Corporate report

Home Office's actions in response to the Government Digital Strategy

Updated 16 January 2015

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

Action 1: Departmental and transactional agency boards will include an active digital leader

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Home Office’s digital leader will be the Director General, Finance and Corporate Services. Empowered digital champions will sit on the boards of the Identity and Passport Service, UK Border Agency and the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). They will join with the chief information officer and head of the Policy Profession to form the leadership group for digital within Home Office. The digital leader will be more than a ‘champion’ of digital at board level, but will be accountable to the board for the digital transformation of Home Office.

Progress during 2013

Since the publication of its digital strategy, Home Office has reviewed its organisation design against Government Digital Service (GDS) recommendations for a large transactional department. A chief operating officer (COO) was appointed on 1 November 2013 and will be the digital leader representing digital on the Home Office board.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office will continue to expand its capabilities in line with GDS recommendations.

Progress during 2014

Norman Driskell was appointed as chief digital officer. Digital leaders are in position on the appropriate boards and the Home Office transformation board meets monthly bringing together digital leaders from across partner organisations.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will continue to expand digital leadership following GDS’s recommendations.

Action 2: Services handling over 100,000 transactions each year will be redesigned, operated and improved by a suitably skilled, experienced and empowered service manager

Service managers will be in place for new and redesigned transactions from April 2013.

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Within Home Office, all such transactions will be ‘owned’ by a senior civil servant transaction process owner. This owner will have full responsibility for the end-to-end transaction. These owners have been identified and will be leading the transformation of services.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has appointed service managers for all large transactional services. These service managers are in post and are working to transform their services. Lower volume transactional services that have been through its internal assessment process have also been assigned service managers.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office service managers will continue in their posts working towards transforming all Home Office transactional services.

Progress during 2014

The appointed service managers continued in post and worked to transform their services. The lower volume transactional services and all staff-facing services went through internal assessment processes and were also assigned service managers.

Planned activities in 2015

The Home Office service managers will continue transforming all Home Office transactional services.

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

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.

Action 4: Cabinet Office will support improved digital capability across departments

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Home Office will seek to work with Cabinet Office on the development of its own capability, and the creation of a cross-government pool of digital expertise.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has promoted its exemplar experience via GDS network and encouraged opportunities for re-use.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office will continue to share its experience with other departments as well as with GDS.

Progress during 2014

Improving digital skills was one of the 8 priorities of the wider Home Office Skills Plan launched in April. All staff are encouraged to attend show and tells and to build their personal development through initiatives such as Code Club and Digital Month.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will continue to share its experience with other departments and GDS. Measures will include:

• significantly increasing Home Office employees’ awareness of digital by January 2016 (using a pulse survey to measure awareness)
• increasing the numbers​ of civil servants​ achieving ​’basic digital skills’ ​​through Civil Service Learning’s Digital Awareness and Digital Skills learning packages
• establishing a clear link between continuous improvement and agile approaches during the year
• establishing new digital hubs outside Home Office’s London offices by March 2016

Action 5: For transactional departments, 3 exemplar services will be selected

Redesign starting April 2013, implemented by March 2015 (to be included in relevant business plans). Following this, departments will redesign all services handling over 100,000 transactions each year.

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Home Office is one of government’s 7 major transactional departments. Its proposed exemplar services are:

• Visitor visa applications
• DBS criminal record checking service
• e-Gates at the Border

The department will seek to work with GDS on redesign of these major transactional services. A plan will be developed for the redesign of all Home Office major transactions, based on the learning from the transformation of these 3 important services.

Progress during 2013

Home Office is one of government’s 7 major transactional departments. Its exemplar services are:

• Visas
• DBS criminal record checking service
• Registered Traveller Service

The department has made good progress in redesigning its large transactional services.

The registered traveller exemplar completed its alpha phase in November 2013. Beta development is now underway.

Discovery was completed on the DBS exemplar in September 2013.

Alpha development for the Visas exemplar ran until the end of July 2013. Beta development on Tier 2 visa extensions is now underway.

Outside of the exemplar programme, Her Majesty’s Passport Office’s E-Forms went live as a beta in November 2013. The passport application online channel went live as a public beta in October 2013.

Planned activities in 2014

The Registered Traveller Service exemplar beta is expected to complete by March 2014 before going live in April 2014.

Following discovery on the DBS exemplar, GDS and Home Office have agreed that, due to contractual constraints and competing policy and legislative priorities, an alternate exemplar should be investigated.

Beta development on Visas exemplar for Tier 2 visa extensions is now underway and will continue until April 2014.

Outside the exemplar programme the passport application online channel will be inviting all passport applications from 5 countries to be made digitally. Home Office plans to put the service live with the UK public early in 2014.

Progress during 2014

The Registered Traveller exemplar went live in December. It developed an improved customer form based on user’s needs and a new caseworking system, both of which received positive user feedback.

The Passports exemplar is more than halfway through the beta development phase. It focuses on photo resubmission, the application process and International Civil Aviation Organisation compliance checking.

The public beta of Visas was positively received, with 86% customer satisfaction. The UK-based Tier 2 visa extension service was extended into public beta in October, having run successfully for 6 months in private beta.

Planned activities in 2015

The Registered Traveller exemplar will be expanded to ports across the UK, enabling many more travellers to benefit from the service. The Passports exemplar is on track for public beta assessment in March. The Visas exemplar team are planning for their live service assessment in January.

Action 6: From April 2014, all new or redesigned transactional services will meet the Digital by Default Service Standard

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

From January 2013 (following publication of this strategy) digital services must be approved by the Digital Leader, who will ensure engagement with GDS at the earliest phase in the service design process.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has established a pipeline of digital projects to ensure early engagement with both GDS and internal digital experts. All transactional services are formally assessed against the Digital by Default Service Standard and specific actions identified where required. It has been formalising the process to ensure that actions are followed up so that services meet the standard from April 2014, and to support the internal assessment of services undertaken as agreed by digital leaders.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office will continue working to the designated pipeline in order to meet its targets of meeting the service assessments for their transactional services.

Progress during 2014

All transactional services were assessed internally against the 26 criteria of the Digital Service Standard during their development before being formally assessed against it.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will continue to prepare services to pass a service assessment at each stage of development.

Action 7: Corporate publishing activities of all 24 central government departments will move onto GOV.UK by March 2013, with agency and arm’s length bodies’ online publishing to follow by July 2014

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 arms length bodies (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.

Action 8: Departments will raise awareness of their digital services so that more people know about them and use them

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

All proposals for new digital services will include plans for promotion and raising awareness. Levels of awareness and take-up will be regularly monitored as part of the performance monitoring activity that will surround each service and support its development. Where appropriate we will seek to collaborate with other departments/services who are marketing linked services to similar audiences.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has been working with GDS through the exemplar projects to ensure that there is maximum digital uptake.

Planned activities in 2014

Her Majesty’s Passport Office will be working with GDS to support up-take of their digital channels.

Progress during 2014

Home Office worked in all exemplar projects to maximise digital uptake. Digital uptake is an important consideration with users abroad and the Visa service has been translated into simplified Chinese to improve uptake. The number of visa applications received from China between June and October 2014 was approximately 28,100.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will continue to work with GDS to build digital take-up considerations into the design of services for citizens and internal users.

In February 2015 the Home Office digital strategy refresh will set out aims for the transparency and promotion of digital services. Home Office will work with other departments and services that are marketing linked services to similar audiences.

Action 9: We will take a cross-government approach to assisted digital

This means that people who have rarely or never been online will be able to access services offline, and we will provide additional ways for them to use the digital services.

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Home Office will work in line with the government strategy for assisted digital, seeking to ensure that no user will be ‘left behind’ in the drive towards the development of digital services. The department will be seeking opportunities to work in a collaborative way across government wherever possible, and will be engaging with GDS on the development of a single approach for all departments.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has worked closely with GDS to implement assisted digital within the exemplar projects and to consider how existing partnerships can be adapted to include assisted digital provision.

Planned activities in 2014

Work between Home Office and GDS to implement assisted digital channels within the exemplars will continue in 2014.

Progress during 2014

HO worked closely with GDS to implement assisted digital in the exemplar projects. The Passports exemplar included assisted digital as part of service design. The exemplar service provides assisted digital through third parties and a high street digital service through the Post Office.

Some aspects of assisted digital do not apply to Registered Traveller as this service did not have an offline predecessor. However, extensive work on digital accessibility testing has been carried out by the team in partnership with the Digital Accessibility Centre.

Planned activities in 2015

Work between Home Office and GDS to implement assisted digital channels within the exemplar and other transactional services will continue in 2015.

Action 10: Cabinet Office will offer leaner and more lightweight tendering processes, as close to the best practice in industry as our regulatory requirements allow

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Home Office will continue to work closely with Cabinet Office and the Government Procurement Service, and will be seeking to adopt leaner procurement processes when tendering for digital service development, and more widely. We already play a leadership role in the cross-government G-Cloud programme and envisage increased procurement through this channel.

Progress during 2013

On its major programmes of procurement Home Office has been engaging proactively with the market before any official procurement is launched, ensuring that the department understands the market properly and complies with LEAN principles. Since adopting a cloud-first approach Home Office has spent over £6m through the G-Cloud framework. Simpler requirements have enabled faster, more efficient procurement for all parties, and services have been delivered at reduced cost.

Planned activities in 2014

As more of Home Office’s ICT contracts expire it is expected that the use of G-Cloud and any other available frameworks will increase where it makes commercial and business sense.

Progress during 2014

Home Office continues to play a leadership role in the cross-government G-Cloud programme. The department drew resources from multiple sources, experiences and backgrounds to create the best possible teams.

Planned activities in 2015

As its major contracts expire, Home Office continues to shift its tendering processes towards small to medium-sized enterprise providers.

Action 11: Cabinet Office will lead in the definition and delivery of a new suite of common technology platforms which will underpin the new generation of digital by default services

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Wherever possible Home Office transactional services will be designed to work effectively on these platforms, generating efficiencies and building a consistent user experience across all government services. Home Office will engage with GDS on development of these platforms and will work closely with Cabinet Office as we develop technology roadmaps for the next 5 years.

Progress during 2013

Home Office transactional services have worked with GDS to identify where they will use common technology services.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office will continue to work with GDS to implement common technology services.

Progress during 2014

Home Office is aware that common services are often small capabilities or micro services which can be reused. The department provides identity authentication of passports through the Document checking service for GOV.UK Verify.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will continue to work with GDS to implement common technology services. Home Office is committed to work with other government departments on the departmental transformation projects. It will participate in any work arising from future exploration of the concept of ‘government as a platform’.

Action 12: Cabinet Office will continue to work with departments to remove legislative barriers which unnecessarily prevent the development of straightforward and convenient digital services

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Work is underway to identify the key legislative barriers to digital service development at Home Office. The key barriers are identified in this strategy, and they are barriers that are also faced by other departments. The speed at which these legislative blockers can be addressed will influence the speed at which we are able to achieve truly digital by default services.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has ongoing work examining the legislative barriers to digital delivery identified in the strategy.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office will ensure that any further legislative barriers to digital developments are identified and, as far as possible, removed.

Progress during 2014

Home Office examined the legislative barriers to digital delivery identified in the strategy. Barriers to moving passport applications fully online were reviewed and addressed.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will ensure that any further legislative barriers to digital developments are identified, and as far as possible removed.

Action 13: Departments will supply a consistent set of management information (as defined by the Cabinet Office) for their transactional services

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Plans for monitoring service quality and user satisfaction (according to GDS’s performance framework) will be incorporated into the design of all digital services. This data will inform ongoing service development, and will also form the basis of feedback to Cabinet Office via mechanisms such as the quarterly data summary.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has been working with GDS to review and improve management information within services. Home Office has been committed to contributing to the GOV.UK Performance Platform and is also building management information consoles, presenting web analytics data combined with key application statistics, as part of its digital applications.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office will continue to review and improve management information within services. On the Registered Traveller exemplar web statistics will be combined with data from the e-Gates to provide an end-to-end transaction view.

Progress during 2014

HO worked with GDS to review and improve management information within services. The Passports exemplar has agreed processes for additional reporting requirements such as:

• service delivery
• counter-fraud and operational demand
• compliance with GDS metrics via existing reporting tools supported by a dedicated application reference number

For the Visas exemplar, Home Office developed an alpha performance dashboard. Service analytics are in place for this exemplar and Zabbix is used for service monitoring.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will continue to review and improve management information within services. On Visas, the alpha performance dashboard will be taken through to production as part of the preparation for live service assessment by March. The refreshed Home Office digital strategy, to be published by end of February, will set out strategies to improve monitoring service quality and user satisfaction.

Action 14: Policy teams will use digital tools and techniques to engage with and consult the public

Departmental digital strategy commitments (December 2012)

Home Office will apply digital tools and techniques as a means to support the wider goal of open policymaking. Home Office will seek to learn from best practice within the department and across government, and to support development of the necessary skills to implement digital engagement.

Progress during 2013

Home Office has begun promoting the use of digital tools to engage with the public and has internally published a ‘Home Office Guide to Open Engagement and Consultation’.

Planned activities in 2014

Home Office policy profession will develop a digital knowledge management tool which will provide shared access for policy reference materials.

Progress during 2014

The Home Office policy profession and central digital team started closer joint working. The ‘Home Office Guide to Open Engagement and Consultation’ continued to encourage the use of digital tools to engage with the public. Home Office took part in the Cabinet Office Policy Lab initiative, and it is collaborating with Ministry of Justice on the provision of ‘TrackMyCrime’ to all police forces.

Planned activities in 2015

The Home Office digital team will continue to work closely with policy colleagues to encourage the use of digital tools wherever possible to support open policymaking. It will also build mutual understanding of both the possibilities and limitations of digital service delivery.

Action 15: Collaborate with partners across public, private and voluntary sectors to help people go online

Action 15 was added to the Digital Strategy in December 2013, so reporting on departments’ actions will begin with 2014.

Progress during 2014

Home Office is committed to supporting GDS and Go ON UK’s mission and is working towards digital inclusion objectives.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will seek opportunities to build digital inclusion into wider policymaking and will include this issue within the advice it provides to its policy teams.

Action 16: Help third party organisations create new services and better information access for their own users by opening up government data and transactions

Action 16 was added to the Digital Strategy in December 2013, so reporting on departments’ actions will begin with 2014.

Progress during 2014

Home Office established a high-level working group to explore options for achieving greater transparency and accessibility of police records. The Police.uk team continued to work with users and stakeholders to define requirements for this service. Home Office participated in the Crime and Justice Data Challenge, organised by NESTA and the Open Data Institute.

Planned activities in 2015

Home Office will contribute to the development of the cross-government National Information Infrastructure. It hopes this will identify further ways to become more transparent, with increased accountability and enhanced social and economic growth.

The high-level working group will continue to explore options for, and the feasibility of, achieving greater transparency and accessibility of police records.