UK Ministry of Defence tries again to procure £1.7bn tri-service recruitment system
- Reference: 1632469509
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/09/24/mod_armed_forces_recruiting_programme/
- Source link:
The move follows in the footsteps of an earlier Army deal which saw [1]Capita under-perform on a £1.3bn recruiting project .
Under a 10-year contract, the UK services are looking for a single, common, tri-service recruiting process under the banner of the Armed Forces Recruiting Programme.
[2]
In a [3]contract notice published this week , the Ministry of Defence said it is looking for significant IT investment and "a culture of innovation" as well as outsourcing the recruitment services.
[4]
[5]
"The Digital Solution will be the core enabler to a candidate centric experience from Expression of Interest to recruitment onboarding. Candidates will receive timely and personalised communications whilst integrating with key MOD systems. Exploitation of management and business information will enable data-driven insights and decision making for performance management and continuous improvement," the tender claimed.
The contract is set for an initial seven years full operational period plus an option to extend for three years. The contract value could be worth between £1bn to £1.75bn, the document said. The ministry is holding a so-called "virtual Industry Day" on 29 September to discuss the contract.
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It is the ministry's second shot at getting the procurement off the ground. An [7]earlier tender notice was published in December 2020 , which put the maximum price of the contract at £1.6bn.
But it was forced to abandon efforts in July 2021.
"Following the publishing of the integrated reviews, the programme has identified that its initial procurement process no longer fully reflects the updated needs of [the MoD]," a [8]notice published at the time said .
[9]
The government had "taken the opportunity to further refine its requirements and develop its planning for the operation of competitive dialogue."
[10]UK Ministry of Defence apologises – again – after another major email blunder in Afghanistan
[11]Royal Navy will be getting autonomous machines – for donkey work humans can't be bothered with
[12]This is AUKUS for China – US, UK, Australia reveal defence tech-sharing pact
[13]UK gives military's frikkin' laser cannon project a second roll of the dice
"This will lead to a new revised procurement encompassing a clarified and developed risk-based approach to transition and transformation that will provide assurance on continuity of delivery, setting out the complexity of the requirements involved and testing bidders' understanding of these factors," it said.
The move was followed by a government statement in August which said the Ministry of Defence was "re-engaging with industry to deliver a tri-service recruiting solution."
It said it expected the procurement would see a new service in place from 2024, one which would "situate the candidate at the heart of the recruitment process while ensuring that the Armed Forces achieve the right quality and quantity of candidates to satisfy demand while remaining agile and responsive to change."
It follows a project in which Capita took on recruitment for the Army as part of a £1.3bn project.
In July 2020, it turned out that Capita's 2017 decision to implement bespoke IT systems led to nearly [14]25,000 fewer applications to join the military in the following year.
The switch-on of bespoke Defence Recruiting System (DRS) IT systems contributed to the lowest number of Army recruits signing up since 2013 as well as a drop of 22 per cent in the number of applicants, according to a Freedom of Information request.
But that did not put them off. In December 2020, [15]Capita was awarded a £140m extension to the DRS contract and tacked on a project to migrate certain systems to Microsoft Azure. The deal was set to see the notorious Recruiting Partnership Project deal extended from 2022 until 2024.
Parliament's Public Accounts Committee had labelled the contract "abysmal" a year earlier. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/15/capita_defence_recruiting_rpp_drs_public_accounts/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YU2h0sSVdU7HZL0iAUDgxwAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/023623-2021
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YU2h0sSVdU7HZL0iAUDgxwAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YU2h0sSVdU7HZL0iAUDgxwAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YU2h0sSVdU7HZL0iAUDgxwAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:605926-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML
[8] https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:376760-2021:TEXT:EN:HTML
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YU2h0sSVdU7HZL0iAUDgxwAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/23/afghan_email_fail_ministry_defence/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/17/royal_navy_robot_warfare_drudgery/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/16/aukus_defence_pact/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/ukgov_laser_cannon_contract_again/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/22/capita_british_army_applications_declined/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/capita_recruiting_partnership_project_140m_extension/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Has anyone seen an outsourcing work?
It depends what you mean by “work”, and who for, the client or the outsourcer.
I think you’ll find that from the outsourcer perspective most are very profitable, which is the only metric that counts to them.
Did the client get what they wanted or needed and value for money? Meh.
Re: Has anyone seen an outsourcing work?
Yep! Just once.
The spec was very tight long before the contract was written; the contract had liquidated damages on both sides (if our experts weren't available, we'd have paid them damages); the procurement process involved technical people first (to check the outsourcer had the chops), business leaders second; estimating took forever but were accurate within 5% (which was pretty impressive); it started on the day it was meant to; technical people did all the actual management; deliveries were small and weekly so we could check that the tight spec was understood; the product only had to work for 2 years to fill a gap; after that it was sunsetted (rather than strung out); the outsourcer owned all the bugs that were found (only a few edge cases to be fair to them); the outsourcer didn't change team during that time; if fit the spec exactly - even where the spec wasn't 100% great (some UX weirdness), the software did the job; invoices were paid on time; there was honesty on both sides.
That was the one. The only one.
Re: Has anyone seen an outsourcing work?
A tear rolled down my cheek as I was reading this
Whats the betting it gets awarded to
Crapita AGAIN?
about 5 to 1 I'd say, with Serco being front runners as the gov outsource f*@kup of choice these days
Take it away from them
and give it to DXC or Wipro.
Oh,wait.... You wanted better ?
Savings?
Presumably this is supposed to cost lest than whatever the MoD currently spend on recruiting. Admittedly this may be a bit of a grey area given the Armed Forces don't seem to bother accounting for how much their personnel's' time is worth*, but if they can't prove they're even saving money why are they being allowed to spend this much. In which case where's the business case?
*No, no, definitely makes more sense to fly you on a transport aircraft to the Gulf and have you not working for 2-3 days rather than paying £280 for a ticket on a commercial flight and losing half a day.
Re: Savings?
I thought the point was to keep soldiers busy when not actually invading somewhere so they don't start fights in barracks.
IR35
Good luck with IR35. They'll probably have to triple the budget to get someone reasonable.
No brainer
Give it to Infosys, no-one ever got fired for hiring the Chancellors Father in Law.
Crapita
Once upon a time, 'Eg Reg' wouldn't have missed the opportunity to write Crapita instead of Capita. Either standards are slipping, or the world is becoming nostalgic for when services were only as bad as they were when Capita was running then.
I'll bet that "Pointy-Bloke on Poster" and a few touring recruiting sergeants armed with the requisite paperwork came in at considerably less than £1.7bn and was demonstrably more successful.
Explanations are due ...
"Capita's 2017 decision to implement bespoke IT systems led to nearly 25,000 fewer applications to join the military in the following year."
Why should an application system result in an immediate drop in applicants? Was it because the MOD decided to digitise recruitment and people didn't want to apply online? Was it because the advertising was rubbish? Was it because kids could no longer "see the world" because there were no ships left? Was it because people were being routinely killed and maimed in Afghanistan so being a soldier was no longer the fun, heroic job it had been portrayed as? Was it because the Government shut down the job centres? Or was it because the online application system didn't work?
Be interesting to see the analysis of why Capita is solely blamed for this (rightly or wrongly).
Has anyone seen an outsourcing work?
I know when things work we don't notice them but notice when they fail however it seems to me that when ever something is outsourced it goes titup. Can anyoone tell me of a contract that has worked? Keeping things in house seems to be the only way to stand a chance of getting what you want.