The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has launched a pre-market engagement ahead of going out to tender for the third generation of its Data Services Platform.
The Data Services Platform (DSP) makes environmental data from across Defra Group available to a wide range of users.
The DSP is used to share data openly or with controlled groups of users (e.g. Defra Group supply chain) or where data contains third party rights.
The aim of the DSP is to deliver world-leading services in under-pinning environmental improvements - the current DSP can be accessed at https://environment.data.gov.uk.
Defra is now planning the procurement of DSP3, starting with market engagement in advance of commencing any formal procurement process for the third generation of the Data Services Platform.
Defra is requesting prospective tenderers to first read a prospectus and to confirm their attendance at a market engagement event which will take place on Wednesday 8th September 2021 13:00 to 16:00 - attendance is restricted to 2 attendees per organisation.
Following the market engagement event, prospective tenderers will then invited to complete a market engagement questionnaire by Monday 20th September 2021.
The initial set of capabilities required for the DSP3 are outlined in the prospectus and include:
Data management services (including data integration services, domain registry services, linked data, linked data APIs, metadata catalogue, non-spatial data, rights management, self publishing. spatial data, spatial data APIs, spatial download service, spatial web services, and URL proxy management);
Digital services (including environment.data.gov.uk and the community forum);
Applications (including APIs and data acquisition, asset data requirements library, asset information, bathing water explorer, bathing water signage, bathing water widgets, catchment data explorer, drinking water, ecology and fish data explorer, flood warning widgets, hydrology, public registers online, rainfall demonstrator, Rural Payments Agency land parcels, spatial data visualisation, tide gauge readings, waste carriers brokers and dealers widget, and water quality data archive);
Service management (including business continuity and disaster recovery, cyber security management, data governance, deployment management, infrastructure and platform management (hosting), ITIL v4 service management practices, knowledge management, performance reporting, product delivery, social value, software development, technical standards compliance, and user centered services).
Estimated date of publication of contract notice is 11 October 2021 - click here to access the Prior Information Notice
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