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Call for proposals: Review of the business to business data assurance market around audit, certification and accreditation
Tender reference: ODI_DA_01
Call for tenders by the Open Data Institute Contact: [email protected]
The ODI is looking into the role of data assurance in improving data sharing by helping organisations assess, build and demonstrate both trust in and the trustworthiness of data and data practices. Organisations and individuals accessing, using and sharing data need to be able to provide assurance, or be confident, that data is fit for purpose and trustworthy for their use, and that the purposes of data collection and use are ethical and equitable.
We would like to commission a review to improve understanding of the current market around data assurance products including areas where the market is flooded, and areas where there are gaps. The primary audience for the outputs of this work are those who are interested in supporting adoption of, or offering new data assurance products that will lead to greater trust and data sharing.
The market review should focus on business to business data assurance products which support and enable the responsible and ethical use, publication and sharing of data. We are particularly interested in the services and offers provided by organisations that traditionally perform audit type activities, as well as those that might provide data assurance certification or accreditation services.
Questions we are keen to have explored in include:
- What is the maturity and size of this market?
- Which sectors are most mature and why?
- What commercial business models are gaining traction?
- What are the met and unmet needs of the market?
- What is the current impact of assurance products & services on trust in data and trustworthiness of organisations.
This work will be published by the ODI under an open licence to improve understanding of the current market around UK data assurance products including areas where the market is flooded, and areas where there are gaps. This will help inform decisions on where the ODI and other actors can best support adoption of, or to offer new, products that will lead to greater trust and data sharing. The work will also serve as a benchmark for later years.
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Terms of payment
Payment of 50% the agreed contract price will be made half way through delivery, and 50% on completion.
Background
To create a world where data works for everyone, we need trustworthy data to flow in well-governed ways around the data ecosystem. Data sharing is restricted when governments and companies that could share or reuse data are unable to assess the trustworthiness of datasets or other organisations. This reduces their willingness to provide access to data they steward and to use data from third parties, leading to missed opportunities for the use of data and duplicated data collection effort.
The ODI are looking into the role of data assurance in improving data sharing by helping organisations assess, build and demonstrate both trust in and the trustworthiness of data and data practices. Organisations and individuals accessing, using and sharing data need to be able to provide assurance, or be confident, that data is fit for purpose and trustworthy for their use, and that the purposes of data collection and use are ethical and equitable.
This market review will build on and add to earlier related ODI work;
- In 2019 we commissioned Oxford Insights to undertake exploratory work around certifications for data trusts. This looked at what it would mean to give a data trust an official stamp or seal of approval by some body or group, and who this regulatory body could be.
- In 2020 we commissioned Frontier Economics to evaluate the economic impact of trust in data ecosystems. This found that trust, ethics and openness around data directly link to increased data flows and value creation.
- In 2021 we completed year long research into the role of certification and audit in building trust and trustworthiness in data and data practices. We found that trust and trustworthiness are highly context dependent and that third-party assessments are useful, but only to a degree, and within certain contexts. In other cases, alternative methods of building trust may be more appropriate. As part of this we began to collate a list of tools & resources related to building trust around data.
This commission should be informed by our earlier research, and supplement it with richer information around service offerings and the role of data assurance products and services to improve data governance and trust across a data ecosystem.
This review will help improve understanding of the current market around UK data assurance products including areas where the market is flooded, and areas where there are gaps. This will help inform decisions on where ODI and other actors can best support adoption of, or to offer new products that will lead to greater trust and data sharing.
Deliverables
We anticipate research findings will be delivered through a report or similar summary output, the length and format of which is flexible and can be agreed with the project lead. We are also open to other suggestions for final outputs.
Regardless of the format, the output(s) should include;
- A summary of the availability of products, tools and services aimed at UK organisations which support and enable the responsible and ethical use, publication and sharing of data.
- The maturity and size of this market
- The sectors and regions which are most mature and why
- Commercial business models that are gaining traction
- The met, and unmet, needs of the market.
- Evaluation of the current impact of assurance products & services on trust in data and trustworthiness of organisations.
The primary audience for the outputs will be those who are interested in supporting adoption of, or offering new data assurance products that will lead to greater trust and data sharing.
The final output should be written in non-technical language, designed, proofed and in a format suitable for publishing. The output will be published by the ODI under an open licence for anyone to see and comment on. Relevant figures or findings may be used in reporting, communications and for future ODI bids.
A draft of the output should be submitted to the ODI for comments by 25 June 2021. Feedback from the ODI will be returned by 30 June 2021. A finalised version is to be submitted no later than 9 July 2021.
We expect project teams to:
- Attend feedback sessions with team members
The ODI will provide:
- Documentation and links to existing, related work
- Access to team members involved in previous and current work
Activities
The successful organisations will work in close collaboration with the ODI team to ensure the deliverables meet the needs of the project.
We anticipate there will be certain types of activity required - such as desk research, stakeholder interviews and engagement, assessment of research findings and drafting of output(s) - however applicants should propose specific activities and research methods as part of the tender response.
Form of tender response
Applications can be on behalf of a consortium of organisations. Interested parties should submit a costed proposal (in English) to [email protected], which includes:
- A short (no more than 5 page) explanation of your proposed project, with references to any relevant existing work or activities
- A description of why you are best placed to deliver this project
- A clear definition of the impacts, outcomes and outputs from the project, how you will achieve and measure them
- A description of the team who will do the work, including biographies
- the total value (£) of your proposal, with a break down of the costs by activity and people
- A high-level project plan identifying any key milestones
- Where required, what form of in-kind support from the ODI team would be useful, for example, to provide training, technical support etc
- Targeted stakeholders that will be approached/ engaged as part of this work and proof of their commitment
- Any risks and data protection considerations
If you have any questions about the tender, please contact [email protected] quoting the tender reference. The ODI reserves the right to make both anonymised questions and answers public or shared with other organisations having stated their interest.
Decision criteria
All proposals will be assessed as described in our public procurement policy. In addition, for this procurement we will be looking for:
- Evidence that the organisation collaborates with other key stakeholders, such as letters of support
- Applications submitted by a consortium should highlight how money is being spent across the organisations involved and the roles each consortium member will be taking.
- Alignment with the ODI’s goals and priority areas