Policy paper

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

Updated 16 January 2015

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

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

This action forms part of the Government Digital Strategy. Here’s how departments are responding to this action:

The Attorney General’s Office

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has a team which is leading on digital and is assisting the Law Officers’ departments on digital transformation where required.

Progress during 2013

AGO has continued to work with the other Law Officers’ departments to support their digital teams.

Planned activities in 2014

AGO will continue to work with the other Law Officers’ departments to support their digital teams.

Progress during 2014

AGO used internal digital platforms as a way of raising specialist digital skills.

Planned activities in 2015

AGO will continue to work with the other Law Officers’ departments to support their digital teams.

AGO will include digital skills as part of learning and development plans. All departmental staff will achieve at least level 7 capability against the digital inclusion scale.

Cabinet Office

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 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.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) will undertake a full audit of digital demand and capability across BIS and its partner organisations. Based on this analysis it will ensure the right resources are in place to carry out its digital transformation programmes. This is likely to be a mixed model, as demand is significantly different across the many and varied BIS organisations. A central portfolio team is in place to manage implementation of the digital strategy across the department.

Progress during 2013

BIS completed an audit in June, which confirmed the range of digital demand and capability that exists across the department and its agencies and arm’s length bodies (ALBs) to identify areas where organisations were the ‘best in class’. Since publishing the findings, there has been further work with senior leaders across the BIS partner organisations to refine our approach and identify the important priorities to focus on. Further analysis has been supported by the creation of a customer insight and data analytics workshop, hosted by Companies House, and of a leadership event which will be tested with an agency/ALB.

Planned activities in 2014

In 2014, BIS will support collaborative working and skills sharing across BIS agencies and ALBs and senior leaders. This will build on the work it is testing now. It will also encourage cross-government communities and groups that offer additional opportunities to support and build capability across the BIS family.

Progress during 2014

Tim Knighton worked closely with the 5 digital exemplar organisations within BIS and Government Digital Services (GDS) to support growth in digital skills and knowledge and exemplar success.

BIS established the Digital Leaders Forum to build digital skills and knowledge, and to oversee the creation of a digital services roadmap by the end of October. It also established a new network of senior digital advocates to demonstrate senior level support for digital activity.

BIS decided to establish a specialist central Digital and Technology team.

Over 20 teams and more than 100 individuals from across the department have been trained to build understanding of digital engagement activity. BIS ran regular weekly digital surgeries in London and (since October 2014) Sheffield offices. In October around 10% of staff participated in a Digital Fortnight.

A network of digital buddies has been established, allowing digitally active staff to share their skills and expertise: almost 30 staff have signed up to this network.

Planned activities in 2015

During 2015 the Digital and Technology team will support the growth of knowledge and skills within the partner organisations. It will work to implement Government Digital Target Operating Model (GDTOM) and to expand digital services, aiming to improve efficiency and service outcomes.

Although working initially with third party suppliers, our partner organisations will recruit and develop new in-house digital specialists as part of a ‘grow our own’ strategy, designed to lower costs and increase skills development.

BIS will undertake initiatives to ensure that all staff meet at least level 7 on the digital inclusion scale. These include:

• a Digital Advocates programme aimed at senior civil servants
• another Digital Fortnight
• extension of the digital buddies scheme

It will also run targeted training events aimed at the policymaking profession.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) recognises that embedding digital by default will require staff to have the opportunity to learn digital skills as part of their individual learning plans. They have identified a number of potential opportunities that it is looking to provide, and will recruit people with digital skills from outside of the department and invest in its own people.

Progress during 2013

The department’s executive board agreed to the incorporation of digital delivery as an important strand of the DCMS capability plan in October 2013. Digital has been promoted through a range of specific activities, including specialist courses, e-learning and case studies, as well as advertising digital training opportunities with the Government Communications Network and GDS.

DCMS has recently recruited a Head of Digital Communications who will lead a team responsible for the roll-out of better digital engagement. Recruitment has begun to fill vacancies in the communications team.

Planned activities in 2014

DCMS will include digital skills and experience in the performance development objectives of those working in the communications team, including both press office and campaigns.

DCMS will continue to recruit staff into the communications team and will look for individuals with excellent digital communications skills as well as more traditional press, campaign and stakeholder relations skills.

Progress during 2014

DCMS now includes digital skills and experience in performance development objectives for those working in the communications team, including press office, strategic communications and internal comms teams. DCMS was one of the first departments to undertake targeted GOV.UK publisher training. Evaluation is now firmly embedded in all aspects of communications campaigns.

Planned activities in 2015

In early 2015 DCMS will move away from the traditional model of press officers and digital officers to a new model where each member of the communications unit is expected to demonstrate professional skills across media, PR and digital communications handling and planning.

DCMS will continue to recruit into the communications team staff with excellent digital communications skills alongside more traditional press, campaign and stakeholder relations disciplines.

DCMS will continue to provide digital leadership and will continue to embed digital in policy and communication.

The department will be running a series of internal ‘love digital’ events and workshops for its staff.

Department for Education

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

To maximise the benefits of becoming a digital by default department it will need colleagues to become more digitally savvy and capable. The Department for Education (DfE) will create a digital culture within the department with increased capabilities, new specific digital job roles and with digital embedded in their day-to-day business.

Progress during 2013

A presentation was given to the directors by the director general responsible for transformation at Ministry of Justice. DfE is working with human resources and internal comms to put together a campaign to raise awareness of digital standards, digital by default and open policymaking for staff throughout DfE.

Planned activities in 2014

DfE will work with human resources to raise the profile of using digital to find better ways of working. DfE will bring in external representatives of virtual expert bodies (teachers groups on Twitter, etc) to bridge the gap in the department between policymakers and their audiences. Presentations will be given by open government data colleagues on open policymaking.

Progress during 2014

DfE established a small multidisciplinary technical team to provide specialist development capability. User experience and research capabilities are currently supplied by a partner supplier.

Planned activities in 2015

DfE will assess current skills and knowledge and establish a programme to ensure all specialist digital staff have the skills and capabilities to perform effectively and also can help train others across the wider department. The department will increase civil servants’ level of understanding to at least level 7 on the digital inclusion scale.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The department’s exemplars will be the catalyst for the development of appropriate in-house digital capability in Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the future, demonstrating what expertise and skills it will need in the future. It aims to include its plans for developing this capability in the Defra business plan for 2013/14.

Progress during 2013

Defra conducted an information-gathering exercise in summer 2013, as part of the civil service learning skills review, to understand existing skills gaps and priorities. Defra will have brought this together into a Digital Skills Action Plan by December 2013 showing how the identified needs would be addressed.

Planned activities in 2014

The Digital Skills Action Plan will identify a programme of work both to raise awareness of digital and build specialist capability. The exemplar developments are helping to demonstrate the in-house skills and expertise required to develop across the Defra network.

Progress in 2014

Defra took steps through its Digital Skills Action Plan (agreed in early 2014) to improve departmental digital capability. Its return on digital skills for the Civil Service Learning skills review showed progress in all areas.

Planned activities in 2015

Defra will continue to carry out and iterate its action plan commitments to raise awareness of digital across the department as a whole and to build in-house specialist capability for important digital skills.

Department for International Development

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

To support their digital leader, the Department for International Development (DFID) will establish a digital operations team, which will co-ordinate the current activities of communications, systems delivery and programme design, and take responsibility for overseeing the delivery of this strategy.

Progress during 2013

DFID received very positive feedback and was described as “one of the best in government at digital communications” in a recent capability review. The team coordinates the current activities of communications, web publishing, systems delivery, digital spending controls, programme design, and takes responsibility for promoting and overseeing delivery of this strategy.

In the past year the department has carried out a series of digital skills development sessions for DFID teams including the leadership group, Heads of Profession, new graduates and communications staff beyond the digital team.

Planned activities in 2014

Members of staff from a range of teams in DFID will be identified to participate in skills development programmes, and there will be continued focus on working with the leadership group.

Progress during 2014

The communications team demonstrated a high level of digital capability, and won an award for its communication of the government’s humanitarian response to the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines. DFID was one of 10 Gold Award winners at the Public Sector Communications Awards 2014.

The department carried out a series of digital skills development sessions for DFID teams including the leadership group, Heads of Profession, new graduates, policy staff and advisors. It built a digital skills self-assessment tool to raise digital awareness and to point staff to learning resources.

Planned activities in 2015

DFID will seek to recruit and retain people with specialist digital skills to support digital systems and management information work.

It will review feedback from the self-assessment tool and update it with new learning resources. DFID also plans to continue ad hoc support on developing specific skills when teams request it and will run a session on digital skills with the leadership group.

All DFID staff will reach level 7 on the digital inclusion scale. The self-assessment tool will help staff identify where they need to learn new digital skills to reach the level required for their role.

Department for Transport

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Department for Transport (DfT) people will undertake the necessary training to improve their digital skills and has expert help in place to support them in the use of digital. DfT will work with GDS to:

• determine what digital skills are required
• identify individuals who have high-end digital skills that could be deployed across the department
• put digital skills training in place
• ensure that all staff use the core competency framework to set appropriate objectives related to digital skills

Progress during 2013

DfT conducted a skills audit in the spring across the range of skills and competencies covered in the Civil Service Reform Plan. Training and development in some specialised areas, including service management, agile development and digital communications has been undertaken. A workshop to cover more general digital skills such as web listening has been piloted and research into how best to conduct a more specific digital capability audit has been carried out. Important roles have been filled, including service manager for the 3 exemplars, product owner, testers, developers and business analysts. Support is being provided by a GDS agile coach.

Planned activities in 2014

The DfT board has agreed a campaign to educate staff in the central department about digital working in the spring. This will be followed by a detailed capability assessment to ascertain skills and gaps across the entire department.

Progress during 2014

Drivers and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) restructured the way they bought and commissioned digital services in line with the service standard. DVLA began working with local education establishments, including Swansea’s 2 universities, as well as local businesses and the community through sponsoring Swansea’s TechHub initiative to develop a future supply of skilled local talent. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency further insourced its capability as part of its Future Coastguard Programme.

Planned Activities in 2015

Developing digital skills remains a priority for the department and its agencies. The department will pursue its policy of aligning operating models with its digital capability so that work is delivered from the section of the department with the right equipment and skills. For example the service management of the Heavy Goods Vehicle levy is run by DVLA.

DfT will use the results of the Annual Skills Review to inform its approach to basic digital skills training with the aim of enabling more staff to reach level 7 on the digital inclusion scale.

Department for Work and Pensions

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

To become a digital organisation, Department for Work and Pensions (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.

Department of Energy and Climate Change

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The move to digital by default will require us to develop new skills and capabilities and also a significant change in culture and mindset. Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will conduct a skills and capabilities audit to identify capacity building requirements across the full range of capabilities from leadership through policy, service management and procurement.

Progress during 2013

DECC has undertaken a skills and capability audit as part of the business planning process. Within the digital by default programme a ‘building and embedding skills and capabilities’ workstream has been established.

Planned activities in 2014

DECC will use the audit information to develop a skills and capability plan highlighting areas of priority, using the Cabinet Office framework.

Progress during 2014

DECC developed a Consumer First programme which supports cultural change needed to implement the Digital by Default Service Standards.

DECC developed a digital by default toolkit tailored to the department’s needs using materials from GDS, Civil Service Learning and Open Government Data.

The department ran a third pulse survey in September 2014, which found that:

• in 2013 63% had never heard of digital by default or knew what it meant (12 months later 86% of employees were aware)
• those saying they actively followed digital by default principles or understood how it will affect their work moved from 14% to 36%

DECC set up: * cross-departmental digital work streams to embed digital by default * an assessment panel * highly targeted coaching through the assessment process

Planned activities in 2015

DECC will review and refresh skills audit information and will embed digital skills and capabilities into the overall DECC learning and development plan.

A programme of events and activities is planned under the Consumer First banner.

Putting user needs at the centre of policy development needs further work. Consumer First and Open Policy Making programmes will address these areas.

DECC will aim to increase the number of its civil servants attaining level 7 on the digital inclusion scale through its Consumer First programme.

Department of Health

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

To help staff get the digital skills they need, the Department of Health (DH) will work with Heads of Profession and Civil Service Learning and ensure that the department’s 2013 learning and development strategy reflects the digital ambitions in the Civil Service Capabilities Plan. The department will develop a programme of internal digital masterclasses to share experiences, knowledge and best practice. It will review its in-house capability to develop and manage digital products, revising existing and creating new roles as required.

Progress during 2013

DH’s digital team ran a series of successful pilot workshops for the communications division, and an ambitious digital capability programme for the department as a whole was developed. This follows a department-wide digital skills audit and a benchmarking exercise with pilot groups of staff.

Phase 1 of the capability programme focuses on creating the digital leadership within DH required to drive through a digital first culture. The programme also includes:

• one-to-one executive coaching for the permanent secretary and director generals
• the creation of a DH Digital Champions group with representation from each division
• a digital induction for fast-streamers

This work is being led by the digital team with input from the learning and development team.

Planned activities in 2014

The second phase of the digital capability programme will focus on mainstreaming digital skills for all DH staff. The DH Capabilities Plan being developed by the Learning and Development team will support this work. The programme will include:

• segmenting the level of digital skills required by specific groups of staff based on the recent skills audit and benchmarking exercise
• holding workshops and master classes based on this need
• incorporating digital into the corporate induction process for new staff
• an updated version of the digital toolkit for policy officials following extensive testing
• a digital online manual for all DH staff, similar in style to the Government Service Design Manual

Progress during 2014

The DH digital team published the department’s digital strategy on capability and in late summer published an update on progress. In 2013 the Annual Skills Review identified 59% of staff self-reporting as lacking basic digital skills. In 2014 that number fell to 17% of staff.

DH established a Digital Champions programme in January with a pilot group of 70 members of staff to:

• engage staff through hands-on involvement testing alpha and beta products
• involve them in trials of early technology
• provide ‘un-conference’ style learning and engagement events, including the annual Digital Champions Summit
• devolve responsibility to them to train their teams on basic digital skills and the Digital by Default Service Standards

DH also coached the permanent secretary, directors-general and the chief medical officer on a range of different topics. Several ALBs also instituted a similar programme.

In November DH launched its digital passport, which sets a minimum standard of digital capability within DH, aligned with level 7 on the digital inclusion scale.

Planned activities in 2015

DH will:

• run a further Digital Champions cohort of 100 staff
• build digital requirements into job adverts and job descriptions for new members of staff, ensure they are covered in recruitment and performance management processes, and redesign the induction process for new staff to include digital skills and delivery
• develop digital skills of both communications and policy staff
• assess all DH staff against level 7 of the digital inclusion scale, seeing a further reduction in those not reaching the minimum standard
• have at least 2,000 staff achieving its digital passport

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) will secure the additional expertise needed to deliver digital by default and embed digital in policy, including through the establishment of an expert digital transformation unit and the development of relevant training, guidance and best practice.

Progress during 2013

FCO has defined and started recruiting for its digital transformation unit designed to provide the additional expertise it lacks internally.

Planned activities in 2014

The digital transformation unit will begin work, scoping FCO’s digital transformation so far and helping prioritise forthcoming activity. The transformation unit will also look at training and capability needs across the organisation.

Progress during 2014

FCO established a digital transformation unit, including experienced transformation managers, to provide the in-house skills needed to undertake the FCO’s service transformation work. The digital transformation unit put in place arrangements through G-cloud to access additional specialist skills lacking in-house (eg service maintenance and iteration).

It also developed and began rolling out a new training curriculum for FCO staff. This training covered digital skills needed for the delivery of services, policy and communications work for civil servants at all levels. It set up a Digital Champions network and held numerous events to publicise the digital agenda.

Planned activities in 2015

The digital transformation unit will continue to roll out its new training offer and highlight the importance of digital to diplomatic work at all levels. It will also monitor whether in-house specialist digital skills and knowledge are adequate, recommending adjustments as necessary.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will create a team with experience and deep digital skills (in design, development, analytics and strategy) which champions digital channels and advises product and process owners, policy teams and customer and strategy units. This team will ensure that new and redesigned services meet the government’s Digital by Default Service Standard.

Progress during 2013

HMRC’s annual skills review highlighted the department’s plan to invest in digital skills in line with the capability build required for delivery of new digital services. The HMRC digital development team has grown to 4 sprint teams in the last year.

The department has been working with GDS to select a partner organisation that can design and document the new agile processes and implement the tools, training and key performance indicators (KPIs) to make them effective across the teams.

Planned activities in 2014

HMRC will continue working with GDS and the selected partner organisation to help build its capability and design new agile processes.

In order to scale up its development capacity the department will work closely with its partners, small and medium-sized enterprises, academia and HMRC apprenticeships and graduate schemes.

To carry the department’s digital roadmap through to 2016 to 2017, HMRC expects to increase its development capability to around 20 sprint teams.

HMRC will make a front-end investment (2014 to 2015) at ‘expert’ and ‘practitioner’ levels with new digital services. The Civil Service Learning digital awareness product (being developed) will cover the majority of the departmental gap at ‘awareness’ level.

Progress during 2014

HMRC increased its development capability by opening 2 digital delivery centres. There are 13 sprint teams in the London centre and 14 in Newcastle. The Newcastle centre ran 3 successful recruitment initiatives and, along with the London centre, increased its internal developer capability through agency, internal and apprentice appointments.

HMRC improved digital capability at practitioner level among staff directly involved in digital transformation, using agile training and closer working with exemplar service leads and service managers. HMRC significantly increased digital awareness and capability, with 95% of HMRC meeting level 7 of the digital inclusion scale. This was achieved through a programme of Building our Future events, where plans for digital transformation were shared with all staff through digital awareness training.

Planned activities in 2015

HMRC will continue to build in-house expertise by creating an additional 6 sprint teams in the Newcastle centre.

The department will develop digital capability at ‘working’ level for all staff. HMRC will use continuing “Building our Future” conversations and awareness training to target the remaining 5% of staff yet to achieve level 7 of the digital inclusion scale.

Her Majesty’s Treasury

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) will deploy a training plan which ensures that all its communications professionals have core digital skills. It will not add in-house developing resource as it is not cost-effective to do so, but will look to share expertise with other government departments where practical, or commission GDS where appropriate.

Progress during 2013

HMT has carried out digital awareness sessions across the department.

Planned activities in 2014

HMT is committed to improving digital literacy across the department through further training sessions.

Progress during 2014

HMT ran digital awareness sessions across the department, with training and awareness sessions for individual teams. New IT equipment was introduced across the department.

HMT worked with GDS to issue new guidance on business cases for agile projects.

Planned activities in 2015

HMT will run training workshops to raise its civil servants’ digital literacy.

Home Office

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

A full digital capability review will map the full range of skills and identify gaps. There may be a need to undertake external recruitment to strengthen our existing levels of resource. The Digital leader will oversee a programme of targeted activities to build digital capability throughout Home Office, in particular across the 4 critical professions.

Progress during 2013

Based on the digital section of the annual skills review, Home Office has been working to build digital capability with a focus on expert level skills. A map of learning opportunities at all levels has been created. This will be supported by business unit action plans to address local priority needs.

Home Office has been working with GDS and Civil Service Learning to bring the department in line with a cross-government approach to improving digital capability. The department’s capability plan will be released in November ahead of a digital capability strategy during 2014. Within the department a number of agile teams have been formed, in addition to its exemplars, from internal staff and experienced industry professionals in order to build in-house capability. A number of technology staff have been placed within the agile teams to shadow team members, thereby building their capability and enabling them to set up their own agile projects elsewhere.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office will continue building digital capabilities across all levels through a mixture of external advice and support as well as internal shadowing and peer-review.

Progress during 2014

Home Office began recruiting to numerous specialist roles and consolidated digital skills in the department (not including from Technical Architecture) under the chief digital officer. Home Office recruited heads of profession to lead:

• product management
• agile delivery
• digital policy
• user research
• design professions

In July Home Office ran a successful digital month to raise awareness of digital services and tools at the department. This was followed up by a programme of roadshows in December in the Liverpool, Sheffield, Croydon and London offices. Roadshows were run with the Immigration Platform Technology team and a number of digital service delivery teams, to raise the profile of digital services for the Home Office across the country.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will continue to recruit digital specialists but will remain dependent on interim skills for some time. It will explore offering more competitive salaries and career progression opportunities to attract and keep the best digital talent. To attract graduate talent the digital team is developing an alpha model for partnerships with London universities.

Home Office will use the results of the Annual Skills Review to inform its approach to basic digital skills training with the aim of enabling more staff to reach level 7 on the digital inclusion scale.

Ministry of Defence

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The Directorate of Media and Communications (DMC) will create and empower a central hub of excellence for ‘super users’ with advanced digital skills and knowledge, The DMC will do so by merging the Defence Online Engagement and Web Governance groups to establish the digital hub for all defence directorates and sub-organisations.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is working with Human Resources Directorate to plan and develop new digital skills training, work-based learning opportunities and a mentoring programme for senior civil servants. It’s also reviewing the programme of training and education of all defence staff to include cyber skills, information security handling and acceptable and responsible use of social media.

Progress during 2013

The Defence Web and Online Engagement group has been established. This new centre of best practice brings together digital and social media expertise around defence organisations and meets on a quarterly basis.

Work is also underway with human resources to determine digital skills training, with a review of training on personal use of social media.

Planned activities in 2014

MOD will run social media and digital literacy training across the entire Defence Communications Directorate to address the shortfall in digital capability among communications staff at all grades. This will run as a pilot study in concert with the new Digital Transformation team.

Progress during 2014

MOD’s first digital head of profession was appointed in May. MOD completed early scoping work on establishing digital as a profession in defence.

The Director of Defence Communication established a digital skills training programme. The programme is for all civilian and military communications personnel and is part of a digital first reorganisation of defence communications.

MOD conducted a survey of the department’s digital skills capability and requirement. The survey showed that MOD’s digital skills gap has increased. The gap could be explained by a sharper focus on what constitutes digital skills and a better evidence base.

MOD developed and advertised a Digital Skills and Literacy resource in September, aimed at improving the basic digital skills of all MOD staff and developing digital professionalism in MOD. Using this in an internal blog post they challenged MOD staff to analyse their own digital skills. Defence Equipment and Support has started a digital buddies scheme, which aims to improve digital literacy among staff.

Planned activities in 2015

MOD will use flexible collaboration tools to improve the way defence staff work.

MOD will establish a digital professionalism programme for all defence staff. The programme will include job codes, career pathways and self-assessment tools

Ministry of Justice

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Ministry of Justice (MOJ) will bring digital skills in-house to establish its digital services division by April 2013 and make stronger links with specialists outside government. During 2013 to 2014 it will extend digital leadership and capabilities at director and deputy director levels and establish a network of digital champions at band A. It will also connect staff, users and partners with each other and the information and tools they need to deliver digital solutions and support flexible working through more effective use of digital technology.

Progress during 2013

MOJ’s digital services division is well established and well supported by the department, having more than doubled in size in 2013. The full range of digital skills and expertise is represented across the team, and it has attracted some of the best and brightest talent. More widely, it has established a Digital Steering Group at senior civil service level for all senior leaders involved in the digital sphere, with a network of digital champions being established to help build capability.

The department has:

• successfully opened up access to social media across MOJ
• introduced open policymaking
• continued to lead the way on the deployment of digital technology for more dynamic working practices

Planned activities in 2014

MOJ will:

• continue to grow its digital services division to meet the demands of the transformation agenda
• begin to identify opportunities to build specialist capability in-house, seeking out internal candidates with the right basic skills and knowledge to fill specialist roles in the future
• continue to build its digital champions network, increasing awareness, knowledge and capability across the business with the aim of being able to define the MOJ as a department that is digital by default
• develop its working environment into a more flexible and dynamic space, drawing on industry insight and experience

Progress during 2014

The digital services division grew from a team of fewer than 40 people to more than 140, almost all of whom are digital specialists. MOJ established a Manchester office, spreading the digital agenda wider across the department in the process.

MOJ also:

• continued to build specialist digital capability through a combination of recruiting digital specialists and in-house training schemes
• recruiting developers through a graduate development scheme
• started to bring talent in on a longer-term basis by incorporating Fast Stream project managers and other civil servants and by training Fast Streamers to address capability shortfalls under MOJ recruitment guidance

The Digital Services Tribunals team helped train HMCTS.net developers in Ruby development, supporting specialist capability across the MOJ.

Planned activities in 2015

In 2014 MOJ started advertising every post currently filled by a contractor and will continue to do so in 2015 until its digital service is fully staffed by civil servants.. Initiatives such as the digital services division’s relationship with The Makers Academy will ensure that the number of civil servants with digital skills will grow in 2015.

In 2015, MOJ Technology will be centralised within MOJ’s headquarters and specialist digital teams will be introduced into National Offender Management Service and HM Courts and Tribunals Service. This approach will also be followed with MOJ’s other agencies and ALBs of MOJ, including the Legal Aid Agency.