Corporate report

Government Digital Strategy: quarterly progress report April 2013

Published 4 December 2013

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

The Government Digital Strategy was published in November 2012; this set out 14 actions for departments to respond to. In December 2012 departments published their digital strategies, setting out their own detailed plans about what they were going to do to take these actions forward.

Digital Leaders meet on a monthly basis to promote and steer the work being undertaken across Whitehall to move to digital by default government services, as well as championing digital development within their own departments.

Each quarter they review high-level progress against the Government Digital Strategy (with a more detailed Annual Review to be published in December 2013 in line with the Strategy’s public commitment to do so) and in the spirit of transparency, publish this review through the Government Digital Service (GDS) blog.

Activity during the first quarter has focused on:

• assessing and building digital capability to respond to the Strategy’s commitments
• starting to transform a number of ‘exemplar’ services specified in the strategies of the 7 main transactional departments: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Department for Transport (DFT), Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ)
• moving corporate departmental information and services across to GOV.UK
• establishing clear guidance and approaches to assist departments in making services digital by default

Capability and leadership

Six departments have appointed new Digital Leaders during the quarter: Cabinet Office, DWP, HMRC, BIS, Department for Education (DfE) and Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

The Civil Service Reform Plan highlighted digital as one of 4 priority capabilities needing development across government (the others being commercial skills, project and programme management, and leadership). The Civil Service Capabilities Plan, due to be published in April 2013, will set out how these will be taken forward to boost capabilities government-wide to shift to new ways of working and delivering services. To support this, GDS are producing 4 videos to boost general awareness of the opportunities that digital offers and its relevance to the work of all civil servants; these will be made available through the Civil Service Learning website and elsewhere during the spring.

Some departments are embarking on digital capability audits across their entire department to inform decisions on the priorities for digital skills acquisition or development (for example BIS, who are covering key delivery agencies as well). In addition cross-cutting capability reviews are already being run by the Cabinet Office looking at the effectiveness of Departments’ communications, including digital communications. As a result of this audit, GCN (the Government Communication Network) is launching a series of professional development activities for the government communications profession which will promote deeper understanding and more effective practical use of digital; this capability building should contribute to achieving further Government Digital Strategy objectives through more effective promotion of digital services to potential users, and through assisting in more effectively consulting and engaging users in policy development.

A number of departments have already either put together a business case for creating a specialist digital unit or are in the process of making this happen. Examples are:

• MOJ has set up and is recruiting to a 40-strong Digital Services Division to lead the digital redesign of services. The full team includes developers, interaction designers, product and service managers, delivery managers, strategy advisors, portfolio managers and content designers.
• Department of Health has expanded its previously purely digital communications team to incorporate digital strategy, policy, training and channel management. Two new roles, a Product Manager and an Operations Manager, will cover development and management of digital products and services; and the department is further reviewing broader in-house capability, revising existing and creating new roles as required, to deliver its digital agenda.
• The Foreign Office is working up proposals for the digital transformation unit set out in its digital strategy, focussed on service and policy transformation.
• MOD is pursuing proposals for a similar sized team, to include delivery functions (such as technical architecture and design), service development and management and some policy and communications roles.
• Other departments are less advanced as yet in deciding how to resource future digital service developments.

Alongside these departmental developments, GDS is consulting with Digital Leaders on a programme of work to support capability building across government, including:

• defining the organisational design and culture change work needed to support the transformation needed to move government across to digital by default working
• providing guidance on best practice in structuring and developing capabilities in the different areas of digital service management expertise
• direct advice and support on recruitment processes where specialist expertise needs to be brought in from outside government
• liaising with key professions and talent management schemes to include digital capabilities within their mainstream development activities
• designing a comprehensive induction and development programme for newly appointed service managers, and ensuring good training provision across the range of digital specialisms

To begin the process of sharing knowledge and experience of digital transformation GDS ran a well-received event in January, Sprint 13. It showcased successful projects across government. We plan to run these ‘Sprint’ events annually.

Service Transformations

The Government Digital Strategy required major transactional departments to identify ‘exemplar’ services for transformation. 23 exemplar services were identified in departmental strategies. Work has begun on 15 of these, with 9 at alpha/beta delivery stages, 4 in the ‘discovery’ phase, and 2 at initial engagement stages. We expect the remainder to move into discovery by the end of June.

In line with the Government Digital Strategy all of these will have a dedicated service manager, accountable for the service’s design and responsible for constant service iteration and improvement once the service is live.

There has been positive departmental interest and buy-in for exemplars; for example, regular showcase events held in the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) have attracted strong attendance, from the Chief Executive downwards. GDS has been providing assistance on supplier tendering and procurement; for example with the DWP Carers’ Allowance project and with the Rural Payments Agency, where the project has already moved through discovery to alpha stage.

In some cases, discovery work has resulted in departments amending their initial proposition in order to come up with service proposals that more closely meet the needs of users; for example, the Home Office UK Border Agency (UKBA) visit visa project has proposed the adoption of a product catalogue as an alternative delivery approach and in HMRC, work on the 4 exemplar projects has been pulled together into a single portfolio approach based around user needs, which is likely to result in increased speed of delivery.

Some challenges and issues are beginning to emerge. At a strategic level, the need to look beyond specific project work to identify how wider organisational structure, design or culture will need to be transformed and adapted to ensure that new ways of working are supported and sustained longer-term; and at the practical and logistical levels, ensuring that departments are geared up to work effectively with GDS and begin work quickly. This includes steps like putting the right development environment into place first to avoiding holding back the projects teams’ work; and more broadly, building mutual understanding about underpinning issues like information security.

The exemplars and the way they are being delivered do not fit with traditional methods and practices in certain areas (including, but not limited to, procurement, IT and project governance/methods). Discussions are underway with the relevant central teams alongside practical solutions (such as the new agile procurement framework) to unblock the path of the exemplars.

GOV.UK

Most departments have now moved their corporate information web publishing across to GOV.UK. The remainder, Defra, DWP, DfE, MOJ, Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT), the Deputy Prime Minster’s Office and No.10 are scheduled to move during April.

Use of GOV.UK reached a new high of 6.13 million unique visitors during the final week of February; around 1 million higher than the equivalent use of the services it has replaced.

Best practice guidance and advice

GDS has built the Government Service Design Manual to support departments in working towards achieving the Digital by Default Service Standard. Meeting the Standard will be mandatory for all new and redesigned services handling over 100,000 transactions each year from April 2014.

Both have been developed with the assistance of a network of service managers across government. The manual covers a wide range of topics, from working in an agile way to providing design patterns and template code. The public beta was released on 13 March and will be fully live from mid-April. After that, we will continue to update and improve the site, including examples of best practice from across government as services are being built or redesigned.