TERMS OF REFERENCE
Request for Bid for conducting of a Feasibility study for supply and implementation of Data warehouse/Data mining system for the National Agency on Corruption Prevention of Ukraine
Abbreviations
- ACL – Access Control List
- BP – Business Process
- BI – Business intelligence
- DB – Database
- DWH/DM – Data warehouse/Data mining system
- eCase – eCase management system
- ETL – Extract, Transform, Load (a process that extracts the data from different source systems, then transforms the data and loads the data into the Data Warehouse system)
- EU – European Union
- EUACI – European Union Anti-Corruption Initiativу
- FSR – Feasibility Study Report
- HR – Human Resources
- IT – Information Technology
- ICT – Information and Communication Technology
- LAC – System of Logical and Arithmetical Control
- MFA – Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
- NACP – National Agency on Corruption Prevention of Ukraine
- NABU – National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine
- OS – Operating System
- TOR – Terms of Reference
1. Introduction
- 1.1. General overview
Support of anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine is a high priority for the EU and Denmark contributing to the enhancement of democracy, as well as future economic growth and trade. The EU Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine is a programme supported by the EU and Denmark and implemented by the Danish foreign ministry. The overall objective of the EUACI is to improve the implementation of anti-corruption policy in Ukraine, thereby ultimately contributing to a reduction in corruption.
EUACI is aimed at:
- strengthen the capacity and independence of the newly created anti-corruption institutions;
- increased efficiency of oversight over anti-corruption policies and legislation by the Verkhovna Rada;
- enhance the capacity of local government, civil society, and media to contribute to the fight against corruption.
- 1.2. Contracting authority
The contracting authority is the European Union Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine, supported by the EU and Denmark and implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, hereinafter referred to as the Customer.
- 1.3. Beneficiary
The beneficiary is the National Agency on Corruption Prevention of Ukraine (NACP), one of the key institutions involved in the chain of anticorruption efforts in Ukraine which was established in accordance with the Law of Ukraine on Prevention of Corruption. The NACP is a central executive body with a special status. It is responsible for the development of anti-corruption policy and prevention of corruption.
The EUACI provides its support to increase NACP’s capacity building. This feasibility study will look into the possibilities of the implementation of a key IT-capacity enhancement project – the development of a data warehouse/data mining system (DWH/DM). NACP has strongly recommended the EUACI to implement this project based on the considerations below.
Improvement of institutional capacities such as BP and HR development can only deliver limited results if not accompanied by significant IT-capacity development enabling processing and analyzing of data essential for the effective implementation of NACP’s mandate. The current practice involves semi-automatic and manual checking of data and is neither scalable nor sustainable. Lack of automation and digitalization of the process poses one of the major limitations for NACP staff for conducting meaningful verification processes.
A new high-performance analytical DWH/DM system will enable NACP to process and analyze a vast amount of accessible data essential for the effective implementation of its activities requiring verification of such data.
The DWH/DM solution will have an impact on the efficiency and quality of data processing of the following business processes:
- Full verification of declarations. Even with the help of LAC NACP analysts are required to send additional requests to identify family members and close associates as well as their assets. It gets particularly complicated when there is a need to uncover large networks of related persons and hidden assets. The new system will allow NACP to leap forward in gathering, processing and analyzing data for meaningful and comprehensive verification processes.
- Conflict of interest. A combined database that has information on shares, corporate rights, family members, beneficiary ownership, business partners and procurement winners will enable an option to perform quick pattern matching on big connection networks and identify a hidden and real conflict of interests. For example, the system will be able to prepare a report that finds all companies of direct and indirect relatives of the declarant who took part in procurements, related to the state agency where the declarant works.
- Whistleblowers. All incoming reports from whistleblowers should be verified by the NACP analyst and the DWH/DM will allow them to quickly validate facts in the appeal and decide if it should be checked deeper.
- Political parties’ finances. The newly built register has information on party donors and in the second phase capabilities to automatically verify information using the registries that will be added. A new DWH/DM will have an impact as an auxiliary tool for complicated cases: finding a conflict of interests between donors and recipients, etc.
- Lifestyle monitoring. At the moment it is not automatized. NACP analysts are working on reports from media or whistleblowers. The new system will allow monitoring changes in assets and incomes of given declarants, find unjustified wealth using advanced pattern matching and quickly verify the facts from external sources.
- Internal audit. Monitoring capabilities of the system will allow maintaining high integrity standards inside NACP. For example, NACP might constantly monitor various registries to see if NACP personnel (or their affiliated persons) has major changes in assets and take actions.
Capacity development achieved as a result of the implementation of the project represents a significant enhancement of NACP’s capacity to deliver on its mandate.
2. Objective
The objective of the assignment is to evaluate the feasibility of the development of a DWH/DM system for NACP, covering issues such as:
- Assessment of configuration and functionality of possible DWH/DM system taking into consideration identified gaps and opportunities for the capacity development of NACP;
- High-level implementation plan, including assessment of in-house resources of NACP and EUACI, required for the implementation of DWH/DM as well as recommendations on how to bridge the gaps if needed;
- Sustainability of a DWH/DM system;
- Market study and cost analysis;
- Assessment of risks and mitigation strategies.
The development of a tender dossier following MFA procurement rules for the supply and implementation of the DWH/DM system is not a part of the current assignment and an approach to its possible development will be based on the results of the feasibility study together with the evaluation of EUACI in-house resources.
The conclusions of the feasibility study will constitute an important element in a decision by Denmark and the EU as to whether the EUACI should provide the funding and implementation of this project.
3. Scope of work
The scope of work of the assignment covers the implementation of all activities required for the achievement of its objectives as outlined above, including but not limited to:
1. Assessment of the beneficiary’s organizational ability to fulfil DWH implementation roles in particular:
- Analyze the alignment of the project with the overall business and IT environments of the beneficiary;
- Analyze organizational readiness for DWH implementation, including but not limited to readiness to take responsibility for technical and business support, hardware and software configuration management, continuing business requirements definition, and front-end applications enhancement;
- Analyze the existing organizational structure and identify the roles and responsibilities of both IT and business staff, NACP's ability to fulfil many data warehousing roles from a readiness perspective;
- Develop recommendations on the ownership of the DWH/DM system from the perspective of strategic business objectives, from the perspective of business needs, from perspectives of information management and technical support and responsibilities;
- Develop recommendations on a plan, process, and structure for the training of users and enhancement of technical skills;
- Develop recommendations on a structure for monitoring of data warehouse quality, and for periodic assessments, if needed;
- Identify and document organizational risks, the risk of lack of ownership and the issue of long-term sustainability, including beneficiary’s funding for support and maintenance or other relevant risks and obstacles for implementing the system;
- Define a list of requirements/pre-conditions based on the analysis of the risks;
2. Review of an analysis of the existing legal framework in particular:
- Organize a peer-review of an analysis of a legal and regulatory framework prepared by the Beneficiary to ensure assessment of the existing legal and regulatory framework in areas related to the DWH implementation, including, but not limited to legislation regulating the work of NACP, legislation related to the handling of classified/restricted information, information protection and certification of complex information systems, legal restrictions on work with data sources, electronic data exchange and data protection, digital signature; given the level of detail, relevance and completeness required for developing functional and technical requirements and preparation of scope of services for DWH/DM implementation;
- Identify and document legal, regulatory or other relevant risks and obstacles for implementing the DWH/DM system;
- Develop recommendations about possible amendments to the existing legal and regulatory framework required to introduce the system.
3. Analysis of technical architecture (applications and infrastructure), market study and indicative cost estimation in particular:
- Review and analyze the institutional structure and analyze existing technical architecture (applications and infrastructure), and other material-technical items of the beneficiary;
- Review of BP with the processing of data which partially automatized, review of all steps where the work is still done manually by the NACP analysts, and analyze the possibility of its automation in general terms;
- Draft target DWH architecture in high-level terms and functional requirements to the system;
- Define the necessity of integration with external state registers and databases, taking into account different formats and mechanisms of data exchange, as well as large volumes of data and existing technical restrictions on work with data sources in terms of technologies and high-level architecture;
- Define points of integrations with existing or planned IT systems that NACP is operating;
- Analyze and provide recommendations on logical and physical DWH model, ETL processes, data marts, BI tools and statistical reports in high-level terms;
- Develop recommendations on the use of tools and their overall fit to the business and technical environments, including extraction and transformation, cleansing, database performance tuning, modelling, metadata management, querying, multidimensional analysis, web-enabling tools;
- Analyze and provide recommendations on deployment options (centralized, decentralized, hybrid);
- Develop recommendations on the need to secure sensitive data from unauthorized access and alteration, a proper balance of security and accessibility;
- Analyze and provide recommendations on data access policies and ACL, logging and audit tools;
- Specify security restrictions in terms of access rights differentiation, a system of role privileges and authority, etc.;
- Identify any technical risks or constraints concerning performance, maintenance, scalability, data distribution, disaster recovery;
- Conduct a market study to identify vendors or products existing on the market, their functional capabilities and indicative cost;
- Conduct a cost estimation, including a cost of support and maintenance, and high-level planning of the DWH/DM system implementation;
- Perform a needs assessment for the specialized equipment and software required for introducing the DWH/DM system.
4. Analysis of similar IT projects by EUACI identifying the lessons learnt with regard to:
- IT projects by EUACI in the past, in particular, the DWH system for NABU;
- EUACI own experiences and use of resources of working with partners in IT concerning the budget and costs and staff input;
- Key risks identified during planning/implementation phases of similar IT projects;
- Additional in-house resources required by EUACI to supply and implement the DWH/DM system for NACP;
5. Development of recommendations to the project implementation plan for the supply of the DWH/DM system, including but not limited to the following:
- Background information – short description for the beneficiary of the DWH/DM system, an overview of its operations and prerequisites of DWH/DM implementation, the existing technical equipment, including software and other material-technical items of the beneficiary;
- The objective of DWH/DM system implementation, description of the intended impact of DWH/DM system implementation;
- Possibility to split the project into sub-projects (initial implementation of the DWH/ETL parts, rule/pattern-based risk analysis, adding more data sources to the system);
- Scope of DWH/DM system implementation project, including possible breakdown to sub-projects, stages for each sub-project, activities expected to be delivered by the Contractor, outputs, estimated effort and duration of the stages;
- Functional requirements for DWH/DM system, requirements for the connection to the external state registers, databases and other data sources such as open data sources and media monitoring software;
By conducting the feasibility study, the experts shall work in close cooperation with the appropriate Beneficiary’s staff and shall perform on-site visits of the relevant services, desk review and consultations. The experts shall make use of all previously provided legislation, regulations, studies, reports and other relevant documents like statistics, background materials provided by the Beneficiary. Moreover, the Beneficiary shall provide in due time any additional data/reports/analysis/statistics/studies, etc. identified as relevant by the experts during the lifetime of the implementation of this assignment.
4. Deliverables
The paper shall include, but not be limited to the results of the analysis undertaken, with related findings and developed documents attached as annexes where appropriate, in particular:
- Analysis presenting an initial review of the beneficiary, assessment of the alignment of the project with the overall business and IT environments of the beneficiary, list of the risks and obstacles for implementing DWH/DM system, recommendations about necessary amendments to the existing organizational framework required to introduce DWH/DM system;
- List of requirements/pre-conditions based on the analysis of the risks, which shall contain a description of the pre-condition, a responsible person within the institution and a deadline for implementation. The pre-conditions shall include but are not limited to important organizational issues. For example, necessary changes to organizational structure, preparation of special internal rules/procedures on DWH/DM system, recommendations on a possible rearrangement of organizational units within the NACP, redefinition of job descriptions, extra hiring needs, training and mentoring, allocation of special budget line within the institution budget for support and maintenance of DWH/DM system, revision of ICT, etc.
- Review of a legal and regulatory framework, recommendations about possible amendments to the existing legal and regulatory framework required to introduce the system;
- List of requirements/pre-conditions based on the analysis of the risks, which shall include but are not limited to important legislative and regulatory issues. For example, possible changes to specific laws and regulations.
- Analysis of the existing technical infrastructure of the beneficiary, including hardware, software (including but not limited to OS, DB, ETL, backup and restore tools), hosting facilities, IT-staff capacity and skills, budget resources for maintenance and further upgrading of ICT equipment, as well as the general ICT management/administration regime in the beneficiary institution;
- Target IT architecture and functional requirements to the DWH/DM;
- Recommendations on logical and physical data warehouse model, ETL processes, data marts, BI tools and statistical reports;
- Results of a market study of available products/vendors on the market, pros and cons of the products from various dimensions, including total cost of ownership, the flexibility of customization, user experience etc.;
- High-level DWH/DM implementation plan and cost estimation, including maintenance and HR.
- 10.Analysis of similar IT projects implemented by EUACI identifying the lessons learnt.
- 11.Recommendations to the project implementation plan for the supply of DWH/DM system for NACP.
Language of the Outputs: English and Ukrainian. All documentation shall be prepared in paper and electronic forms.
5. Timing
6. Methodology
By putting forward a team of experts, the Contractor shall ensure that the task will be developed with as much straightforwardness as possible, the proposed approach and the methodology of the feasibility study shall be fine-tuned and a detailed work plan for the feasibility study shall be elaborated. In the methodology, the bidders are requested to indicate their suggested division between the experts, with a precondition that the total input of Legal Expert should not exceed 10% of the estimated budget.
7. Team composition and qualifications
- Team Leader / Project Manager
- Technical Expert / Infrastructure
- Technical Expert / DWH Applications
- Legal Expert
Key qualifications of the Team Leader/Project Manager include:
General qualifications
- Relevant education at least up to Masters’ Degree / Academic level or equivalent that demonstrates the ability to perform the duties and responsibilities as described;
- Minimum 5 years of professional experience with IT projects, 3+ years as IT PM, experience with ICT solutions in the public sector institutions;
Adequacy for the assignment
- Project management and planning skills;
- Managerial experience in a foreign donor-funded project related to development/management/assessment of document and/or ICT solutions in anti-corruption/justice sector;
- Experience in carrying out a feasibility study for ICT solutions in the area of anti-corruption/justice would be an asset;
- Experience with MFA/EU procurement rules would be an asset;
Experience with the region and languages
- Relevant working experience from the region;
- Fluency in English and Ukrainian.
Key qualifications of the Technical Expert/Infrastructure
General qualifications
- Relevant higher education with the Master’s/Specialist degree in telecommunication, IT or another related technical field;
- At least 5 years of professional working experience in telecommunication, information technology, software engineering or another related technical field;
Adequacy for the assignment
- Experience in designing technical specifications for the supply of ICT equipment/solutions in the public sector;
- Experience in needs assessment and market analysis for the supply of ICT equipment for law-enforcement or anti-corruption agencies would be an asset;
- Experience in designing and/or implementing at least one project in the area of data warehouse system for a government agency will be considered as an advantage;
Experience with the region and languages
- Relevant working experience from the region;
- Fluency in Ukrainian, knowing of English on a working level;
- Fluency in English will be considered as an advantage.
Key qualifications of the Technical Expert/DWH Applications
General qualifications
- Higher education with the relevant Master’s/Specialist degree in telecommunication, IT or other related technical fields;
- At least 5 years of professional working experience in software development, telecommunication, IT or other related technical fields;
Adequacy for the assignment
- Experience in IT architecture, data modelling and/or database development, knowledge of relevant tools and technology, including DWH design, ETL, BI
- Experience in implementing projects in the area of law enforcement or anti-corruption will be considered as an advantage;
- Experience in designing and/or implementing at least one project in the area of data warehouse system for a government agency will be considered as an advantage;
Experience with the region and languages
- Relevant working experience from the region;
- Fluency in Ukrainian, knowing of English on a working level;
- Fluency in English will be considered as an advantage.
Key qualifications of the Legal Expert
General qualifications
- Relevant education at least up to Masters’ Degree / Academic level in law or equivalent University degree with a minimum of 5 years of general professional experience;
- At least 5 years of general professional experience in the legal area associated with this project;
Adequacy for the assignment
- Knowledge of the local legislative framework including but not limited to e-governance, data protection (including classified data handling) and information security legislation, electronic documents exchange, data sources, digital signature;
Experience with the region and languages
- Relevant working experience from the region;
- Fluency in Ukrainian, knowing of English on working level
- Fluency in English will be considered as an advantage.
8. Estimated budget
9. Reporting and management
By signing the contract, the Contractor agrees to hold in trust and confidence any information or documents ("confidential information"), disclosed to the Contractor or discovered by the Contractors or prepared by the Contractors in the course of or as a result of the implementation of the contract, and agrees that it shall be used only for the contract implementation and shall not be disclosed to any third party.
In the period until acceptance, the EUACI, Contractor, and Beneficiary will hold regular project group meetings to exchange information and seek to clarify any questions of whatsoever nature. The purpose of the project group meetings is to ensure follow-up on any activities between the meetings, and to maintain a common overview of the current stage of the project at a detailed level, based on the applicable detailed schedule, and to ensure the day-to-day progress.
10. Cross-cutting issues
11. How to apply
All interested companies or experts should submit:
- Experts’ CV;
- Short methodology (max 2 pages) of the proposed consultancy;
- Financial offer.
The proposal shall include the aforementioned information and should be submitted within the above deadline to [email protected] CC: [email protected]indicating the subject line: Feasibility Study for NACP.
Bidding language: English.
Any clarification questions regarding the bid request should be addressed to Serhii Kononenko [email protected]with a copy to Viktoria Popyk in CC: [email protected], not later than 15 June 2021, 17:00 Kyiv time.