Research Services pertaining to Indian Residential Schools – Open – Standing Offer Agreements

RFSO NUMBER: 1000169564

PROJECT TITLE: Research Services pertaining to Indian Residential Schools – Open – Standing Offer Agreements

CLOSING DATE: November 24, 2015

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) invites you to submit a proposal for the following work:

Research Services pertaining to Indian Residential Schools

1. OBJECTIVES

In order to ensure that DIAND has the timely, specialized and cost-effective expertise required to validate remaining applications or claims and provide requested information pertaining to Indian residential schools, DIAND is seeking to establish multiple competitively awarded Standing Offer Agreements with qualified firms, capable of providing DIAND with the required Research Services.

Contractors qualified as Firms shall be legally structured as a sole proprietorship, corporation, partnership, or a joint venture. Individual Contractors structured as a sole proprietorship will not be accepted.

Specific project objectives and requirements will be contained within any resulting Call-ups.

1. Mandatory Requirements

The Mandatory Criteria listed below will be evaluated on a simple Pass/Fail (i.e. responsive/non-responsive (compliant/non-compliant) basis. Offers which fail to meet one of the Mandatory Criteria will be deemed non-responsive and given no further consideration.

Offers must demonstrate compliance with all of the Mandatory Requirements and must provide the necessary documentation to support compliance.

The Department will first assess proposals on the basis of the Mandatory Requirements below in Table M1. Bidders will be evaluated on a meet/does not meet basis.

Bidders must clearly identify the section(s) or page(s) in their proposals, which provide the evidence that they meet the Mandatory Requirements.

Any proposal that fails to meet all mandatory requirements will receive no further consideration.

Offeror’s Name:

Item

Mandatory Technical Criteria

Proposal
Ref. Pg. #

Reserved for DIAND

Pass

Fail

M1

M1 Corporate Profile

The Offeror MUST provide a company profile and corporate resume that includes:

1. The full legal name of the firm submitting the Offer (including, as applicable all joint venture, consortia, partners or subcontractors);

1. A summary of the Offeror’s capabilities as a firm, including identification of the number of FTE resources that are currently engaged by the Firm (either as staff or subcontractors) for the provision of Research Services similar to DIAND’s requirements; and

1. A description of the Offeror’s proposed work approach and quality assurance methodologies with respect to the delivery of Research Services to DIAND.

1. The full postal address for the Offeror’s Headquarters or any other office locations (if applicable) from which it is proposing to provide services, using Table M1-1 (or a reasonable facsimile of the template, which contains all of the requested information).

Note: The Offeror MUST have a minimum human resource complement of four (4) individuals capable of providing Research Services as described in the RFSO.

M2

M2 Project Summaries

1. The Offeror MUST provide at least ten (10) written project summaries describing in detail the Offeror’s current/previous experience in successfully providing Research Services, as described within the Statement of Work.
2. All project summaries MUST relate to work performed (but not necessarily completed), within one (1) or more client organizations during the past five (5) years.
3. At least one (1) of the ten (10) submitted project summaries MUST have been valued at a minimum of $10,000.00 (CAD) to the Offeror.
4. At least one (1) proposed resource MUST have been directly involved in at least one (1) Project Summaries submitted.
5. Offerors MUST use the sample project summary template (or a reasonable facsimile of the template, which contains all of the requested information) as provided in Table M2-1, for each project summary submitted as evidence of experience in the provision of Research Services.

DIAND reserves the right to contact the named client project authorities for the purpose of verifying the accuracy of the information provided in the Offeror’s Proposal.

Should DIAND choose to contact the project authorities and should one (1) or more named client project authority’s contact information be out of date, DIAND reserves the right to request provision of updated contact information, or provision of contact information for an alternative client project authority or designate, who is capable of verifying the accuracy and veracity of the information provided in the Offeror’s Proposal.

M3

M3 Proposed Resources

1. The Offeror MUST name resources and provide a detailed Curriculum Vitae (CV) for a minimum of four (4) resources, and up to a maximum of ten (10) resources.
2. CV’s MUST include:

1. The name of the proposed resource;
2. The proposed resource’s position within the Offeror’s organization;
3. A detailed listing of the proposed resource’s education and academic attainments. All formal education and training MUST include the title, name of the educational institution, and duration (indicated in months/years) of the course or program;
4. Descriptions of relevant project or work experience (including start dates and end dates of engagement in months/years at minimum) and the language (English / French) in which the services were provided;
5. Chronological work experience (indicated in months/years);
6. Confirmation of whether or not the resource is able to provide Research Services in both Official Canadian Languages (English/French); and
7. Level of GoC Security Clearance held at the time of Proposal submission.

1. Proposed resources MUST meet all of DIAND’s minimum qualification requirements, as described in Table 8-1, Section SW8.0 Contractor Resource Requirements and Minimum Qualifications of the Statement of Work.

DIAND will evaluate proposed resources, as follows:

Named resources will be evaluated in the order in which they first appear within the Offeror’s proposal.

Proposed resources will be evaluated against the stated minimum qualifications, as described in Table 8-1, Section SW8.0 Contractor Resource Requirements and Minimum Qualifications of the Statement of Work, until such time as the Offeror has provided evidence of the minimum number of qualified resources.

DIAND will evaluate up to two (2) additional resources, should one (1) or more of the Offeror’s proposed resources fail to meet the minimum qualifications.

Note: DIAND will evaluate the CVs for all the remaining proposed resources, as part of point rated technical criteria R3 Resource Capacity, if the Offer meets all the mandatory technical criteria.

M4

M4 Signed Authorization

1. For each proposed resource, the Offeror MUST include an authorization signed by the named resource giving the Offeror the right to propose the individual as a potential resource in this RFSO.

1. Basis of Selection - Highest Combined Rating of Technical Merit and Price

To be declared responsive, a bid must:

1. comply with all the requirements of the bid solicitation; and
2. meet all mandatory criteria; and
   1. obtain the required minimum of 135 points overall for the technical evaluation criteria which are subject to point rating.
      The rating is performed on a scale of 180 points.

1. Bids not meeting (a) or (b) or (c) will be declared non-responsive.

1. The selection will be based on the highest responsive combined rating of technical merit and price. The ratio will be 70% for the technical merit and 30% for the price.

1. To establish the technical merit score, the overall technical score for each responsive bid will be determined as follows: total number of points obtained / maximum number of points available multiplied by the ratio of 70%.

1. To establish the pricing score, each responsive bid will be prorated against the lowest evaluated price and the ratio of 30%.

1. For each responsive bid, the technical merit score and the pricing score will be added to determine its combined rating.

1. Neither the responsive bid obtaining the highest technical score nor the one with the lowest evaluated price will necessarily be accepted. The responsive bid with the highest combined rating of technical merit and price will be recommended for award of a contract.