Corporate report

The Crown Commercial Service and open formats for documents

Published 30 January 2015

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-crown-commercial-service-and-open-format-documents/the-crown-commercial-service-and-open-formats-for-documents

1. Introduction

Cabinet Office announced the selection of open formats for documents on 22 July 2014. This document outlines the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) plan to move to open formats. Open Document Format (ODF) will be the standard for sharing editable government documents and HTML5 and PDF/A will be the standard for documents intended for viewing.

The open standards principles apply to all new documents. Using open formats will ensure our suppliers, customers and stakeholders can work with government documents without having to pay for specialist software.

In this context, ‘document’ means something with a narrative, for example, formatted text, images, charts, spreadsheets and presentations.

1.1 Documents for viewing

The document viewing standards apply to documents designed primarily for people to read, rather than to edit or interact with. The default for publishing documents for viewing is that it must be available in one or both of the following formats:

  • HTML5
  • PDF/A

An example of a CCS publication already consistent with these standards is Becoming a supplier through the Crown Commercial Service – what you need to know

1.2 Documents for sharing and/or collaborating

A separate standard applies to documents that users will need to edit. For CCS this is particularly pertinent for the effectiveness of our day to day operations e.g. its eSourcing solution. This type of document must be published in ODF.
The most common examples are:

2. The approach

CCS is keen to move to the newly selected standards as soon as possible, starting with the ability for all staff to save documents in open formats for ‘viewing’ purposes, using existing tools.

At the same time we recognise that the move to open formats that allow our customers, suppliers and stakeholders to effectively work with us using editable formats is more complex and will require a proportionate approach.

2.1 Phase 1: Moving to open formats, November 2014 to March 2015

  • our digital content team will ensure all new documents are published on GOV.UK using HTML5 and PDF/A format
  • by end March 2015 all staff will be able to save all new documents in open formats HTML5 and PDF/A

2.2 Phase 2: Planning for a move to open document formats, March to July 2015

  • carry out a user need assessment to inform the planning for a move to open document formats
  • carry out a further review of the collection and publication of data to inform development options for existing in-house solutions (hosted via external data centres)
  • develop plans to phase out existing technologies where compliance with open standards for document formats cannot be achieved without significant investment, with little or no return eg EduBuy – a search engine used by the education sector that enables them to identify the best place to buy goods and services
  • continue to ensure compliance when migrating to new hosting environments eg the residual website content which did not migrate to GOV.UK in December 2014

2.3 Phase 3: Working with our suppliers and delivery partners, April 2015 to March 2017

  • work with existing suppliers to develop plans for addressing these requirements for the short, medium and long term whilst being mindful of existing long term commercial arrangements
  • 2015/16 will see the introduction of a range of new technologies. Whether ‘off the shelf’ eg the re-let of our next generation eSourcing solution or developed using agile methodology eg a new Contracts Finder solution, compliance with open data standards will be required

3. Embedding compliance

To implement and sustain the standard we will:

  • by end March 2015 raise awareness across all staff of the new requirements, providing guidance where required
  • by end March 2015 review our governance and quality assurance arrangements to ensure they are robust
  • by end May 2015 review departmental processes and templates to ensure they are compatible between applications that support open document format
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