Policy paper

Action 7: move the publishing activities of central government departments onto GOV.UK by July 2013, with agency and arm's length bodies’ to follow by July 2014

Updated 16 January 2015

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

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) will move to GOV.UK in December 2013. The Law Officers’ departments without exemptions will move to GOV.UK by March 2014.

Progress during 2013

AGO moved to GOV.UK in December 2013. Bona Vacantia Division of Treasury Solicitors, Government Legal Service and Treasury Solicitor’s department are working with Government Digital Service (GDS) on transitioning their websites.

Planned activities in 2014

AGO will ensure that migration to GOV.UK of the departmental websites without exemptions will be completed ahead of March 2014.

Progress during 2014

All agreed agency and arm’s length body (ALBs) websites transitioned to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

Planned activities in 2015

AGO will continue to review and improve its content on GOV.UK.

Cabinet Office

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.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) website went live on GOV.UK in December 2012. It will work with BIS partner organisations to plan the migration of their websites where exemptions have not been granted. BIS will help partners build the capability and resource needed for transition. BIS partners will themselves fund and manage the necessary editorial work.

Progress during 2013

BIS is continuing to work with its agencies and ALBs to migrate their websites to GOV.UK or to ensure the appropriate exemptions are agreed by the cross-government network of digital leaders. As part of this migration activity, BIS has been working with GDS to build capability on user needs and data analysis across BIS and its agencies and ALBs.

Planned activities in 2014

BIS will complete the transition of websites for its agency and ALBs to GOV.UK in 2014 and support GDS in making further design and content improvements to ensure user needs (business, students and learners, employees and consumers) are fully met through GOV.UK. BIS will continue to work with GDS to improve business content to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises are able to easily access the information, guidance and schemes needed to support the government’s objectives for economic growth.

Progress during 2014

Core content from all the department’s ALB and agency websites was moved to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

BIS conducted a joint Evidence and Expert Content Review exercise with GDS to agree an evidence base and opportunities for content developments on GOV.UK. An action plan was agreed and will be implemented in 2015.

A postcode filter was added to the Business Finance and Support Finder tool in October 2014 to make it easier for businesses to find relevant schemes. The number of schemes presented was reduced by 21% (through consolidation and by removing duplication).

Planned activities in 2015

In 2015 BIS will work with GDS to review campaign websites. It will continue to work with partners to develop their digital publishing capabilities.

It will continue to work with policy colleagues within the department and GDS to develop GOV.UK content as new policies are made and developed.

Department of Culture, Media and Sport

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has participated fully up to the launch of GOV.UK. It does not offer transactional services, so has little content on the citizen- and business-facing sections, but are on schedule to transfer its content to ‘Inside Government’ in March 2013. The nature of its ALBs means they fall within exempt categories, though it will look to work with them on digital developments.

Progress during 2013

DCMS has migrated all of its content to GOV.UK. It has been working to comply with the tight style guide of this platform and ensure that wherever possible it has been promoting the services it offers. It has also been working closely with other government departments on projects such as the First World War Centenary pages and broadband delivery, and this has been reflected on GOV.UK.

DCMS embraced GDS best practice internally and has mirrored its approach to build its intranet. This has been shared across government and its code has been made available, with other departments modelling their own intranets based on the DCMS platform.

Planned activities in 2014

DCMS will continue to promote DCMS services and policies in collaboration with all relevant departments on GOV.UK and will support other departments in developing their own intranet platform.

Progress during 2014

DCMS worked with GDS to identify relevant DCMS ALB websites for migration to GOV.UK. The core content of all the agreed sites was moved to GOV.UK by the end of December. DCMS also uploaded the annual reports of ALBs onto GOV.UK to fulfil transparency commitments.

Planned activities in 2015

DCMS will continue to work with GDS and provide support for its ALBs seeking to publish material on GOV.UK.

Department for Education

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Department for Education (DfE) is aligned with GDS’s corporate publishing move to GOV.UK. On launch of GOV.UK, the department moved some of its content on to the new site, but work will continue with GDS to continue the transition of further content to GOV.UK for the whole DfE group by March 2014.

Progress during 2013

DfE used the user needs workshop, run by GDS, to prepare its content for transition to GOV.UK.

Planned activities in 2014

The remainder of content on www.education.gov.uk will transition to GOV.UK by March 2014. The domain will remain to support its legacy services.

Progress during 2014

All agency and ALB websites were migrated to GOV.UK.

Planned activities in 2015

DfE will build on the successful transition of all ALBs to GOV.UK and continue to develop and improve content, working with GDS to refine the proposition for its main audience groups.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is already engaged in moving its online publishing activity to GOV.UK by 31 March 2013 (with specialist content following by 31 December 2013). It will work to support the subsequent effort to transfer online publishing from the websites of its delivery bodies (except where exemptions have been agreed).

Progress during 2013

Defra moved its corporate publishing activity to GOV.UK on 10 April 2013. Defra’s network of delivery bodies is working closely with the GOV.UK team to transition their websites (except where formal exemptions have been agreed).

Planned activities in 2014

Defra will continue to work with the GOV.UK team to ensure relevant Defra network websites transition to GOV.UK in 2014.

Progress in 2014

All agency and ALB websites moved to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

Planned activities in 2015

Defra will continue to improve the user experience of content on the main GOV.UK website.

Department for International Development

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

By March 2013, the Department for International Development (DFID) website will have moved onto the Inside Government section of the single government website. It has a transition manager in place and intends to meet this deadline.

Progress during 2013

DFID’s website met the deadline for transitioning to GOV.UK. Its 2 remaining ALBs are going through the transition process and its management and editorial teams liaise regularly with GDS on continual improvement and updates to the website.

Planned activities in 2014

DFID will continue to improve the user experience with the worldwide sections of the website.

Progress during 2014

All agency and ALB websites moved to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

Planned activities in 2015

DFID will continue to improve the user experience of content on the main GOV.UK website.

Department for Transport

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Department for Transport (DfT) will move all departmental, agency and ALB corporate content to the GOV.UK publishing platform by March 2014. It will review all corporate standalone sites and tools and move them to the GOV.UK platform or move them to a cost-effective central hosting platform (as appropriate) by March 2015.

Progress during 2013

DfT and its 3 largest agencies (DSA, DVLA, and VOSA) have migrated their publishing activities onto GOV.UK.

Planned activities in 2014

The remaining DfT agencies and ALBs will have their websites migrated to GOV.UK. Corporate standalone sites will be reviewed and plans developed for their transition to GOV.UK.

Progress during 2014

All agency and ALBs have moved to GOV.UK.

Planned Activities in 2015

Corporate standalone sites will continue to be reviewed and plans developed for their transition to GOV.UK.

Department for Work and Pensions

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

At Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), all 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.

Department of Energy and Climate Change

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The eCommunications team at Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is currently engaged in transferring its online information services from their current locations to the GOV.UK domain. DECC recognises that this will make it easier to find the information it makes available. This process will be completed by March 2013. DECC’s ALBs will also transfer their information services to GOV.UK. DECC is helping co-ordinate this process, which will be completed by March 2014.

Progress during 2013

DECC is currently transferring its online information services from their present locations to the GOV.UK domain. DECC recognises that this will make it easier and make more efficient to find the information it makes available.

Planned activities in 2014

DECC’s remaining websites will transition to GOV.UK by April 2014.

Progress during 2014

All ALB websites moved to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

Planned activities in 2015

DECC will continue to review its content on GOV.UK.

Department of Health

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The Department of Health (DH) will move its corporate publishing activities to GOV.UK in March 2013. Those of its ALBs that are scheduled to move to GOV.UK will do so at the same time.

Progress during 2013

The DH corporate website moved to GOV.UK in March 2013, saving the department more than £800,000 per year in platform costs. New web hosting and development suppliers for all its remaining sub-sites have been procured and an additional 30 of these sites have closed or migrated to GOV.UK.

Only 3 health and care ALBs are due to migrate to the new platform. Public Health England (PHE), a new organisation as of April 2013, went live on GOV.UK along with DH. DH has been working closely with PHE and GDS to rationalise the large web estate it inherited from the legacy organisations from which it was formed. The other health ALBs due to move to GOV.UK are fully engaged with GDS in the transition process and are fully on track to migrate.

Planned activities in 2014

DH will continue to work closely with GDS to understand how people are using health content on GOV.UK, what their needs are, and to identify better ways of presenting information including news and press releases. The department will continue to rationalise the legacy DH web estate, including the migration of existing blogs to the GDS shared blogging platform, and will look at further options for digital engagement using the GOV.UK platform.

DH will support its ALBs with their transition to GOV.UK and hold discussions on the relationship GOV.UK should have with the citizen-facing website for health.

Progress during 2014

All agreed agencies and ALBs moved to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

Planned activities in 2015

PHE, which brought together more than 180 websites and online tools, will continue to rationalise its web estate, improve the user experience and achieve efficiencies.

The main citizen-facing content for health is delivered by NHS Choices. In 2015, DH expects the team in NHS England to review the proposition and priorities for a national health and social care website.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) remains committed to transitioning FCO’s international web presence to GOV.UK by March 2013. FCO will use the move to GOV.UK to streamline its most visited travel content, especially travel advice, making it more accessible to British nationals. FCO will play the lead role ensuring effective GOV.UK content for overseas audiences that is coherent across all government activity.

Progress during 2013

FCO has transitioned its web publishing to GOV.UK, including over 200 country sites in 35 foreign languages. Working with the GDS, FCO also used the transition to streamline key content and its travel advice.

Planned activities in 2014

FCO will continue to work with GDS to further improve information for British nationals and overseas citizens, including through further testing of this content with website users.

Progress during 2014

All FCO’s web publishing, including its international and foreign language sites, is now on GOV.UK.

Planned activities in 2015

FCO will continue to work with GDS to review how GOV.UK is meeting user needs for consular and international content. The digital transformation unit is contracting additional user testing capacity to support this work.

HM Revenue and Customs

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Between November 2012 and March 2013, the corporate publishing activities of HMRC will move on to GOV.UK. By March 2014, the information publishing activities on its website will move onto GOV.UK. HMRC will work with GDS to help ensure the material for the new website meets priority customer needs and its emerging digital by default channel strategy.

Progress during 2013

Since the launch of GOV.UK in October 2013, the site has provided content and tools for over 300 priority user needs. HMRC has been working with GDS to identify and create web content for the remaining priority needs, as well as ensuring that these needs are in place for the launch of its exemplar services.

HMRC has also been working on the transition of content and guidance aimed at more specialist audiences and needs, which included the remainder of the pre-existing HMRC website. The corporate publishing moved to GOV.UK in February 2013.

HMRC and GDS have been working to ensure priority user needs are met on GOV.UK by March 2014. In the interim, HMRC and GDS have put in place operational processes for development and improvement, and creation of content to meet new and existing mainstream customer needs. The department already has staff in place publishing direct to the GOV.UK website for both corporate and specialist material.

Planned activities in 2014

HMRC and GDS will work to ensure priority user needs are met on GOV.UK in 2014.

There will be a widespread roll-out of the latest publisher training to the digital team to allow for full-scale web publishing in 2014.

Progress during 2014

All corporate content from agency and ALB websites was moved to GOV.UK.

Planned activities in 2015

HMRC will finish decommissioning any websites no longer needed following transition to GOV.UK.

HM Treasury

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

HM Treasury’s website will close during 2013 and the websites of its ALBs in early 2014. This presents a unique opportunity to:

• move away from a content management system and website platform which is no longer fit for purpose
• move its content to a new, cost-neutral platform which will be better focused on the needs of its audiences
• include new content which is better in quality and greater in ambition than it currently offers

Progress during 2013

HMT website fully transitioned to GOV.UK in 2013 and its ALBs have been working with GDS to transition to GOV.UK.

Planned activities in 2014

HMT’s ALB websites are due to transition to GOV.UK in 2014.

Progress during 2014

All agreed agency and ALB websites transitioned to GOV.UK by the end of the year.

Planned activities in 2015

HMT will continue to review its GOV.UK content.

Home Office

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

This work is in hand, led by the Home Office’s digital team, who are responsible for online publishing and engagement for Home Office. The corporate Home Office website will move to the GOV.UK platform by March 2013, with sites owned by agencies and ALBs to follow by March 2014.

Progress during 2013

The corporate Home Office website successfully moved to the GOV.UK platform. Following its incorporation within the central Home Office, immigration content from the former UK Border Agency (UKBA) website has been placed with the GOV.UK team for transition.

Planned activities in 2014

All eligible agencies will be transferred to GOV.UK by March 2014. This will then be followed by transition of the content formerly on the UKBA site.

Progress during 2014

All agreed agency and ALBs moved core content to GOV.UK by the end of 2014.

Planned activities in 2015

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration will either transition to GOV.UK in 2015 or be granted exemption from transitioning.

Ministry of Defence

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

The Directorate of Media and Communications (DMC) will migrate defence corporate content from www.mod.uk to GOV.UK and provide support to sub-organisations in their transition to the same platform. The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) will complete the transition of the Veterans-UK information portal to GOV.UK. DMC will facilitate and close outstanding defence websites and migrate to GOV.UK. DMC will establish a new publishing model for future defence communications and exploit the opportunity offered by GOV.UK.

Progress during 2013

Ministry of Defence (MOD) has completed the migration of most of the department’s website content to GOV.UK, including management of an intensive exemptions process. This is complete and the MOD website has been closed.

Planned activities in 2014

Further transitions to the GOV.UK platform are now at hand for MOD ALBs. A new director for media and communications has joined MOD to deliver a re-structured directorate that will embed digital and social media in all its communications activities. He has conducted a review of digital capability within the DMC with a view to wholesale root and branch restructuring, placing the soon-to-be-launched Directorate of Defence Communications on a ‘digital first’ footing. He will be rolling out a new technological platform and process to support and deploy the ‘digital first’ policy within the re-structured directorate. This will see digital and social media activities embedded in all defence communications and a new digital measurement framework deployed.

Progress during 2014

By the end of December all MOD’s agency and ALBs will have transitioned to GOV.UK.

Planned activities in 2015

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

Ministry of Justice

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Ministry of Justice (MOJ) will transition its corporate and specialist content to GOV.UK by April 2013 and April 2014 respectively. It will ensure that content is rewritten and repurposed to meet clearly identified user needs and presented in user-friendly formats.

Progress during 2013

MOJ has successfully moved the vast majority of its corporate and specialist content to GOV.UK. Agency and ALB transition processes are now underway though this process is likely to be completed after April 2014.

Planned activities in 2014

MOJ will complete the transition of agency and ALB content to GOV.UK and decommission the MOJ website.

Progress during 2014

All core content of agency and ALB websites were moved to GOV.UK by the end of December.

Some specialist content couldn’t be moved because a content format hadn’t yet been developed for them. This included procedure committee rules, some courts information and prison services orders and instructions, among others.

Planned activities in 2015

MOJ will move remaining specialist content to GOV.UK.

MOJ’s digital services division is building Wordpress websites and considering other solutions for the 12 organisations exempt from the transition process.