Project title: Public Sector Procurement Project to acquire critical information systems infrastructure

Background

In 2016 Abellio, the commercial train operator owned by the Dutch national railways was awarded the franchise for the operation of the national rail network in Scotland. In winning the franchise they agreed to a number of committed objectives that they would achieve over the course of the 7-year period the franchise was awarded for. One such objective was to realise smart travel across the rail network in Scotland;this particular objective was highly politicised due to commitments within the Scottish National Party’s manifesto which had one the preceding Scottish parliamentary elections.

Abellio had limited experience of the UK public sector and in particular the process of acquisition in line with the UK Government defined processes and procedures for major capital expenditure programmes. Their inexperience led to an urgent need to resource the buying team with staff who had previous experience of conducting acquisition projects and developing technical proposals in the transport market under these circumstances. AMDS Consultants Ltd were engaged to develop the invitation to tender, define assessment criteria for the selection of the preferred bidder and support the subsequent negotiations.

Work Completed

The work programme had the components described below and was paid for on a days-worked basis monthly in arrears.

Review of past progress of the procurement programme	Review and analysis of all previously published material including the Expression of Interest and pre-qualification questionnaire stages of the procurement cycle Urgent need to conduct a “requirements capture” exercise to confirm or supplement prior decisions and establish the basis for the requests for proposals Establish the assessment teams, plan the acquisition project and establish the credibility of potential suppliers
Technical Authorship	Preparation and promotion of the final specification to support the request for proposal (RFP) stage Develop, agree and implement the assessment criteria to support the selection of the preferred bidder
Acquisition Management	Maintenance of comprehensive records of decision made, version control of the RFP and developing technical specification Analysis of passenger data to define likely demand to aid supplier responses Management of expectations among the Abellio management chain Project management of the acquisition programme

Issues Addressed

Althoughalready some way through the traditional stages of a full public sector procurement programme for capital goods the client was not sufficiently resourced nor did they have sufficient UK acquisition expertise to successfully manage a procurement programme of this type and scale. Consequently, AMDS Consultants Ltd needed to address the following issues in completing the programme:

• Conversion of technical requirements into acquisition outcomes
• Development of output based key performance indicators
• Implementation planning post identification of the preferred bidder
• Business case development (cf. Scotrail 02 case study)

Outcomes Achieved

The following outcomes were realised:

• The acquisition programme was completed on the timescale required despite an initial 6-week delay
• A very strong preferred bidder was identified, and negotiations initiated
• The full requirement was properly captured, defined and utilised in the selection of the preferred bidder
• Two further technical consultancy contracts were awarded to AMDS Consultants Ltd

Lessons Learned

• Absence of a structured approach to requirements capture and supplier engagement led to problems achieving the desired acquisition programme
• Had a period of requirements consolidation been undertaken before the decision to publicise the two requirements it would have been clear that:
  • financially advantageous terms could have been obtained and
  • bidders lacking the necessary expertise would have been eliminated at the earliest stage
• Recovery from the lack of previous programme definition led to a period of project initiation that should have been concluded before the release of the request for expressions of interest instead it placed unwanted pressure on technical resources within the organisation