National Retraining Scheme Online Training

The purpose of the PIN is to initiate market engagement; it is not being used as a call for competition. This PIN is intended to:

1. Inform the market of a potential future procurement process to appoint supplier(s) to implement an Alpha project for online training that will form part of the National Retraining Scheme. This would mean working with DfE to build, test and iterate a prototype(s) of online learning and the related service for the Scheme's users.

2. Inform suppliers that we will be hosting a market engagement networking event and invite suppliers to attend. At the event the Department will outline its aims and objectives for online training and outline our proposed procurement strategy via the Digital Outcomes and Specialists (DOS) 3 Framework. We wish to facilitate networking between suppliers to encourage formation of partnerships between DOS 3 registered suppliers and organisations offering other specific skills that the Alpha requires such as online learning and pedagogy. The event is an opportunity for potential service providers to share their opinion and expertise on how we could deliver the Scheme's online training Alpha and to help the Department to understand how its aims could be achieved. This event will be held on Wednesday 24th July from 12.30-5pm in central Manchester. To book a place for the event (or for copies of the presentations if you cannot make it) please email: [email protected] with the following information:

• name of your organisation • name of attendees (maximum two) • contact details; and • confirmation that your organisation meets the qualifying criteria.

The department are interested in organisations (including consortia and partnerships) that have expertise; experience and delivery across all of the following essential areas:

• user research and service design, including passing relevant Government Digital Service assessments; • pedagogy and learning design (particularly for adults with low to medium skills [from entry level to level 5]); • learning management system design and optimisation; • learning technology use and design • Working in an agile user-centred approach and through agile project/product management

The lead supplier must be registered on DOS 3 and should be willing to form partnerships with organisations offering other specific skills that the Alpha requires (such as online learning and pedagogy).

We will decline requests for invite from organisations where both of the following apply:

a. they do not have experience across all of these essential areas individually; b. they are unwilling to form a partnership or consortia to cover all of these essential areas collectively.

We would also be interested in organisations (including consortia and partnerships) with pedagogical and learning design expertise in the context of adult basic skills (English, Maths and Digital) but this is not essential.

Additional information: Background

The National Retraining Scheme is an ambitious, far-reaching programme to drive adult retraining, in order to respond to changes in the economy and support people to redirect their careers and secure the high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future.

At the 2018 Autumn Budget, the Government announced £100 million of new funding to continue testing and development of the National Retraining Scheme, which will give individuals the skills they need to progress in work, redirect their careers and secure the high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future. This will include state-of-the-art courses combining online learning with traditional classroom teaching to help people develop key transferable skills.

Description of Procurement

We will support organisations who are interested in potential delivery through consortia or partnerships to join up and consider how they might bid to deliver.

The Department is committed to delivery through agile methodologies for all digital outputs. This is in line with the Government Digital Service.

We would like to apply agile Alpha methodology for any potential next stage. This would involve further user testing in order to iteratively build a prototype training product that meets the needs of National Retraining Scheme's users in, for instance, the following areas:

• Learning design and pedagogy • Tutor support • Platform design • Overarching service design

It is expected that the successful supplier(s) would be required to take the service through a GDS Alpha assessment.

We are keen to hear from organisations who can work in consortium or partnership to meet the range of inputs to the deliverables we need. We would encourage organisations of any size with the necessary expertise to come to our event.

We anticipate that any successful provider(s) may start to deliver in autumn 2019 and that delivery will last approximately 12-16 weeks (which will include any relevant service assessment).