Corporate report

DWP'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)

To strengthen departmental leadership, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has appointed a new board-level digital leader with responsibility for co-ordinating, directing and leading the digital agenda.

Progress during 2013

DWP has recently recruited a new director general, who sits on the department’s board, to lead on the digital agenda. The necessary restructuring to support the new director general was completed in autumn 2013.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP will continue to support the director general leading on the digital agenda.

Progress during 2014

DWP started a programme of transformation which focused on how it should look and operate in the future. It created the future vision for DWP, centred on understanding citizen needs, focusing on their outcomes and delivering in a way that creates a joined up organisation. It also produced guiding principles to direct all change efforts and business design to support the vision.

It developed a business design plan and roadmap to further modernise DWP. These include a secure digital self-service identity management and risk engine; some are already being delivered by existing programmes.

Planned activities in 2015

The digital leader will continue to pursue DWP’s transformation agenda, setting out a roadmap for transformation. This will enable its future vision, which includes a secure digital self-service identity management and risk engine. Some of these are already being delivered by its existing programmes.

Action 2: Services handling over 100,000 transactions each year will be re-designed, 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)

DWP will ensure that new and redesigned transactional services are operated and improved by skilled and experienced managers, with clear accountability for quality and take-up.

Progress during 2013

During 2013 service managers were appointed for all 3 DWP exemplar services. All current service managers have undertaken and completed GDS’s service manager training, ensuring full knowledge of the Digital by Default Service Standard and how to embed the standard in delivery of all new services.

Planned activities in 2014

In 2014 DWP plans to extend the training to additional service managers and also include those product managers who will undertake, or closely align with service manager activities, to increase awareness and further embed the Digital by Default Service Standard.

Progress during 2014

All DWP service managers have either completed the GDS’s service manager training or have been through DWP’s own Digital Academy.

DWP strengthened project leadership by participating in the Major Projects Leadership Academy.

It launched a digital buddy initiative where all its digital initiatives in development have direct support from another DWP senior digital leader with personal experience in delivering complex digital services.

It began a digital job roles initiative, defining 20 specific job roles that cover all aspects of an agile delivery team. This will help ensure DWP runs and resources projects consistently and effectively, and can attract and retain people with these skills.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to ensure that all new and redesigned transactional services are operated and improved by skilled and experienced managers, with clear accountability for quality and take up.

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

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

To become a digital organisation, DWP will ensure it has the right digital skills and capabilities. It will address gaps in particular technical skills through internal development and external recruitment, and ensure that frontline staff have the skills to support people to use DWP digital services. It will work closely with Cabinet Office to deliver this improved capability.

Progress during 2013

In 2013, recruitment began on a Digital Centre of Excellence. Job descriptions and salaries were agreed with GDS. The internal recruitment phase was completed mid-September 2013 and offers were sent out to 7 internal candidates with start dates in November/early December 2013. All remaining posts went to external recruitment and offers were made in November 2013.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP expects the headcount to rise to 27 early in 2014; the team will be available to digital projects on a cross-charge basis. This will be used to seed digital teams with experienced headcount in order to grow internal talent. DWP will be recruiting for the posts of delivery manager, technical architect, analyst, developer and web operations. The director general will consider how best to work with GDS to develop an ‘academy approach‘ to meet the challenge of scarce affordable resources and build DWP’s own internal supply. This would involve providing new recruits with 10 weeks’ intensive training to bring them up to speed on DWP/GDS standards.

Progress during 2014

DWP created government’s first Digital Academy. This is a 6-week course covering Digital by Default Service Standards and how to achieve them as a service is implemented.

DWP opened a second academy in June, in Leeds. Over 1,000 people were directly involved in academy-related activities. This included 45 students who completed the flagship 6-week course, 10 students who piloted a 2-week course, and 70 students who attended day-long ‘Discover Digital’ events. A further 900 people raised their digital awareness through academy-related work at Civil Service Live, DWP Sprint events, and apprentice inductions.

DWP incorporated a digital section in its first Capability Action Plan, which was published in June.

DWP established Digital Heads of Profession to ensure that it had consistency across programmes and to create a culture of learning and improvement.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP plans to significantly increase the numbers of staff who go through one of DWP’s academy offerings. Additionally, we will run the first cross-government Digital Academy in January, allowing a greater breadth of programmes to benefit from these products.

DWP will aim to increase the number of its civil servants attaining level 7 on the digital inclusion scale through activities run by their Digital Academies.

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

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

DWP will work closely with Cabinet Office to deliver improved capability within the department.

Progress during 2013

The DWP intranet provides links to a variety of resources designed to help build digital capability amongst staff. DWP has been improving the capability of policymaking staff to take advantage of new digital tools and techniques to increase public interaction with policymaking. While access to some social media is currently restricted in general, communications staff who need to deliver and manage external communications have unlimited access.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP will develop a digital skills training product for policy staff that will be available early in 2014.

Progress during 2014

DWP developed a tag cloud of important digital terms. It started using this to help raise awareness of the range of issues involved in making an organisation digital and to inform the syllabus for its academies.

It ran Sprint DWP in February, followed up by 3 more in October:

• Sprint DWP: Digital Leaders
• Sprint DWP: Operations
• Sprint DWP: Security

It established a social media strategy to introduce and roll out the use of social media to its Work Services Directorate. It trialled this approach in 3 Jobcentres: London Bridge, Newport, and Rusholme.

DWP also piloted the use of unrestricted wifi in Caxton House to see how this would help encourage more digital ways of working, including the use of online collaboration tools.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to ensure it increases digital capability. This will be through increasing the breadth of Digital Academy offerings and running more sprint events. These will raise awareness and understanding of business and digital transformation.

It will also use the results of the social media pilot to evaluate if it should be extended to all Jobcentres.

DWP will continue to investigate how new ways of working will help the department become leaner and more agile.

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)

DWP will redesign services handling over 100,000 transactions each year, starting with 3 exemplar services: Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment and Carer’s Allowance. As well as these transactional services, DWP’s ambition is to digitalise as much of the department’s activity as possible, where this could deliver a better service for the user and better outcomes for the department.

Progress during 2013

DWP agreed to deliver 3 exemplar digital services starting from 2013: Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payments and Carer’s Allowance, each of which will handle over 100,000 transactions a year.

Carer’s Allowance remains the furthest advanced of the 3 exemplar services. GDS approved a minimum viable product and the product went live in mid- October. This made it the second of the government’s exemplar services to reach go-live state.

In parallel with the Universal Credit pathfinder service, DWP has worked with the GDS to develop a ‘proof of concept’ for the future service. The proof of concept was completed on 3 October 2013, developed by a multidisciplinary team of DWP and GDS staff.

Personal Independence Payment completed its discovery phase in a 4-week window in September 2013, in line with GDS timescales. The product is now going through internal governance with a view to a decision on whether to move to alpha stage being taken in December 2013.

Planned activities in 2014

During 2014, a principal focus will be on ensuring DWP builds the internal digital skills that are necessary to enable future digital plans. The appointment of a new director general for digital transformation is likely to provide a catalyst for future strategic thinking in this area.

Progress during 2014

Carer’s Allowance digital service went live in November. The digital service attracted a user satisfaction rating of 90%. After the introduction of the new digital service, the majority of Carer’s Allowance claims were made online.

Universal Credit digital service passed its alpha service standard assessment, enabling it to go into beta. By the end of the year, testing began on the full scope of Universal Credit for all claimant types in a limited area.

The Personal Independence Payment digital service is unusual amongst the exemplars in that it depends on face-to-face interactions between healthcare professionals and service users. DWP started discovery in September, looking at how the service can be scaled to handle the volumes of existing Disability Living Allowance reassessments.

DWP restructured its New State Pension programme, and created 2 new projects. These are the Secure change of address service and the National Insurance and New State Pension transformation project. DWP embarked on a joint discovery on the latter with HMRC at HMRC’s digital delivery centre in Newcastle and started alpha in October.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to work on its 2 exemplar programmes: Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment. It will also continue to work on new digital initiatives throughout 2015.

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)

DWP will work closely with GDS to develop the Digital by Default Service Standard and ensure it is applied to all new and redesigned services from April 2014.

Progress during 2013

GDS now assesses new services with more than 100,000 transactions per annum against these standards prior to go live.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP will ensure that all new or redesigned services meet the Digital by Default Service Standard from April 2014.

Progress during 2014

DWP established a transformation hub in Leeds to co-locate digital specialists to work on transformation projects.

Working closely with the Cabinet Office and in line with the objective to make the UK cyber-secure and resilient, DWP has been building its cyber-security capabilities to ensure its systems are protected and secure.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to ensure that all new and redesigned services are built:

• in the right way
• by the right people
• in the right place
• following the GDS Service Standard

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

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

All of DWP’s new and redesigned services will be accessed through GOV.UK. DWP is working with GDS to complete the transition of all corporate publishing activities to GOV.UK by March 2014.

Progress during 2013

Phase 1 of DWP’s move to GOV.UK, which included all policy content and publications, completed successfully in 2013. A transition plan has been agreed with GDS to move all remaining content and the relevant ALBs’ sites.

Planned activities in 2014

Work is ongoing to move all remaining content and the relevant ALBs’ sites across to GOV.UK in 2014.

Progress during 2014

All of DWP’s agreed agency and ALBs moved to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

Planned activities in 2015

All of DWP’s new and redesigned services will be accessed through GOV.UK.

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)

DWP has plans in place to drive take-up of its existing transactional services, with telephony and face-to-face channels playing a major role in signposting and encouraging people online.

Progress during 2013

For current live online services DWP has been directing customers to those services via telephony agent scripts; online signposting and where necessary via face-to-face, front of house staff. This approach has proven to be successful in the case of Jobseeker’s Allowance online, where it achieved the take up target 1 month early.

Planned activities in 2014

In 2014 DWP will continue this approach to build on the take-up rates achieved for all other products.

Progress during 2014

DWP has developed channel shift plans for its live services and these resulted in an increase in take-up. Take-up for State Pensions Online increased to over 30% and Carer’s Allowance digital service take-up means that over half of applicants are now coming in through digital channels. Jobseeker’s Allowance remains at around 85% take-up.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to pursue channel shift for all its online services. Telephony and face-to-face channels will continue to play a major role in signposting and encouraging people online.

Action 9: We will take a cross-government approach to assisted digital

This means that people who have rarely or never been online will be able to access services offline, and DWP will provide additional ways for them to use the digital services.

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Some users of DWP services currently cannot or do not access the internet. DWP will ensure there is a clear offer of support, working with partners and other government departments. For those who will never be able to use digital services, even with support, other options will remain available.

Progress during 2013

DWP continued to work with GDS assisted digital team and programme board. The department delivered a presentation of the DWP position at a market engagement event, and engaged with all DWP digital programmes to support them on approach.

In partnership with the Tinder Foundation, supporting the work of UK Online Centres, DWP has been designing an approach to digital inclusion. The department created the Digital Deal Challenge fund, with 12 projects testing new ideas to support the digitally excluded. They’re also working with the new GDS digital inclusion team, contributing £50k to a research programme beginning its own research into support for digitally excluded DWP claimants and customers.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP will aim to agree an assisted digital approach for the digital exemplar services and for the future development of Single Tier Pension digital service.

Progress during 2014

DWP completed Carer’s Allowance trials using 2 third party organisations in August 2014. It also trialled assisted digital approaches using 3 Jobcentres and is in discussions with further third party organisations to extend trialling.

DWP developed department-wide assisted digital principles. These principles build on the concept that good assisted digital support:

• is clearly based on the needs of the user
• acts as an alternative way to access digital services
• includes an opportunity for learning, and encouraging users to use digital services independently in the future (where possible)

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will ensure that all assisted digital provision follows agreed departmental principles. It will provide a clear offer of support, working with partners and other government departments.

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)

DWP fully supports the move to leaner and more lightweight tendering processes, and will change the way it contracts for services to focus on the best outcomes for users. This will include:

• opening up access to smaller and more innovative suppliers
• contracting for flexible services that can be implemented, scaled and changed quickly to reflect variable business demand,
• getting suppliers to focus on providing better value, higher quality services focused on the needs of our users

Progress during 2013

DWP has used lightweight tendering processes for sourcing activity supporting the development of digital services in the department, particularly through the use of G-Cloud.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP will continue to use lightweight tendering processes for sourcing activity supporting the development of digital services in the department.

Progress during 2014

Lightweight tendering processes are being used for sourcing activity supporting the development of digital services in DWP, in particular through the use of the CloudStore.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to use lightweight tendering processes in 2015, ensuring that when it contracts for services it focuses on the best outcomes for users.

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)

DWP supports the use of common technology platforms. Its new IT platforms are being built around new technologies such as application programming interfaces (APIs), which offer opportunities to create a more integrated experience for users. It will also explore opportunities to work with other government departments, potentially by sharing platforms and technology or by designing joint services.

Progress during 2013

DWP has been progressing 3 exemplar products with a view to creating common technology platforms. There are a number of projects that are in feasibility stage that have requirements to share data between departments, although none of them currently have delivery plans. The department has been supporting them to identify common, reusable technology options.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP is committed to supporting the development of common technology platforms.

Progress during 2014

DWP began to build a set of common services for its programmes to drive efficiencies and be reused across the department and beyond. These common services will be adopted by all programmes as they mature. Examples include:

• the integration of GOV.UK Verify by New State Pension
• change of circumstances
• case and task management
• assisted digital
• information architecture

DWP is also beginning to design a digital service centre.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to build common services within the department, as well as reuse common platforms from elsewhere in government, so that all services are efficient and built using user-centred design.

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)

Legislation can be a barrier to effective service design. Where possible, DWP will remove any legislative barriers to digitisation at the earliest opportunity, and build flexibility into future legislation to enable it to experiment with new approaches and respond to user feedback.

Progress during 2013

Legislation is sufficiently flexible and does not prevent services from being delivered online.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP will ensure that flexibility is built into future legislation that enables them to experiment with new approaches and respond to user feedback.

Progress during 2014

Legislation is sufficiently flexible and does not prevent services from being delivered online.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to ensure that legislation is sufficiently flexible and does not prevent provision of online services.

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)

DWP will provide a consistent set of management information wherever systems allow, and ensure that new systems are built with this in mind.

Progress during 2013

Work is ongoing to identify key performance areas and produce detailed management information tailored to meet the requirements of each individual service. Take-up and transaction measures are in place and DWP is currently investigating capture of satisfaction and completion rates.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP is committed to providing detailed management information tailored to meet the requirements of each individual service.

Progress during 2014

DWP started work with GDS to design an approach to publish its transaction volumes and associated costs on the Performance Platform.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will provide a consistent set of management information wherever possible and ensure that new systems are built with this in mind. It will continue to work with GDS to support this.

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

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

DWP will introduce a more open approach to policymaking. This includes using digital to engage with a wider range of people during upcoming consultations and embedding digital channels in the everyday policymaking process. This ensures that policies can be continually developed on the basis of the widest range of views possible.

Progress during 2013

DWP has been identifying the relevant experts and how best to engage with them. The department has developed the SMART database, which is a digital tool available to all policy staff to help them identify and engage with the right people. A central team has been created as a centre of excellence to share best practice. It also co-ordinates strategic communications across the department to a wide variety of organisations and individuals, using the most appropriate channel and encouraging two-way engagement.

DWP has been looking at more innovative ways of consulting and communicating with customers and other stakeholders. Within the communications directorate, the social media team has been consolidating, establishing and strengthening the use of social media channels. The team has been working closely with a range of different portfolios to hone and target content to reach wider audiences. Some policy teams are already making more use of digital tools to improve engagement with stakeholders. For example the Disability Employment Conference was streamed live, had live video links to regional locations and the campaign hashtag trended number 1 in the UK on Twitter.

Planned activities in 2014

DWP will provide further training and development around social media, helping to drive the digital by default agenda and embed core digital skills within the department. It will also give the Civil Service Learning course Digital Engagement for Open Policy Making in January 2014 and will evaluate its impact post-delivery.

DWP has been developing a digital skills training product for policy staff which will include advice on digital tools available to help improve engagement with stakeholders and will be available early in 2014.

Progress during 2014

DWP ran a policy week in November to highlight open policymaking approaches and strengthen policy knowledge and skills within the department. It attended monthly cross-government open policy network meetings.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to adopt a more open approach to policymaking, and strengthen the open policymaking curriculum throughout the department. It will investigate ways in which it can bring agile methodology and user-centred design into the policymaking process.

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

The Digital Deal, a digital inclusion initiative in partnership with the Tinder Foundation and supporting the work of Go ON UK, was completed in May 2014. It aimed to encourage social landlords to design and deliver pilot projects that help their tenants get online, and built some good and replicable partnerships with Jobcentre plus and the communities themselves.

The Digital Deal is part of the wider programme developed by DWP to:

• support customers in using the internet
• increase customer confidence in claiming and managing Universal Credit
• develop greater digital capabilities within the Jobcentre Plus network

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to ensure digital inclusion is incorporated as it develops its policies and services, and will continue to collaborate with partners across the public, private, and voluntary sectors to help more people get online.

Action 16: 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

DWP finished its discovery into secure communications and data transfer between the department, its customers and third party stakeholders. These include other government departments, local councils, medical professionals, and Citizens Advice.

Planned activities in 2015

DWP will continue to open up government data and transactions where it can to help third party organisations create new services and better information access for their own users.