Scotlands People Website.

Descriptions

National Records of Scotland (NRS) is a non-Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government whose purpose is to collect, preserve and produce information about Scotland's people and history, and make it available to inform present and future generations. The Scotlands People service is a key element in delivering this purpose and an important part of NRS' future strategy of improving customer and digital services.The Scotlands People service was established in 2002 and is the official government website offering access to Scottish family history research. The site was originally established in 2002 and now hosts access to around 30 000 000 images and 110 000 000 index entries. In 2013/14 there were 3 400 000 site visits and 24 000 customer email queries and currently there are over 800 000 unique registered users. The service has concentrated mainly on the provision of index information and digitised images of registration and historical census records as well as providing access to images of Valuation Rolls and Scottish Wills and Testaments.NRS wishes to appoint a service provider to deliver a flexible service which we anticipate will be developed and expanded over the course of the contract. The service provider will deliver web design, application development, search functionality, e-commerce, testing, secure web hosting, infrastructure, website management (including further expansion) and support for the replacement service to support internet access to the official Scotlands People online service (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk). The replacement service must go live to public users on 1.9.2016, when the current contract expires.It is expected the new service provider will begin design and development of the new service from August 2015 with all testing phases completed and signed-off by the end of July 2016 in readiness for the new website service to go live on 1.9.2016, ensuring the Scotlands People service to the public is seamlessly maintained from the ‘Go live’ date.