Corporate report

CO's actions in response to the Government Digital Strategy

Updated 16 January 2015

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Action 1: Departmental and transactional agency boards will include an active digital leader

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office’s Executive Management Committee (EMC) has seized upon leadership of the digital agenda and an EMC-level digital sponsor, focused inwardly on the workings of Cabinet Office, will be identified by April 2013. It will establish a Cabinet Office Digital Steering Committee covering a range of seniority and work areas by February 2013.

Progress during 2013

EMC has committed to carrying out the digital strategy as a standing item of EMC meetings. An EMC-level digital leader has been identified to focus inwardly on the workings of Cabinet Office. The creation of a digital governance team is underway to join up the progress of the digital strategy across Cabinet Office.

Planned activities in 2014

EMC will continue to commit to carrying out the digital strategy as a standing agenda item of EMC meetings. The digital governance team will meet regularly to support, monitor and join up the progress of the digital strategy across Cabinet Office.

Progress during 2014

Paul Maltby is the Cabinet Office digital lead, reporting to the executive management committee. Tom Read is the Cabinet Office chief technology officer (CTO), responsible for technology transformation and development of internal service management capability.

The digital lead and CTO established the Digital Governance Group, which brought together delivery and subject matter expertise to evaluate proposals for investment in digital services. Cabinet Office upgraded technology platforms and equipment available to staff within the department.

Planned activities in 2015

A new in-house Digital and Technology Department will be established in the Cabinet Office to support and continually improve digital and technology services.

Action 2: Services handling over 100,000 transactions each year will be redesigned, operated and improved by a suitably skilled, experienced and empowered service manager. Service managers will be in place for new and redesigned transactions from April 2013

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office will appoint a service manager to continue to transform and iterate the digital solution for the Electoral Registration Transformation Programme (ERTP), as a transaction of significant size by volume by March 2013.

Progress during 2013

An experienced and qualified project leader has been in place since October 2012 and has worked in partnership with the development team in Government Digital Service (GDS) and its key suppliers to transform and develop the digital solution. Work is on track. During 2013 a complete dry run of the digital service, matching all electoral registers with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data has successfully taken place, and showed that a minimum of 78% electors should be transferred automatically to the new system when it is launched. A beta version of the online application has now been launched.

Planned activities in 2014

Complete digital development and integration testing. Subject to ministerial decision the ERTP will go live in June 2014.

Progress during 2014

Honours and appointments service was used as an exemplar to demonstrate application of the Government Service Design Manual and digital by default principles. The project was run jointly by the service and the digital and technology teams, with the digital team providing service management resource.

A new service director and a digital product manager were appointed to the ERTP.

Planned activities in 2015

As its new services are redesigned Cabinet Office will put service management into place.

Action 3: All departments will ensure that they have appropriate digital capability in-house, including specialist skills

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office will develop exceptional digital capability within the department to ensure it is continually innovating with the best digital solutions. The department will establish a new specialist digital unit, including business process and digital service designers. It will also assess the capability and digital literacy of the department as a whole and introduce digital capability training and support for all staff.

Progress during 2013

Cabinet Office has undertaken its annual skills review and a capability working group will support corporate actions around capability within the department. A programme of future workshops and learning events orientated around digital capability is being prepared to introduce digital capability training and support for all staff.

Planned activities in 2014

Cabinet Office will identify the scope of a new digital unit and take action to build what is required to support the digital strategy. This unit will provide the required support to the department. Workshops and learning events orientated around digital capability will be held, developing capability and training and supporting staff across the department.

Progress during 2014

Cabinet Office started to build an internal specialist digital capability team, the Cabinet Office Digital and Technology Team (CODATT).

CODATT built direct contact with service managers and relationship managers in partner organisations, to expedite spend controls and implement service management standards. CODATT provided advice and hands-on support for all service managers through:

• evaluating digital propositions
• advising on delivery and procurement approaches
• evaluating potential suppliers
• advising on service assessment, performance monitoring and user testing

The department increased digital capability in its policy development teams. The Digital Pioneer group gained momentum. New recruits helped other staff start using digital tools by running peer-to-peer learning sessions, and contributed to an online question and answer forum. Cabinet Office Code Club helped the department’s data analysts and managers to use the latest tools and languages in their work.

Planned activities in 2015

Cabinet Office will recruit to bring the CODATT unit to full capacity.

Future plans include extending service management and service assessment training to help build the department’s capability for evaluating and managing services.

Cabinet Office leads on a number of digital projects that have cross-departmental application.

In the new year, the discovery work that is being initiated this year will lead to implementation work supporting a number of professions within the civil service.

Cabinet Office will work with Civil Service Learning (CSL) and departments to analyse the results of the annual skills review and address any gaps in basic skills so all its civil servants reach level 7 on the digital inclusion scale.

Action 4: Cabinet Office will support improved digital capability across departments

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office will build digital capacity at a variety of different levels across the civil service. This includes general digital skills training and developing government-wide training of leaders and future leaders through the Fast Stream and other accelerated development programmes. GDS will also offer specialist coaching and training of service managers and provide assistance in supporting and recruiting specialist technical roles. This action supports the departmental capability building activity set out in action 3.

Progress during 2013

Through GDS, Cabinet Office has provided advice and support to departments to help them draw together plans to put the right structures and skills in place to undertake transformational and other digital work. It has established a recruitment hub to support recruitment of digital or technology senior civil service (SCS) roles in central government, on either a permanent or interim basis. This includes salary benchmarking and headhunting assistance, and involvement in sift and interview panels.

In addition, the department has set up specialist digital and technology benches to provide skilled people for short term deployment into departmental programmes and projects. GDS’s transformation team provides advice and input on establishing and developing new capabilities for the 25 transformation exemplar services.

Cabinet Office contributed to work on the Civil Service Capabilities Plan (published in April) to ensure that what it said about the digital development priority was closely aligned to the Government Digital Strategy objectives and requirements.

Civil servants have access to general awareness material (through video, e-learning, and a product providing information and guidance on open internet tools that can be used in the workplace). The Government Digital by Default Service Standard, and the Service Design Manual that complements it, were published in April 2013. This created a constantly iterated repository of best practice for all civil servants on designing, operating and improving good digital services (this includes Chief Technology Officer guidance for technology leaders in departments). GDS has run events to share learning and updates on important issues (Sprint 13 in January 2013, Sprint Alpha July 2013, Sprint Share November 2013). An intensive service manager induction and development programme went live in September, complemented by a service owner community. This is supported by regular update bulletins and service manager show and tell sessions. The department set up a programme of user needs and publisher training for GOV.UK content editors in agencies and Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs) to support transition.

Cabinet Office began working with CSL to integrate digital into SCS leadership programmes (for example, October’s induction event for newly appointed SCS ran to a digital theme). It also contributed to talent management initiatives for Generalist Fast Stream, grade managers, activity managers and cohort leaders, through planned sessions at induction and briefing events, assistance in assessing digital postings, etc. GDS took on responsibility for the Technology in Business Fast Stream programme, with a remit to widen the scope to include digital aspects. Work began with professions to ensure digital is effectively integrated into their curricula. In particular, there was close co-ordination with the communications profession on their digital communications review.

Planned activities in 2014

Cabinet Office will continue to work on further ways to increase the number and skills of specialists available to support departments’ move to digital-by-default working.

Cabinet Office will review existing digital and technology courses run through CSL and work with CSL and professions to improve these where necessary. It will also develop a series of digitally themed masterclasses for senior civil servants.

Cabinet Office will run further sprint events and will share learning in other ways, such as through publishing case studies from exemplars on topics such as channel shift, assisted digital, etc.

Cabinet Office will scale up the service manager and content editor programmes, and extend the community approach to other digital specialisms. The new Technology Leaders Network will define what technology capabilities are needed to support digital developments even more effectively.

Cabinet Office will continue to work with stakeholders across government to build wider awareness and digital skills and knowledge for all civil servants, iterating and building on work begun in 2013.

Progress during 2014

Through GDS, Cabinet Office provided advice and support to departments to help them put structures and skills in place to undertake transformational and other digital work. Its recruitment hub supported recruitment of digital or technology SCS roles in central government, on either a permanent or interim basis. This included salary benchmarking and headhunting assistance, and involvement in sift and interview panels.

The GDS transformation team provided advice, input and support to establishing and developing new capabilities for the 25 transformation exemplar services.

The Government Digital by Default Service Standard came into full force in April, and is supported by the Service Design Manual. This is a repository of best practice, constantly iterated by GDS, for use by anyone wishing to understand how to design, operate and improve good digital services. It includes CTO guidance for technology leaders in departments. GDS ran events to share learning and updates on important issues (eg Sprint 14, Sprint Go, Sprint Beta).

GDS developed and extended its service manager induction and development programme to cover wider digital teams. This was complemented by a service manager community supported by regular update bulletins and service manager show and tell sessions.

The department ran a programme of user needs and publisher training for GOV.UK content editors in agencies and ALBs to support transition. It piloted a Digital and Technology Skills Matrix with 15 departments and agencies, which began to be used to support digital transformation activities such as:

• running or designing assessments of digital and technology skills
• creating development plans
• improving the Digital Foundation programme and designing Digital Expert programmes (eg for user researchers) run through DWP’s Digital Academy
• creating consistent skills specifications for digital roles across government
• defining the digital leadership skills needed across government to achieve service transformation

Cabinet Office contributed to talent management initiatives and set up a new Digital and Technology Fast Stream with a remit to widen the scope to include digital aspects. Work continued with professions to ensure digital is effectively integrated into their curricula, particularly the Operational Delivery Profession.

Planned activities in 2015

Cabinet Office will continue to work with stakeholders across government to build wider awareness and digital skills and knowledge for all civil servants, iterating and building on work undertaken in 2014.

The Government Digital Inclusion Strategy aims to ensure all civil servants have basic digital skills. Cabinet Office’s digital inclusion team will work with CSL and departments to analyse the results of the annual skills review and address any gaps in basic skills.

Action 5: For transactional departments, 3 exemplar services will be selected. Redesign starting April 2013, implemented by March 2015 (to be included in relevant business plans). Following this, departments will redesign all services handling over 100,000 transactions each year

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office will transform and iterate the digital solution for the ERTP, as a transactional service of significant size by volume, by March 2013.

Progress during 2013

An experienced and qualified project leader has been in place since October 2012 and has worked in partnership with the development team in GDS and its primary suppliers to transform and develop the digital solution. Work is on track. During 2013 a complete dry run of the digital service, matching all electoral registers with DWP data, has successfully taken place. It showed that a minimum of 78% electors should be transferred automatically to the new system when it is launched. A beta version of the online application has now been launched.

Planned activities in 2014

Complete digital development and integration testing. Subject to ministerial decision the ERTP will go live in June 2014.

Progress during 2014

The ERTP’s online registration service, Individual Electoral Registration (IER) went live in June. By the end of the year it had received over 2 million applications.

Planned activities in 2015

The department will work towards making all its services handling over 100,000 each year digital by default. The new Honours and appointments service will be redesigned over the year.

Action 6: From April 2014, all new or redesigned transactional services will meet the Digital by Default Service Standard

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office will audit all transactions, scored against the Digital by Default Service Standard, completed and ranked in order of service standard compliance by April 2013. It will ensure that the user receives a consistently high-quality digital experience and that no new or redesigned service will go live unless it meets the Digital by Default Service Standard.

Progress during 2013

Cabinet Office is creating a digital governance team to audit all transactions.

Planned activities in 2014

Once a digital governance team has been established it will will audit all transactions, scored against the Digital by Default Service Standard, completed and ranked in order of standard compliance.

Progress during 2014

The Honours and appointments service began discovery on digitally redesigning its service.

The Digital Governance Group took on responsibility to audit all transactions and rate them against the Digital by Default Service Standard.

Planned activities in 2015

Public appointments service will develop in line with recommendations following a GOV.UK proposition review.

Action 7: Corporate publishing activities of all 24 central government departments will move onto GOV.UK by March 2013, with agency and ALBs’ online publishing to follow by July 2014

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office has a number of individual websites and content to consolidate onto GOV.UK. All accurate and useable content will be moved across onto GOV.UK in February 2013. GDS will also continue to help departments transfer online publishing to GOV.UK, and to operate and improve the platform at no extra cost to departments, agencies or ALBs.

Progress during 2013

The ministerial department sites have all transitioned to GOV.UK. Transition of the 300 agency and ALB sites is well underway, due to complete in June 2014.

Planned activities in 2014

The transition of the 300 agency and ALB sites will be completed in June 2014.

Progress during 2014

All agency and ALBs moved to GOV.UK

Planned activities in 2015

Cabinet Office will review and improve its content on GOV.UK to continue to ensure it meets user needs.

Action 8: Departments will raise awareness of their digital services so that more people know about them and use them

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

A digital service promotion plan will be defined for each of the 3 exemplar transactions (ERTP, Public appointments, and Honours and appointments), and the plan forms a template for future digital services.

Progress during 2013

Cabinet Office has a single exemplar service, the ERTP. It includes a programme of work to engage users to move to digital formats, developed in partnership with GDS.

Planned activities in 2014

As the ERTP programme develops, a promotion plan will continue to be developed. Other transactional services in Cabinet Office will be prioritised for reform.

Progress during 2014

Over the last quarter, CODATT worked with GDS to provide consistent advice to all service managers so communications and marketing plans were included in all digital proposals.

The ERTP’s online registration service, IER went live in June. A campaign of local mailshots and marketing accompanied the launch of IER to ensure that citizens were aware of the service. By the end of the year it had received over 2 million applications.

The department redesigned the Honours and appointment service (HAS) so that people will eventually be able to digitally submit and manage their own nominations. They also developed a strategic communication plan to support channel shift, and raised awareness of assisted digital options. The HAS communications plan targets sections of the population audience where current awareness or take-up of the nomination service was low.

Planned activities in 2015

Cabinet Office will continue to support increased digital take-up of its exemplar services.

Action 9: We will take a cross-government approach to assisted digital. This means that people who are rarely or have never been online will be able to access services offline, and we will provide additional ways for them to use the digital services

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

GDS will set up a consistent cross-government approach to procurement of assisted digital support. Cabinet Office will incorporate assisted digital arrangements in all of its future redesigned transactional services.

Progress during 2013

Cabinet Office is committed to incorporate assisted digital arrangements in its future redesigned transactional service, and this has been delivered within the ERTP.

Planned activities in 2014

Cabinet Office will remain committed to incorporating assisted digital arrangements in all future redesigns of transactional services.

Progress during 2014

CODATT promoted the importance of assisted digital provision. The assisted digital requirements for HAS were developed and tested during the discovery phase of the project.

HAS is a cross-government service, with each department participating in the nomination process. Departmental stakeholders were directly involved in the discovery phase to understand specific user requirements and user stories.

Cabinet Office is represented on the cross-government Assisted Digital Delivery Board and the Digital Inclusion Sub Group.

Planned activities in 2015

CODATT will continue to ensure that all existing and new services implement assisted digital services to support offline users.

HAS will have assisted digital provision in place when the service goes live. Departments will continue to be involved in future phases of the service redesign and development.

Action 10: Cabinet Office will offer leaner and more lightweight tendering processes, as close to the best practice in industry as our regulatory requirements allow

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

To make government more efficient and effective, Cabinet Office will make major changes to government procurement. These changes will encourage digital collaborative working with other organisations and ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises can compete in open procurement for opportunities to work with government in future digital development.

Progress during 2013

Cabinet Office established the Digital Services procurement framework in November which gives customers access to a pool of agile suppliers (84% are small and medium-sized enterprises and 38% are also new suppliers to government) needed to help build and run services that meet the Digital by Default Service Standard.

Planned activities in 2014

Cabinet Office will roll out a managed service for central government digital services. This is a dynamic framework which will be refreshed periodically with new suppliers and services. The second generation of the framework is planned to go live in April 2014.

Progress during 2014

The Digital Marketplace replaced CloudStore in 2014. This will help the whole of the public sector to buy digital products and services from a pool of quality suppliers of all sizes, most of whom work in agile ways.

Planned activities in 2015

G-Cloud 6 and the second iteration of the Digital Services Framework will be available through the Digital Marketplace by early 2015.

Action 11: Cabinet Office will lead in the definition and delivery of a new suite of common technology platforms which will underpin the new generation of Digital by Default services

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Through GDS the department will develop a range of common platforms to support redesigned digital services. Internally, it is exploring ways to create flexible and interoperable departmental IT to support flexible, innovative, collaborative, and effective working.

Progress during 2013

Cabinet Office is leading the way with a new approach to flexible, integrated IT services for the department. The technology transformation programme started in September 2013 and will be running through 2014 to deliver a set of disaggregated technology devices and services with a scalable support structure. The programme is user needs driven rather than procurement-led, and broad user needs analysis work is underway. In parallel, user trials of new devices and services are going live in December 2013.

Planned activities in 2014

Cabinet Office users will be migrated to a new technology framework in an iterative approach during 2014.

Progress during 2014

The Cabinet Office technology transformation team moved Cabinet Office and DCMS desktop applications onto cloud-based platforms, within a new hosting environment. Cabinet Office made new, faster wifi available throughout the department. Improved connectivity and simpler authentication based on the revised government security classifications has made it easier for staff to work in more flexible and mobile ways.

Planned activities in 2015

Cabinet Office will move an additional 1,300 users on to the new technology services. These will include users from the expanding Crown Commercial Service and users in Cabinet Office who are moving down from Confidential to OFFICIAL.

A new in-house Digital and Technology Department will be in place in the Cabinet Office to support and continually improve digital and technology services.

Action 12: Cabinet Office will continue to work with departments to remove legislative barriers which unnecessarily prevent the development of straightforward and convenient digital services.

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Through the Government in Parliament Group and GDS, it will work with departments to identify and amend any unnecessary legislative requirements that are holding back a shift to more straightforward digital services.

Progress during 2013

No cross-cutting legislative requirements have been identified in 2013.

Planned activities in 2014

Any cross-cutting legislative impediments will be escalated through the Digital Leaders Network.

Progress during 2014

No requirement for legislative change was identified.

Planned activities in 2015

No requirement for legislative change has yet been identified. If any are identified, these will be flagged up through the Digital Leaders Group for further action.

Action 13: Departments will supply a consistent set of management information (as defined by the Cabinet Office) for their transactional services

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office is in the process of defining a set of management information for transactional services for all departments. Within the department, much of this type of data on the way it runs transactional services is lacking. The department will therefore ensure that management information on the performance of digital services drives continual improvement in services and that this improvement loop is embedded in normal working practises.

Progress during 2013

The Performance Platform on GOV.UK is available in alpha, with performance data from 10 transactional services available. This information complements and deepens the top-level information available in the Transactions Explorer and makes public for the first time detailed information about the performance of transactions which citizens have with central government.

Planned activities in 2014

The Performance Platform will continue to develop and extend to other exemplar transactional services through 2014 and beyond.

Progress during 2014

Performance metrics for HAS were created based on the strategic vision for developing the service. A service roadmap was constructed to plan future development of the service.

Planned activities in 2015

Performance metrics will be published as part of the service assessment process and used to monitor the service on the GOV.UK Performance Platform.

Action 14: Policy teams will use digital tools and techniques to engage with and consult the public

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Cabinet Office has a number of teams engaging with the public through social media and digital collaborative techniques and will do more to ensure it is using digital channels to improve policymaking, communications and engagement. In 2013 it will begin to learn from policy iteration exercises with users of one service area and will begin a series of good practice seminars on using social media.

Progress during 2013

An open policy portal has launched in beta, plus interactive social media channels on open policymaking being used via Linkedin, Demsoc blog, and through the open policy team Twitter account.

This enables Cabinet Office to engage with the public through a wider network of digital channels to improve policymaking, communications and engagement.

Planned activities in 2014

A new Cabinet Office-hosted policy lab will pioneer the use of user-centred design and digital tools in cutting edge policy work across government.

Progress during 2014

Cabinet Office’s Government Innovation Group (GIG) ran targeted activities to increase engagement with wider audiences using social media and GOV.UK channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, quarterly.blog.gov.uk and openpolicy.blog.gov.uk) in support of open policymaking.

It used user-centred design techniques to define and test new models of engagement. For example, Policy Lab worked with Home Office and Surrey and Sussex Police to create an online crime reporting service. GIG also led a cross-departmental initiative to create and test an online policymaking toolkit.

Cabinet Office used online consultation platforms to support public engagement on particular policy matters. For example, in October and November, a digital service was provided as part of a multi-channel approach to gathering ideas for the Northern Futures initiative. Nearly 200 ideas were submitted on the website and over 7,000 people visited the platform.

Planned activities in 2015

GIG will continue to run targeted activities to increase engagement in support of open policymaking. Its online policymaking toolkit will be used to provide guidance to civil servants on both digital and offline tools to help them work in a more open, evidence-based and agile way.

Action 15: collaborate with partners across public, private and voluntary sectors to help people go online

Action 15 was added to the Digital Strategy in December 2013, so reporting on departments’ actions will begin with 2014.

Progress during 2014

Cabinet Office led on production of the Government Digital Inclusion Strategy and Charter. A Digital Inclusion team based in GDS is leading cross-government activity. It commissioned a major research project into digital exclusion which will help departments develop tailored services.

Planned activities in 2015

Office for Civil Society will develop a digital capabilities programme for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.

Based at GDS, the team will use research results to focus activity on the hardest to reach demographic groups, using tools which have been proven to work elsewhere.

Action 16: help third party organisations create new services and better information access for their own users by opening up government data and transactions

Action 16 was added to the Digital Strategy in December 2013, so reporting on departments’ actions will begin with 2014.

Progress during 2014

Data.gov.uk chaired the steering group of Ckan, the international organisation responsible for the integrity of the open source software behind data.gov.uk and used by over 25 countries, cities and regions across the world.

Data.gov.uk ran an open policy exercise to consult on redevelopment of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). It ran 3 workshops in October with over 100 representatives from small and medium sized enterprises, government, local authorities and voluntary organisations. It proposed a framework to list and handle the most important datasets for the nation. During December it shared a prototype of the proposition to gather further user views.

Planned activities in 2015

Data.gov.uk already offers APIs (Application Programme Interfaces) for its metadata and will work to provide data APIs for NII datasets as well as reference services for vocabularies of code for both government and local authority data.