Clarifications

Suppliers are required to meet all mandatory requirements including standards as set out in the Customer Needs document which forms part of the bid pack. Supplier are also required to fulfil the Cyber Certification obligations as detailed in the Selection Questionnaire and DPS Agreement (Clause 9).

Customers need to invite all suppliers identified via their filter selection. All customers should also publish opportunites and contract details via ContractsFinder where appropriate. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-policy-note-0716-legal-requirement-to-publish-on-contracts-finder The DPS does not use the Digital Marketplace for the call-off process but that may change in future.

No, you need one example for either, not both.

All suppliers idenfitied through a customers filter selection will be invited to participate initally. The customer may use a multi-stage process to further refine the supplier list prior to a final tender.

The focus is the technology and services needed to support the technology / create the outcome using the technology. We would not expect to see any managed service like arrangements.

We will publish slides and the Q&A. Unfortunately CCS's website is in the process of being migrated so it is likely to be early April before we can post the deck online

The DPS terms aren't but if spot any issues prior to the opening of the DPS let us know. Call-off terms can be altered by the customer, any alterations should be prior to their tender being issued and will not be material changes.

The DPS Agreement in the bid pack is sample watermaked. If your organisation is appointed to the DPS you will receive a non watermarked version.

Call-offs are capped at a total of 5 years with an initial maximum call-off length of 3 years.

The OJEU notice has been published with a maximum value of £650m, this is the upper limit of our expected spend through the agreement.

No there is no limit on the call-off value. With our colleagues in GDS and other departments we will providing customers with advice on how to get the best outcome from working with suppliers, this will focus on agile methodologies and scaling as capability grows.

Cyber Essentials certification is a requirement for all suppliers, details of this are in the PPN linked to for question 7, below

Yes, suppliers with Cyber Essentials Plus meet the requirement to have at least Cyber Essentials.

You need to commit to attaining Cyber Essentials and to have been certified for it ahead of entering into your first call-off. More details on Cyber Essentials and it's neccessity within our customer base can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-policy-note-0914-cyber-essentials-scheme-certification

You do not need to be certified but we would expect work to completed in line with this, and other, standards stated where applicable.

Yes. However, CCS will request further financial information if your organisation fails to meet the Dun and Bradstreet financial threshold score of 60. Please refer to the DPS Needs for full instructions to support this process and for further information of the types of additional financial data you may be requested to provide.

Yes, early termination is possible as detailed in the DPS Agreement.

4 years is the total possible length of the DPS. CCS anticipate putting in place version 2 of the DPS after 2 years, we will need to allow a transition period for products to move to an alternative framework if they product type is removed from the next version of Spark. There is some contingency built in to allow this transition.

There maybe some small overlap as products are developed, we would expect SaaS products to mature and move onto G-Cloud more quickly than other product areas.

It isn't - that will be a separate procurement.