Programme Delivery Partner Framework

The Highways sector within England is undergoing one of the most significant periods of change in its history. The Highways Agency is currently waiting for legislation to go through Parliament to change status from a Government Agency to a Government owned company. In parallel with this, and in recognition of the crucial role the highways infrastructure plays in the economic well-being of the nation, a threefold increase in investment in UK highway investment was announced in 2013. However these changes are accompanied by the demand to significantly reduce the cost and delivery time-scales of highways project and in order to address these challenges the Highways Agency are making radical changes in the way it goes about defining, planning and delivering its highways investments.
As part of this change programme, and in order to manage this step change in investment efficiently, the Highways agency wishes to transition from a project management to a programme management delivery model. The Highways Agency need to enhance its capacity to manage this increase in workload and additionally need to enhance their capability in several aspects of programme management. Hence there is a need to bring in expertise from outside of the organisation in the near to medium term to support us to make this transition and manage the rapid uplift in workload.
The Highways Agency seeks to procure an experienced programme management organisation or consortium (the Programme Delivery Partner) to provide experienced personnel to support this transition over a period of up to 4 years.
The immediate requirement will be for the Programme Delivery Partner to second individuals into three existing programmes of work (valued at circa 7 000 000 000 GBP) to fulfil specific roles where skills shortfalls have been identified.
In the longer term, and as an integral part of this role, the Programme Delivery Partner will also be required to transfer knowledge to the Highways Agency staff through on the job training, mentoring and formal training. The objective will be that the Programme Delivery Partner will exit at the end of circa 4 years leaving the Highways Agency as a mature programme management organisation.
The Programme Delivery Partner will also be required to provide support to other programmes of work which may be developed by the Highways Agency over the period of their engagement.
The Highways Agency are seeking a highly collaborative relationship with the successful supplier and its wider supply chain and it is envisaged that a ‘seamless team’ approach will be adopted with the Programme Delivery Partner staff embedded as an integral part of the programme teams.
Since the current programmes are still developing their delivery strategies it is not possible to precisely define the exact requirements and number of positions to be filled but circa 50 Programme Delivery Partner staff are currently envisaged.
Expressions of Interest are invited from suitably experienced and qualified organisations or consortia.
Required Capabilities and Services.
The Programme Delivery Partner is required to deliver services in the following key areas:
1. Resource secondment to programme delivery teams. Secondees will also be required to undertake mentoring, tutoring and on the job development and implementation of systems and processes.
2. Specific personal development and training courses on key competencies.
3. Support to implement culture and organisational change.
The intention will be to procure these services via task orders as required.
Areas of Service: A description of each Service Area is given below:
Area 1 — Resource Secondment, mentoring and on the job training.
The Highways Agency are seeking a highly collaborative relationship with the Programme Delivery Partner and individuals will be deployed within Programme Delivery Teams on a seamless team basis.
The Programme Delivery Partner will deploy staff into the Highways Agency programmes to supplement identified shortfalls in competence as part of an integrated team. These individuals will be will be instrumental in developing programme strategy, programme definition, work packaging and such other matters. As part of the role they will mentor and coach the Highways Agency staff working with them.
It is also likely that other members of the overall programme team will be drawn from other frameworks in particular the Collaborative Delivery Framework and the Programme Delivery Partner team members will also be responsible for integrating these individuals into the team and providing management direction. For example the Programme team will be responsible for developing and defining the scope for the programme including option studies and such matters. The technical aspects of this work will be undertaken by the engineering consultancy partners within the Collaborative Delivery Framework but management and direction of the process will be led by the programme delivery team.
The exact deployment of Programme Delivery Partner staff will be determined on a programme by programme basis to suit specific skills shortfalls. The organisation structure of individual Highways Agency programmes will vary in detail to suit the specific attributes of that programme and certain programmes may require competences to a greater or lesser degree. However the generic competences required should not vary significantly between programmes and, for the purposes of this procurement, and are typically likely to include the following:
— Programme Direction — Leadership, Direction, Strategy Governance and Control;
— Programme Controls — Planning, Reporting, Change Control, Risk Management and Document Management;
— HSQE — Health and Safety, Sustainability, Environmental Control, Quality Control, Audit, Compliance Programme;
— Programme Delivery — Logistics, Co-ordination, Supply Chain Management, Buildability, Value Engineering;
— Definition and Development — Scope definition, Option Studies, Requirements Management, Benefits Management Assurance;
— Financial Management — Finance, procurement, estimating, cost management accounting;
— Stakeholder Management — Approvals, Consultation and Communication, Legal Powers , Acquisition;
— Operations — End User requirements, Asset Management Strategy, Road Technology, Cost in Use.
Area 2 — Development and implementation of common systems and processes.
It is envisaged that a small specialist team will be deployed by the Programme Delivery Partner to work alongside Highways Agency colleagues to develop common processes and systems appropriate for managing programmes of the scale envisaged. It is the intention that this work will build upon the existing project management tools current used within the Highways Agency and will comply with all Highways Agency standing orders and governance protocols.
It is envisaged that, in order to ensure these systems and processes are in place as soon as possible, the Programme Delivery Partner will draw on systems used successfully on other programmes but tailor these to meet the requirements of Highways Agency and other governance requirements.
Systems to be developed may include:
— An ‘enterprise wide’ programme management system;
— An integrated Programme Controls suite to include scheduling tools, EVA and progress measurement systems, risk management system, cost management and reporting, document control, requirements management and change control;
— Stakeholder management tools and processes including Government Secure Intranet systems, web based communications tools and the like;
— Collaborations and design management tools such as BIM;
— Financial management tools, processes and systems including estimating packages, valuation and accounting systems;
— Programme development tools, processes and systems including requirements management , option analysis, value management, value engineering and benefits management;
— Delivery management tools and processes including supply chain logistics management.
Each of these systems would have an owner within the Highways Agency and the tools will be rolled out and embedded across the portfolio via a series of training sessions and pilots.
Area 3 — Personal Development and Training.
The Programme Delivery Partner will be required to develop and deliver a comprehensive suite of training material on the core competencies of programme management tailored to the specific context of the Highways Agency.
It is envisage that this will consist of a series of training modules which will incorporate topic areas. For example the programmes controls module will contain training on planning, earned value management, risk management, change control, etc. It is envisaged that there will be 2 primary levels to each training module — general awareness of principles required by all programme team members and expert level e.g. programming using specific IT applications for specialists.
Training will be delivered in formal classroom settings but modules will also be available as YouTube (or equivalent) style videos and webinars.
The overall suite of training modules must be able to be configured to meet the specific development needs of individuals such that personalised training plans are available.
The objective will be that the combinations of structured training and on the job mentoring and experience will enable participants to gain a formal qualification in programme management which will be seen as valuable to the individual.
Area 4 — Culture and Organisational Change.
The move to a Publicly Owned Company status and the different ways of working required to operate as programme managers both demand a significant change in culture within the Highways Agency. This change in culture is an important enabler in engendering support and a smooth transition to a programme management delivery approach and must be integrated with the overall Transformation programme being run within the Highways Agency.
Therefore the Programme Delivery Partner will be required to run a culture and organisation change programme as part of this commission. This programme will use tried and tested techniques for managing organisation and culture change and developing high performing teams. This work will be aligned with the wider Highways Agency transformation and ‘Future Engage Deliver’ work already taking place.
If the Tenderer does not have this specialised skills capability to deliver this Service Area then it is anticipated that subcontracting arrangements will be required with a specialised consultancy firm with a strong track record of success in this arena.
4. Structure of tender.
The PDP role is to be let under the Terms of the NEC3 Professional Services Contract (Option G) as adopted/modified by the Highways Agency incorporating the following Service Areas:
— Resource augmentation to programme delivery teams and mentoring ,tutoring and on the job training;
— Development and implementation of systems and processes;
— Specific training courses on key competencies;
— Culture and organisational change management.
The Contract will be advertised via the OJEU (Restricted Procedure) and suppliers will be short-listed following pre-qualification.
It is essential however that the 4 Service Areas are delivered as an integrated whole.
Services under a Task Orders may be paid for as;
— Lump Sum — on satisfactory completion of an activity;
— Target Cost; or
— Time charge.
The Agency will select the appropriate payment approach for the specific Task Order.
5. Pre-qualification.
It is the intention to pre-qualify suppliers by means of a number of suitability and selection criteria.
Suitability criteria will be mandatory and assessed on a pass/fail basis. Only those companies who comply with all suitability criteria will be considered further.
Suitable companies will be selected upon the basis of their response to the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire and case studies provided which will be scored according to the criteria below:
Quality of response Score.
Response demonstrates detailed, strong and highly relevant experience and capability 5.
Response demonstrates reasonable and relevant experience and capability 3.
Response demonstrates some experience and capability 1.
Response demonstrates no experience or capability 0.
Those companies with the highest overall score will be short-listed for invitation to tender for this service. It is not the intention to weight the various responses requested. It is the intention to short-list a minimum of 5 companies to submit a tender for this commission.
Bidders will be short-listed based upon their response to the questions in the forms provided with the Pre-Qualification Pack which should address these core requirements in the response:
Note that where there is more than 1 section to each topic area each part will be scored out of 5 and the average of all parts taken to arrive at an overall mark for that topic area.
Following Pre-Qualification suppliers will be short-listed and a minimum of 5 bidders will be selected to submit their Tenders. These will be assessed on a quality/price evaluation basis and the most economically advantageous tender will be accepted. Full details of the Tender process and evaluation criteria will be given in the Instructions for Tendering although it is intended that Behavioural Assessments will form part of the evaluation criteria.
Additional Information:
The Programme Delivery Partner is required to agree that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 will not apply to the secondment of staff to the Highways Agency or on the termination of the services provided to the Highways Agency.

Estimated value excluding VAT: 65 000 000 GBP