Apply for Personal Independence Payment beta reassessment
Service Standard assessment report Apply for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) 17/4/2024
Service Standard assessment report
Apply for Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
| Assessment date: | 17/4/2024 |
| Stage: | Beta Reassessment |
| Result: | Amber |
| Service provider: | DWP |
Previous assessment reports
Subsequent assessment reports
Service description
In agreement with Central Digital and Data Office and Department for Work and Pensions, this assessment focused on the full extent of the Personal Independence Payments service, not just the ‘Apply for PIP’ component, which was treated as a ‘minimum viable product’ within the overall service.
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is a benefit that supports citizens with long-term health conditions or disabilities, and who need help with extra costs because they have difficulties with daily living or getting around, or both.
To apply for this benefit, claimants must provide some basic biographical information, provide information about their circumstances and functional ability, and upload evidence that supports their claim. Claimants may also be referred for further assessment of the impacts of their conditions.
The current default way to apply is via phone and paper channels.
Service users
Primary users
- Potentially any citizen
- Citizens with long-term health conditions
- Citizens with long-term disabilities
- Citizens with mental health conditions
- Citizens with physical health conditions
Secondary users
- Third party organisations who provide general support to citizens
- Those who become involved in direct support in relation to PIP
- Other individuals (friends / family) providing support to the citizen
Internal users
- G4S staff, contact centres & call handlers
- Decision makers, Case managers, Healthcare practitioners
- DWP staff or orgs connected to DWP
Things the service team has done well:
- The team has carried out extensive user research in private beta, including research with end users as well as with support organisation representatives.
- The research with end users has included both remote and face to face modalities.
- A clear set of user needs provided, both generic and specific to the online service.
- Developing a Structured programme where user centred design insights feed into all workstreams of the wider service.
- The end-to-end service has been tested both as a full online and assisted digital journey.
- Offline journeys have been improved in private beta as a result of the team’s research.
- The Roadmap is clear and visible to teams.
- The roadmap is backed with deep dive information and is being tracked and monitored in Jira, including, impressively, a risky assumption register.
- The team has highly skilled practitioners in all key roles and is working in a thoughtful and creative way to solve challenging problems.
- The team is exploring appropriate ways to ensure they are able to work in an agile way, at scale, within a large and long-running transformation programme.
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service was rated green for point 1 of the Standard.
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service was rated green for point 2 of the Standard.
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard.
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service was rated green for point 4 of the Standard.
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 5 of the Standard.
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service was rated green for point 6 of the Standard.
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service was rated green for point 7 of the Standard.
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 8 of the Standard.
During the assessment we didn’t see evidence of:
- the team measuring the impact of the iterations in private beta, how they have built this into their design cycle and worked with their embedded Performance Analysts to do so
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard.
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard.
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard.
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard.
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard.
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 14 of the Standard.
Next Steps
This service can now move into a public beta phase, subject to addressing the amber point within three months time and CDDO spend approval.
This service now has permission to launch on a GOV.UK service domain with a beta banner. These instructions explain how to set up your *.service.gov.uk domain.
The service must pass a live assessment before:
-
turning off a legacy service
- reducing the team’s resources to a ‘business as usual’ level, or
- removing the ‘beta’ banner from the service