Policy paper

Assisted digital: opportunities for innovation

Published 4 December 2013

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

Innovating with partner organisations

Opportunities for innovation

Ian Trenholm (Defra), Helen Milner (Online Centres Foundation), Rebecca Kemp (GDS) and John Ploughman (DSA) discuss the need for assisted digital.

Assisted digital is vitally important to the success of the government’s wider digital by default strategy. Putting it into place won’t be a case of simply laying down a set of rules and insisting that they’re followed. Instead, it requires a cultural shift, a change to the way services are designed and planned.

In the coming years, the idea of assisted digital needs to be “baked in” to the way government works, says Defra’s Chief Operating Officer, Ian Trenholm.

“It needs to be integrated everywhere,” he says. “In a few years, I expect it to be normal. It will just work. It will be an integral part of everything we do.”

Making that happen won’t just be the job of central government. There’s a huge opportunity for innovation, including involving partner organisations that already have direct relationships with the people most likely to benefit from assisted digital. For example, the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) encourages driving instructors to provide assistance with the online practical driving test booking system for candidates who, for any reason, cannot use it themselves.

Another example is work done by the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) to set up direct electronic data links from Post Office counters to the DVLA database. Over 40% of car tax payments or SORN declarations are now dealt with this way.

This sort of help - from someone acting as an intermediary and using a digital service on behalf of someone else - is likely to be an important part of rolling out assisted digital.

“Government won’t be able to do assisted digital all by itself, it will need to work with partners,” says Helen Milner from the Online Centres Foundation. “Partnership is very important. We need to engage the right organisations for the right citizens we need to support. That will mean working with the voluntary and community sectors.”

The Government Digital Service has been working with organisations including Age UK, Go ON UK, and the Citizens Advice to think about the best ways to provide assisted digital. These partners already have close connections to local communities. Assisted digital provision can make the most of those connections, of the trust that it brings, to provide help with digital services to the people who need it most.

Ian Trenholm is Chief Operating Officer, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Helen Milner is Chief Executive, Online Centres Foundation

Rebecca Kemp is Policy Team Leader, Government Digital Service

Using new technology

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), which helps some of the most vulnerable people in society, is trialling the use of new technology such as automated voice recognition services so people can self serve over the phone.

Providing a service well is just as important as doing it efficiently, says the DWP’s Director of Network Services, Myrtle Lloyd: “We need to do this as a government, rather than each department trying to do it for themselves. Otherwise we won’t get the bang for our buck that we’d like to.

“We want to get to the best outcome, as quickly as possible. That’s a big prize for us.”

The nation’s public libraries have more than a decade of experience providing computers and internet services to the general public. Sally McMahon is Head of Library and Information Services for Brighton and Hove City Council, and thinks public libraries are well placed to help with front-line delivery of the Government’s assisted digital programme.

“Library staff are known and trusted in their communities,” she says. “They are used to dealing with people from different age groups, different backgrounds, people with different needs. We see assisted digital as building on a service that we already provide for people in their local communities.”

Even libraries are just part of a wider team, she says. “No one organisation is in a position to provide the full range of support that’s needed. But together, we can provide a network of support.”

The aim is to build up a marketplace of assisted digital providers, each with a slightly different focus depending on what the user actually needs. This idea of “user needs” is central to the digital by default strategy: it’s far better to build things that meet people’s needs, rather than things that tick boxes on a list of government requirements.

Myrtle Lloyd is Network Services Director, Department for Work and Pensions

Sally McMahon is Head of Libraries & Information Services, Brighton and Hove Libraries

Lukas Holden is Library Officer, Brighton and Hove Libraries

Dirk Lampe is Project Manager, Southern Housing Group (a UK Online Centre)