Appointment Booking System Universal Credit full service

To support the provision of Universal Credit full service (UC full service), the Department for Work and Pensions requires an Appointment Booking System for the creation and management of claimants' appointments with DWP staff. The Appointment Booking System will host staff locations, availability and skill sets which define the types of appointments the DWP staff are trained to handle. This information will be used to find a DWP member of staff, within a JobCentre, that is available and trained to handle the appointment.

The contract will have an initial term of three years, including the implementation period, unless terminated by the Authority in accordance with the terms of the contract. The contract will contain two extension periods of 12 months each subject to satisfactory performance and with the agreement of both parties. The maximum length of the contract, including all possible extensions, is five years.

The Department requires a cloud-based, commercial 'off-the-shelf' Appointment Booking System. Due to the timescales and need for UC full service to utilise the Appointment Booking System's APIs, the system must meet the stated requirements with minimal additional development work and customisation. The Department does not require a booking system to be built and custom-designed.

The Department requires a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year system with a service level agreement (SLA) that provides 99.90 percent availability, as the Appointment Booking System will be supporting the UC full service which allows claimants to access their online claim at any time.

There will also be a requirement for data to be migrated from DWP's current Appointment Booking System to the new Appointment Booking System. As a minimum, this will include all current and future appointments, plus related data (e.g. DWP staff availability, JobCentre information, appointment types etc.

There are currently around 750 JobCentres across the UK and Northern Ireland, with around 23,000 DWP staff in total supporting claimants. Each member of DWP staff who supports claimants will have a calendar in the Appointment Booking System. A JobCentre can have up to 120 Work Coaches. Work Coaches all require diaries.

From October 2017, UC full service will be rolled out to 50 job centres a month. When UC full service is fully rolled out in June 2018, it is anticipated that 30 million appointments (2.5 million appointments per month) will be created and managed on an annual basis via the Appointment Booking System.