Excise movement and control system Trader front end Live assessment
Service Standard assessment report Excise movement and control system Trader front end 17/10/2024
Service Standard assessment report
Excise movement and control system Trader Front End
| Assessment date: | 17/10/2024 |
| Stage: | Live |
| Type: | Assessment |
| Result: | Amber |
| Service provider: | HMRC |
Subsequent assessment reports
Previous assessment reports
Service description
The Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) is a computerised system for monitoring the movement of excise duty suspended and duty paid goods in the UK and EU.
Excise goods are alcohol, cigarettes and related tobacco products, energy products such as hydrocarbon oils and biofuels.
This process is mandated by both UK and EU law. Any UK organisation moving duty suspended or duty paid excise goods is legally required to record these movements using the EMCS trader front end (TFE) or 3rd party software that connects to EMCS via an API.
Service users
This service is for external users (people at organisations). Users of the service include:
- alcohol producers (breweries, wineries or distilleries). They are required to have excise warehouse status by law
- excise warehouse keepers who move / store their own excise goods or on behalf of others
- import / export companies that specialise in moving excise goods
- customs agents / brokers that have registered to use EMCS and act on behalf of the owners of excise goods
- large supermarkets who need to move and receive excise goods
- sole traders and smaller businesses who want to move or trade excise goods
- logistics companies (such as DPD) who move excise goods on behalf of others
- freight forwarding companies who move excise goods on behalf of others
- haulage companies who move shipments of excise goods on behalf of others
Things the service team has done well:
- the team has further matured their approach to user research, using their in-depth knowledge of their user groups to inform both the methods utilised and the focus of the work.
- the service team has researched and tested the service for accessibility with actual and proxy users.
- the service team has improved content, design and functionality in the service based on user insights and feedback, such as including hint text in the complex question pattern and introducing ‘templates’ to reduce friction in the service.
- the team have used public cloud technologies, have considered the service standard in the approach.
- the team showed a textbook example of a performance framework, including a wide range of metrics that relate back to the purpose of the service. These metrics were sensibly prioritised and grouped. Some specific cases were presented which clearly demonstrated how the team has used data to understand user behaviour and improve the performance of the service.
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service was rated green for point 1 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- although the jobs to be done framework has been utilised well, the team would benefit from formulating high level user needs not related to the service. This would demonstrate their understanding of why users engage with it in the first place. For example, to sell more units or expand into new markets.
- the team should continue to mature their approach to identifying and working with users with additional needs. Building rapport and trust with users has encouraged more people to be open about their needs, and this should be built upon.
- the team should continue efforts to engage in contextual research with users. Understanding their barriers will help the team overcome them and benefit from this type of research.
- the team must guard against accepting user wants as user needs and look for innovative ways to solve long-standing problems. For example, adding print functionality as soon as users complained about its omission. The team could have used their understanding of why printing is important to explore alternative solutions that could be more effective at meeting needs.
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service was rated green for point 2 of the Standard.
Advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- continue to share knowledge and best practice between related HMRC and cross-government services, for example patterns and terminology.
- ensure that new functionalities / journeys are scoped and named according to how users think for example do they need to create a new template or repeat a transaction with minor edits.
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- continue to monitor analytics in the service and feedback through the helpdesk to iterate the service - this has worked well so far to iterate and improve the service for users.
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 amber for point 6 of the Standard.
During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- a clear plan for handing over performance and analytics function. It is crucial that the new live team is able to iterate based on data insights and address any issues that come up through performance monitoring.
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 green for point 8 of the Standard.
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- precautions have been appropriate for the platform and data involved. An IT Health Check (ITHC) and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) have been completed and assessment of threats appear to have been completed.
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- continue to combine performance metrics with qualitative feedback from technical triage and call centre to ensure you have a full picture of user experience and can confidently iterate based on performance insights.
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- the team has chosen to take a modern standards approach to development and chosen appropriate technologies and patterns. The landing with a BAU / live team needs to be carefully managed and appropriate documentation and training material provided.
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- the team has open sourced all aspects of the trader frontend and associated services. The repositories are appropriately licensed and documented although they would benefit from contributor guides.
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.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- the microservice architecture employed allows for flexibility, good release management practices and minimal / no downtime during enhancements or extensions to the platform.
- the MDTP has suitable SRE and management resourcing, observability and monitoring for the platform.
- the team does need to be conscious of the performance of downstream APIs and consider approaches to mitigate any performance degradation and or uptime impact.
Next Steps
Amber - live
This service can now move into a live phase, subject to addressing the points of the Standard that are rated amber within three months time and CDDO spend approval.