, or currently apply, to your organisation. – Pass/Fail

Please Mark ‘X’ In The Relevant Box Yes No(a) your organisation is bankrupt or is the subject of

insolvency or winding-up proceedings, where your assets are being administered by a liquidator or by the court, where it is in an arrangement with creditors, where its business activities are suspended or it is in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure under the laws and regulations of any State;

(b) your organisation is guilty of grave professional misconduct, which renders its integrity questionable;

(c) your organisation has entered into agreements with other economic operators aimed at distorting competition;

(d) the prior involvement of your organisation in the preparation of the procurement procedure has resulted in a distortion of competition;

(e) your organisation has shown significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance of a substantive requirement under a prior contract with a contracting entity, or a prior concession contract, which led to early termination of that prior contract, damages or other comparable sanctions.

3. Employment and Human Rights – Pass/Fail


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For organisations working outside of the UK please refer to equivalent legislation in the country that you are located. Please delete ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ as applicable.

(a)

In the last three years, has any finding of unlawful discrimination been made against your organisation by an Employment Tribunal, an Employment Appeal Tribunal or any other court (or in comparable proceedings in any jurisdiction other than the UK)?

Yes/No

(b)

In the last three years, has your organisation had a complaint upheld following an investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission or its predecessors (or a comparable body in any jurisdiction other than the UK), on grounds or alleged unlawful discrimination?

If you have answered “yes” to one or both of the questions, please provide, as a separate Appendix, a summary of the nature of the investigation and an explanation of the outcome of the investigation to date.

If the investigation upheld the complaint against your organisation, please use the Appendix to explain what action (if any) you have taken to prevent unlawful discrimination from reoccurring. You may be excluded if you are unable to demonstrate to The Commonwealth’s satisfaction that appropriate remedial action has been taken to prevent similar unlawful discrimination reoccurring.

Yes/No

(c)

If you use sub-contractors, do you have processes in place to check whether any of the above circumstances apply to these other organisations?

Yes/No/NA

4. Environmental Legislation – Pass/Fail


(a)

Has your organisation been convicted of breaching environmental legislation, or had any notice served upon it, in the last three years by any environmental regulator or authority (including local authority)?

If your answer to this question is “Yes”, please provide details in a separate Appendix of the conviction or notice and details of any remedial action or changes you have made as a result of conviction or notices served. The Secretariat will not select bidders that have been prosecuted or served notice under environmental legislation in the last 3 years, unless The Commonwealth is satisfied that appropriate remedial action has been taken to prevent future occurrences/breaches.

Yes/No

(b)

If you use sub-contractors, do you have processes in place to check whether any of these organisations have been convicted or had a notice served upon them for infringement of environmental legislation?

Yes/No/NA


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5. Health and Safety legislation – Pass/Fail


(a)

Please self-certify that your organisation has a Health and Safety Policy that complies with current legislative requirements.

Yes/No

(b)

Has your organisation or any of its Directors or Executive Officers been in receipt of enforcement/remedial orders in relation to the Health and Safety Executive (or equivalent body) in the last 3 years?

If your answer to this question was “Yes”, please provide details in a separate Appendix of any enforcement/remedial orders served and give details of any remedial action or changes to procedures you have made as a result. The Secretariat will exclude bidder(s) that have been in receipt of enforcement/remedial action orders unless the bidder(s) can demonstrate to The Commonwealth’s satisfaction that appropriate remedial action has been taken to prevent future occurrences or breaches.

Yes/No

(c)

If you use sub-contractors, do you have processes in place to check whether any of the above circumstances apply to these other organisations?

Yes/No/NA

6. Policies – Pass/Fail Please delete ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ as applicable.

(a) Do you have a Health & Safety Policy Yes/No

(b) Do you have an Environmental Management Policy Yes/No

(c) Do you have a Data Protection / GDPR Policy Yes/No

7. Terms and Conditions – Pass/Fail

Please delete ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ as applicable.

(a) Please confirm that your organisation agrees to the Commonwealth Secretariat’s standard terms and conditions (Appendix 1).

If not, please state reasons:

Yes/No

8. Code of Ethics – Pass/Fail

Please delete ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ as applicable.


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(a) Please confirm that your organisation agrees to and has signed, dated and attached the Code of Ethics (Appendix 2)

Yes/No


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Part 3 – Technical Questionnaire – Pass/Fail & 60%Technical Requirements

A. Mandatory Minimum Requirements

Pelase delete ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ as applicable. If you answer ‘Yes’ to any of these questions, please provide supporting documentation as evidence.

Question No.

QuestionYes No

Supporting documentation provided (if applicable)

3A.1 Support Engineers with advanced Microsoft Certifications

3A.2 Support Engineers with Advanced Network Certifications such as CCNA

3A.3 Support Ticketing System with ability to raise and track support tickets

The Mandatory Minimum Requirements questions, are mandatory pass/fail questions. A negative response will result in your exclusion from the tender process and the Commonwealth Secretariat reserves the right to cease evaluating the remainder of your tender submission.

B. Weighted Technical Questions

The questions below are worth 60% of the total score. The indiviudal question weightings are set out in the weighting column. Please answer all questions in the spaces provided and where applicable, clearly refer to attached documents or appendices where these are necessary to answer the question in full.

Question No.

Question Weighting (%)

3B.1 Please detail the types of infrastructure that you have provided L3 support in the last ten years. Please use the following categories

i. Networks and Communications infrastructureii. Email and Web Serversiii. Cloud Platformsiv. Database Platforms & Replication Softwarev. Hardware including Servers and Storagevi. Virtualisation Software

40

Insert your answer here3B.2 Please outline the service levels and the methodology you

would use to deal with the following kinds of incidents:

i. Critical – Priority 1 – Service or Services unavailable – A critical incident which prevents continuation of business, or which causes significant operational difficulties such that immediate or continuous corrective action is required.

20


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ii. Major Faults – Priority 2 – Service Fault – A major incident which causes significant operational difficulties but which does not prevent a continuation of business and does not require immediate or continuous corrective action.

iii. Minor – Priority 3 – All other Faults – or faults with workarounds – An incident affecting a small number of users with little affect to business objectives.

iv. Information – Priority 4 – Information required by the Client

Insert your answer here


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Part 4 – Commercial – 40%Financial StandingBidders must achieve a minimum Equifax Credit Score. Should an applicant fail to meet this minimum standard, the Commonwealth Secretairat is entitled to exclude the bidder from the Procurement exercise but, may decide at it’s discretion, having considered all the relevant circumstances, to allow the bidder to proceed.

Pricing - Weighted

Transparent pricing must be submitted with no hidden costs. Prices quoted should be in line with the specificied requirements of this tender. Pricing and cost must be broken down to the different elements of the service and must include all associated costs. Prices quoted must be fixed and firm for the proposed term of the agreement. Please provide pricing exactly as set out below:

Activity Cost (excluding VAT)Maintenance & Support Charges £ (fixed cost) Quartely Fee

£ (fixed cost) Total Contract Cost

On Site SupportPlease provide pricing for all applicable grades of staff

£ (fixed costs) Price Per Person, Per Hour

Any Other Costs £ (fixed costs)


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Appendices

Appendix 1 - Standard Terms and Conditions

Appendix 2 - Code of Ethics


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