Procurement of Source code licence

Official notice

Authority: Department for Education (Central government)

GoodsNegotiated without publication of a contract notice

Sectors: Software Packages & ERP (48) Delivery: UK

Awarded value£270,000published contract · exc. VAT

Awarded 29 May 2024

Awarded to RM Education Ltd

What is being bought

Published requirement description

The Department for Education (DfE) wishes to take a licence of from RM Education plc (RM) of the Source Code (Portland code 16-18 and DCAM Under and Overmatch checks) to relating to the provision of the National Pupil Data Achievement and Attainment Tables (NPDAAT).

CPV: Software package and information systems

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published

Lot #1

Delivery: UK

Procedure terms & legal framework

From the official record

Procedure method: Negotiated without publication of a contract notice
Legal basis: CELEX · 32014L0024 Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (Directive 2014/24/EU)
Procurement category: Goods
Notice status: Awarded
Procurement threshold: Unspecified in notice
Regulatory regime: Standard
Commercial structure: Stand-alone contract (no framework)
Competition type: Competitive procedure
GPA / WTO covered: Yes (GPA)
Recurring procurement: Unspecified in notice
First published: 29 May 2024, 16:50 BST
Last source update: 29 May 2024, 16:50 BST
FTS notice number: 2024/S 000-016817
Classification (CPV): Software package and information systems
Delivery area: UK
Official registry OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-046c3b Find a Tender

Why no open competition: The products involved are manufactured purely for the purpose of research, experiment, study or development under the conditions stated in the directive; The works, supplies or services can be provided only by a particular economic operator due to protection of exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights
Published justification: DfE believes that competition is absent for technical reasons and/or as a result in the exclusive rights held in the Source Code by RM. DfE believes that no reasonable alternatives to, or substitutes for, the Source Code exist, for the following reasons.
(i) It is not technically possible for there to be an alternative or substitute to the Source Code, or to the overarching service provided by RM. The Source Code represents a very small, specialised and bespoke element of the overarching RM service. For example, the Source Code relates to:
o the matching of learners from educational attainment data. More specifically it helps identify false and positive learner matches, but within a very specific range of data and values.
o the performance measures data for 16-18 year old learners. The Source Code represents the end-to-end process for the application of the rules and how the performance measures should be calculated. These are DfE policy rules that are extremely unlikely to exist in any other system.
(iv) The NPDAAT service to which the Source Code relates is aligned with the England’s education system, which is unique to England. Therefore, the ability to replicate the Source Code is unlikely to exist elsewhere.
(v) For the 16-18 age group, there are around 1,700 ‘indicators’ that are driven by DfE policies and rules. The total extent of code for these indicators is estimated to range from 85,000 to 170,000 lines of code.
(vi) For the over/under matching code there are 15 datasets, 15-20 scenarios per dataset, 50-100 lines of code per dataset so 11,000 – 30,000 lines of code in total.
(vii) Whilst the Source Code represents a small component of the wider NPDAAT service, it is bespoke to DfE policies and rules, and is a highly nuanced technical subset of the overall NPDAAT system.
(viii) The Source Code (specifically) is proven to work at scale in a production environment, and has done so reliably for the past fifteen years.
(ix) The code has been refined to deal with anomalies that have occurred while processing live data over that fifteen-year period. No other code set that might be similar can possibly have the same level of testing and reliability achieved during this period.
(x) The Department produces a range of measures to assess pupil and school performance for students aged 16-18. This data is shared with schools and colleges in October each year to inform their own target setting and ahead of wider publication and use by the Department and Ofsted. It is critical that the performance measures data is produced by the end of September to meet this established timetable and shared with schools/colleges ahead of the school holidays at the end of October. Therefore, there is insufficient time to conduct production testing to prove that any previously unknown code might be reliable

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecast

Awards 1

Awarded value £270,0001 contract exc. VAT

Contracts signed 1latest 29 May 2024

Awarded to	Value	Date	Status
RM Education LtdSubcontracting: declared	£270,000 †	—	Awarded

Contracts

Contract 016817-2024-1 · RM Education Ltd
Signed
29 May 2024
Value
£270,000
Status
active

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

Department for Education

Contracting authorityCentral GovernmentMinistry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local subdivisionsEducation Sanctuary Buildings, 20, Great Smith Street, London, UK, SW1P 3BTContact email

Dispute resolution & review bodies

High CourtReview body London

Bidders & participating suppliers

1 commercial party on the notice

RM EducationAwarded supplier Oxford, UK

Official documents & specifications

Official links; attachments are not copied

No document links were published on the notice.