Policy paper

Government Transformation Strategy: business transformation

Published 9 February 2017

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

Current situation

To serve the people effectively, we must have a deep understanding of those whom a policy will affect.

We have made great strides in using digital tools and techniques to embrace this. We now deliver increasingly sophisticated digital services from a large number of government organisations which meet users’ needs, receive high satisfaction scores and which can be changed easily, contributing to a more responsive state.

Many departments have reached the limits of how far they can transform without changing how the organisation works. Many services span multiple central government bodies, local authorities, devolved administrations, the third sector or outsourced services. We now need to focus on how public sector bodies work on the inside - in particular making them more responsive to the needs of the people they serve - so that they can continue to better meet users’ needs on the outside. This is how we define ‘business transformation’. We also need to collaborate more closely across organisational boundaries. Transformation is something that all parts of government need to mutually support.

This is what we have learned about how to approach transformation.

Bring policy development and service design closer together

The policy intent and scope of services are often fixed before teams start user research into how to design or improve it to best meet the needs of its users. This results in policy not reaching its intent and a service not meeting the needs of users. Both the policy and the service must be designed, iterated and delivered in tandem.

For example, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has worked across digital, technology, data and planning policy to deliver pilots of local brownfield land registers. The Department for Education (DfE) has been able to deliver the Apprenticeships service at pace by working on a single team basis, bringing together policy, digital and operations. While initially counter-cultural, the approach has since yielded great results and is a key strategic approach for DfE in the future.

Cover internal processes, as well as the services offered to users

Digital can no longer be a ‘bolt-on’ to the side of an organisation. It is now having a profound impact on the internal structures of departments. We need to look beyond channel shift. We need to redesign government services completely, including the processes within government that deliver them. If there are fundamental flaws in the business process behind a service, then simply providing it on a digital channel cannot fix those. We have the opportunity to design services in a completely different way, for example by moving to prevention of fraud and error (rather than correction after the event) or re-inventing processes using more analytical techniques to automate where safe to do so.

Design for a broad definition of users

Transformation must consider the full range of users to deliver transformed services via whatever mechanisms are most appropriate. For example, 80% of HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) transaction volume comes through APIs (application programming interfaces) which allows third-party software to exchange information with HMRC systems. In the criminal justice system, users might include individual parties, victims, witnesses and professionals. Services also need to interface with prosecutors, investigators, the police, defence solicitors, probation, the Parole Board, court and prison staff. We must also consider what we offer to other critical groups, for example the open source technology community.

75% of Defra’s business users say they are satisfied or very satisfied with their new digital services. Read how Defra applied user centred design when transforming services as part of the Regulated Customer Digital Programme.

Recognise that government is inherently multichannel

We know that people sometimes need extra help. So we need to think about how a service can be delivered through different channels - be it via a contact centre, speaking to an immigration officer face to face when entering the country, accessing GOV.UK from a mobile phone, or (as we describe in platforms, components and business capabilities) via a third party application. For example, HMRC’s Needs Extra Support (NES) service identifies those taxpayers who need extra help and then offers them the support that suits them best, whether by phone or in person at a place convenient to them. Not only is this a better service for people who really need extra help but it is more cost-effective and flexible for HMRC to administer. The NES team attended 23,447 appointments during financial year 2015 to 2016.

Recognise that transformation covers the whole public sector

Some departments don’t have many online services which citizens or businesses interact directly with. This might be because they serve businesses or institutional users, or because they are primarily focused on policy development. These departments, along with arm’s-length bodies, local authorities, social care, the emergency services, transport and education should also be seeking to maximise the transformation opportunity of digital. In a planned and properly sequenced way we need to continue to drive transformation of all of government, the Civil Service and the wider public sector.

Join-up across departments

The services we build increasingly cross traditional departmental boundaries to meet user needs. To fully achieve the benefits of digital government we need to design services on a cross-departmental basis at an unprecedented pace and scale.

While our processes and accountability structures give us the ability to work across boundaries, we need to use our existing models of accountability and empowerment better to make it easier to design end-to-end services around user needs and to join up the transformation of back-office functions.

We must also ensure when joining-up that we are measuring value and efficiency at the level of the government, not per service or per department. Managing public money requires the public sector to avoid developing narrow solutions which fulfil that department’s accountability but only partially meet people’s needs, if this forces additional cost onto another part of government, for example through failure demand. Addressing this through appropriate project or programme governance is essential to long-term success.

Be flexible in ways of working

In order to serve people by providing services that efficiently meet their needs, we must respond to changes such as evolving user needs, the international context and the opportunities of new technology. This means progressively working towards more responsive and agile organisations - digitally-enabled from the front end of a service to its innermost workings, including people, process and organisational structure.

What success looks like

The measure of success must not be limited to substituting paper with online versions of the same form. The number of website interactions should be reducing, not increasing, as services are designed to be truly digital. With properly designed services, we should be looking to avoid unnecessary contact with government, which will mean that in the future, the number of digital transactions should decrease.

Proper service design should include fundamentally reconsidering the policy question - and potentially removing the need for a specific service or interaction altogether. For example, under the Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) and Tax Credits regime, reporting a change of circumstances might involve a person calling Jobcentre Plus to close JSA, talking to HMRC to open Working Tax Credits and then talking to a local authority to keep their Housing Benefit going.

Under the Universal Credit (UC) regime, this all happens in one interaction following notification of change of circumstances. In most cases, for example when people increase earnings, this is already automated in UC, using data passed from HMRC to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) under Real-Time Earnings. In cases where it is not automated, for example when someone loses their job, DWP asks people to make contact, so that they can provide human support quickly (rather than waiting for a zero earnings notification from HMRC).

While government does want transactions like this to run smoothly, and in this case smoothing the user journey was central to the policy intent, success will ultimately be measured by the real world outcomes achieved (in this case, more people getting into work and progressing in work).

Our aim is not just to make transactions go more smoothly, it is to serve our users and improve the way the economy and society operates. To do this, transformation programmes must put policy, delivery and operational colleagues together in multidisciplinary teams to give them the best chance of achieving their policy outcomes.

Read people, skills and culture for the actions that we will take to embed multidisciplinary teams across the public sector.

Priorities until 2020

Transformation is a continuous activity. 2020 does not represent an end date for transformations, many of which are complex, long running programmes which will take many years to embed. However the 2020 deadline is critical as it is the end of a parliamentary cycle.

Our 3 cross-government priorities are to:

• design and deliver joined up services
• deliver the major transformation programmes
• establish a whole-government approach to transformation

Design and deliver joined up services

Digital capability has grown in departments in the last 4 years, enabling large numbers of services to be designed and delivered. We will continue to emphasise the importance of the service management model of multi-disciplinary teams led by an empowered service manager.

Different departments have different levels of maturity. While some now have significant expertise in delivering digital services (and will continue to develop these capabilities), others have fewer public-facing services and may not have extensive expertise in this area. However, delivering digital services online can be considerably quicker and less complex than large-scale business transformation and is an opportunity to continue to improve the basic digital citizen and business experience. So we will continue to make more government transactions available online, including smaller or less widely-used services.

A symptom of lower digital capability can be a narrow focus on technology and development, to the exclusion of user-centred design. As our approaches to delivering services mature, we will shift from thinking about designing and procuring technology to consuming standard components (enabled by technology). As we explain in platforms, components and business capabilities, by creating components and platforms that can be easily reused, it should become easier for all organisations to provide public services designed for the digital age. Moreover, our most digitally mature parts of government will be able to concentrate on innovation and keep the UK at the forefront of digital government internationally.

Despite the successes of the last 4 years, the scale of the task is considerable. There remain many services which need to be overhauled so that they live up to the expectations people and businesses will have in 2020.

Government is already committed to delivering a significant number of digital services. The following table highlights a short list spanning a range of important public facing services that we will make digitally accessible by 2020. These digital services and related guidance will be available with clear user journeys from GOV.UK by 2020.

Service name*	Department
Apply for a passport	Home Office
Apply for a visa	Home Office
Carer’s Allowance	Department for Work and Pensions
Check if someone can work in the UK	Home Office
Check my State Pension	Department for Work and Pensions
Come to live or work in the UK	Home Office
Digital Driving Licence	Department for Transport
Get your MOT	Department for Transport
GOV.UK Verify	Government Digital Service
I want a divorce	Ministry of Justice
I want to fish	Defra
Make a plea	Ministry of Justice
Making tax digital for business	HM Revenue & Customs
Making tax digital for individuals	HM Revenue & Customs
NHS.UK	Department of Health
Renew my passport	Home Office
Universal Credit	Department for Work and Pensions

*Some of the service names on this list are provisional and subject to change.

This list will allow us to track the progress of this strategy: that the relationship between the citizen and the state is being transformed, with more digitally available services delivering the right outcomes. For services which are already operating, we will track how many are using it and progress in driving up take-up. In cases of low take-up we will use learnings from other services to make the necessary improvements.

In addition to providing this assurance the Performance Platform will be used to provide the data to support better decisions about services. We will increase its coverage across services and develop it to work with data from all channels services are offered through, not just online.

For many of the digital services which government has developed so far, the agile iterative change to the service has largely been limited to the online channel - not to policy or operational processes of the organisation. Changing the back end of these services is frequently only possible through larger-scale transformation programmes.

Deliver the major transformation programmes

Our priority through to 2020 is to deliver the challenging large-scale transformations committed in the 2015 Spending Review. Each department has a specific plan for how they will approach the transformation required of them in their settlement. To ensure we deliver these programmes in the best possible way and maximise the investment, we will get better as government at:

• recognising major, multi-dimensional transformation programmes
• supporting them appropriately to deliver in the best possible way, for example through the technology and commercial choices made and by helping them make use of a growing range of shared components
• helping them and intervening in them when necessary

There is a wide range of transformation programmes in the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) - currently around 30 of the 144 are major transformation programmes (listed in the appendix). Every transformation now features a significant digital, data and/or technology component. 90% of them are scheduled to complete by the 2020 to 2021 financial year.

These programmes are making large scale changes to government that are much more than digitising transactions. Some are making significant changes to the way whole departments operate. Some are creating new organisations or fundamentally changing business models.

HMCTS is moving cases out of the physical courtroom that do not need to be there (for example divorce, minor speeding offences or preliminary crime hearings) as part of their modernisation programme. Read more about the digital services they are delivering to build an organisation that meets customers’ needs and expectations, stripping away paper, unnecessary hearings, forms and duplication.

Programmes which have a strong digital component in particular require a ‘test and learn’ approach. What a service does and how it works need to be worked on in tandem, so a critical success factor is to understand user needs, test what works and iterate. Meanwhile, programmes delivering significant location and organisation changes still need to apply major programme disciplines, such as those set out in the Major Projects Leadership Academy.

Major transformations must therefore adopt appropriate elements of both agile and major programme disciplines at different times according to what the best methodology is for different aspects of the programme, aligned to the guidance set out in Managing public money.

This means recognising that for digital and behaviour change elements to be successful, they must be delivered in an agile way, which fits into a broader programme plan. Furthermore, components which are delivered in an agile way, once they move beyond their initial creation, require distinct approaches to turn them into stable, documented, supported services which can operate at national-scale. The longer-running government programmes now have enough experience to share their learning.

Establish a whole government approach to transformation

The purpose of establishing an approach to transformation across government is so that we get better at designing, managing and delivering transformation programmes based around user needs.

In platforms, components and business capabilities we outline our approach to avoiding government solving the same problems many times over, which results in fragmented approaches and negative impact on efficiency and progress. A common approach will be critical to building mutual visibility and situational awareness around government to enable this.

In tools, processes and governance we discuss how we will create the environment for this, including the necessary governance structures, processes and common standards.

Working across government in this way requires different ways of sharing experience and learning from each other. We will continue to build on the many communities of interest, practice and action which have been set up, including the Transforming Together network of those working in transformation, as well as the Transformation Peer Group, whose role is to bring together senior transformation leaders from around government and which has oversight of the portfolio of major transformation programmes.

We will also continue to work with colleagues in devolved administrations, local authorities and the wider public sector, to understand areas in which closer cross-sector collaboration will help better meet user needs - for example through ensuring high-quality end-to-end user journeys and interoperability of data where services span sectors. To support this, devolved administrations are also setting up their own communities. The Welsh Government Minister for Skills and Science chairs the Digital and Data Working Group, which provides leadership and oversight on transformation in the Welsh government. The Scottish Government has established the Digital Transformation Service which has supported over 50 organisations with their digital projects over the last year.

How we will do this

Services

As government, we will continue to design and build new services that are:

• user-centered
• focused on meeting their users’ needs from start to finish and in whatever channel users need
• evidence-based
• delivered using agile methods
• high quality (meeting the Digital Service Standard)

The services’ scope will increasingly include not just the front end but the back office and any other organisations (in government or not) involved in either the user’s journey or the service’s delivery.

We will develop networks of people across government working on policy, content and transactions which need to come together as coherent services for users. To support this we will roll out a redesigned site navigation on GOV.UK, with GDS working with departments to consolidate and create a better grouping of all existing content on GOV.UK by 2020.

Government will deliver accessible services which work for all users, irrespective of ability, enabled by better digital technology. We’ll provide services in all channels necessary. This means continuing to provide more accessible digital services, while also ensuring that the provision of these services does not exclude users who need to use other channels to access the service. Therefore, government will commit to ensuring services are accessible and work to improve all channels using the tools, techniques, technologies and culture of the internet age.

Although services start with user needs, transformation is about more than the part of a service the user experiences. To properly serve the public, we must effect deeper change at pace and at scale throughout the organisation that provides the service - including those that are involved in providing it, across whatever online and offline channels users need, including the back-end processes, data, technology and people that it relies on.

Transformation programmes

Departments will implement what is in their single departmental plans and any other transformation work they have already committed to (the most significant programmes of which are the GMPP).

We will help practitioners across government get better at major transformation projects. Government transformation programmes are diverse in nature, but all of them are characterised by working on some or all of the following:

• location - programmes that require major location changes or estates rationalisation
• organisation change - programmes that introduce new ways of working, require new skills, or change organisational culture
• operating model - programmes which introduce fundamental changes in business process and ways of working
• digital - programmes which require major digital infrastructure change or create a new digital service

The biggest and most complex transformations work on all of these at once. These are especially found in the projects at big service delivery departments, for example Making Tax Digital (HMRC), Universal Credit (DWP), Digital Services at the Border (Home Office) and HM Courts and Tribunals Service Reform (Ministry of Justice). They are the initiatives which both require the most support and offer the most to learn from. They are also some of the most fundamentally transformative, going deep into department structures, processes and services. Some of them are carrying out elements of these characteristics iteratively and then, having built confidence, rolling out major changes based on the learnings.

Every transformation that interacts with users has a strong digital element and must consider all channels, both digital and physical, through which services are delivered. They therefore present the opportunity to improve the way whole departments operate, not just improve the online services they offer. For example, while HMRC’s Making Tax Digital programme offers services online, it’s fundamentally about the digital transformation of the tax processes. There are further examples in the transformation case studies.

A challenge that all such programmes face is that they depend on testing and learning what works best while they iterate both how services work and how people interact with them. The big digitally-enabled transformation programmes have learned that behaviour change cannot be fully predicted in advance. Now that many projects have a significant digital component, GDS will work closely with the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) to support major programmes.

Create a cross-government approach to transformation

To deliver our priorities for 2020, we will:

• create mechanisms to help departments identify where they will need to collaborate, so that this can begin to happen before funding is set
• create a safe environment for experimentation and learning around business transformation

We want to deliver these in a joined-up way across government, in a way that makes best use of digital. To develop our understanding of how best to deliver digitally-enabled transformation, departments will work together on:

• business transformation approaches
• joining up services with shared user needs
• working together on areas of policy overlap
• designing change programmes that affect the same users so that they are integrated
• sharing data when meeting the same user need
• sharing user research on shared users
• identifying user needs or journeys that span departments

Departments are keen to share what they have learned and we must facilitate this from the centre of government. To do this, we will build a cross-government evidence base to share approaches to transformation work. We will develop a common language for understanding and discussing departmental business transformation. We will also develop common tools and techniques for planning, delivering and assuring major transformations. Finally, we will use our insight into the work going on around government to provide everyone with visibility and make connections that encourage collaboration, convergence and consumption of shared capabilities.

A community of experienced practitioners from around government has begun building up a body of knowledge which has highlighted a number of themes, or ‘lenses’, which can help programmes ensure that their transformation programmes are on track. Since all transformations require the following, this can help project leaders assess where they have areas which are going well or which would benefit from greater attention:

• vision - to drive clarity around the outcomes of the transformation and set out at a high level how the department will operate in the future
• design - to set out how different organisations and their component parts will be configured and integrated to achieve the vision
• plan - so that we retain sufficient flexibility to be adaptive as the transformation progresses, while providing confidence of delivery
• transformation leadership - having leaders who can motivate a large number of people (many of whom they do not lead directly) into action towards the vision
• collaboration - key to transformation in a multi-dimensional environment that cuts across departmental boundaries
• accountability - having clear accountability for policy and transformation outcomes
• people - to transform we will need to engage people, supporting them to change their ways of working

We have established these 7 views and started using them as part of supporting and assuring transformation programmes. Departments, led by the Home Office and supported by the IPA, have developed a maturity model that allows them to measure how well we are creating the conditions for successful transformation. The model engenders the right leadership conversations around progress, focus for the future and supports cross departmental thinking. We will continue to test and learn to improve this approach.

Departments, the IPA and GDS will continue to provide appropriate assurance for transformation programmes. They will evolve the assurance regime as government builds understanding of how to deliver these complex, multi-dimensional digital programmes.

Accelerate work on the emerging themes of transformation

Transformation is not just a digital activity but GDS will help transformations that have a significant digital element. Learn more about the work GDS has already done to support these programmes.

Although all departments operate in different contexts and have different areas of responsibility, common themes are emerging from the transformation programmes which are already underway or expected to start shortly. We will investigate the opportunity to provide support or add momentum to these to these.

Examples of these common themes include:

• providing tailored services to different users, based on their needs and what government already knows about them, which are most likely to deliver the best outcomes - for example by segmenting or ‘triaging’ users
• decision making based on trust and risk: designing systems from the ground up with a modern approach to trust and risk, which minimises opportunities for fraud and addresses the cyber-security implications of transacting with people online rather than face to face
• process automation: progressively automating manual processes wherever it is safe and makes strategic sense to do so
• encouraging behaviour change: continuously improving services based on data about how users react, to achieve better outcomes, provide better customer service and reduce failure demand

Each of these are at different stages of maturity. Where they are at an early stage of their evolution, it may be best for government to custom-build a solution. Where interchangeable commercial products (known as commodity solutions) are available, it may be better to rent or buy those.

These themes play different roles in the services offered by different departments. We will identify which are of the greatest value and will work to expand our shared understanding and experience of them continuously. This will enable us to identify opportunities for common components.

Recognise the role of old technology and have a plan

To enable a more responsive state, we need to manage the technology that we use today as well as planning for the future. Much of the old technology that government services depend on was procured under single contracts which were designed to provide complete end-to-end systems.

To meet user needs through transformation programmes we need to have more control over the technology we use. This means that we will continue with our programme of leaving large IT outsourcing contracts, in particular breaking down these large end-to-end systems into smaller components that can be retired or reused individually as required. We set out how we will do this in platforms, components and business capabilities.

Moving away from this form of contract does not solve the problem of legacy technology, though. As soon as new technology is deployed it starts to age and begins its journey to becoming ‘legacy’ - technology that is in some way no longer effective. For example, it might be challenging to secure, it might use old interfaces making it difficult to integrate with other systems or it might start to cost more to support than it would cost to replace.

This means that upgrade of old (but otherwise fit-for-purpose) systems or like-for-like changes in components can be valid approaches, if transformation as part of service redesign is not possible currently, or where replacement would not make strategic sense.

To replace legacy technology progressively at the right pace, we will continue to build a shared understanding of:

• what outcomes government is working towards
• the technology currently in use and how it relates to the services it supports
• how it is bought and supported

GDS will update the guidance supporting the Technology Code of Practice and other applicable standards to support a strategic approach to replacing old technology.