Get approval to spend Beta reassessment
Service Standard reassessment report Get approval to spend 19/04/2024
Service Standard reassessment report
Get approval to spend
| Reassessment date: | 19/04/2024 |
| Stage: | Beta |
| Result: | Amber |
| Service provider: | Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) |
Previous assessment reports
Subsequent service standard reports
Service description
A single service system that enables government organisations to raise and submit a request to the Cabinet Office for spend control approval while also enabling Cabinet Office assessors’ greater visibility of spend control cases in the pipeline, reporting and case management functions, along with the ability to easily apply and track case conditions.
Service users
This service is for…
- government Organisation Spend Assurance Case Submitters (for example Project Leads, SROs, etc.)
- government Organisation Spend Assurance Leads
- Cabinet Office Spend Control Assessors
Things the service team has done well:
- tested with proxy users which cover a wide range of access needs
- conducted user research with real-life scenarios in both the submit and assure user journey
- ensured that their Mendix templates allowed changes to be made by non-developers in the team and avoid delays in updating the service
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 amber for point 4 of the Standard.
Recommendations - there are some issues in the front-end functionality of the prototype that must be rectified - for example, radio button selection creates unexpected behaviour in the browser. The panel understands that this may be attributed to using a dev environment and this should be thoroughly tested when moving into their live environment - the team demonstrated that in-depth testing of content is now happening and that the overall amount of text in the service is being reduced. The team could consider further reducing the amount of text, including on the ‘before you start’ page, and the length of some Heading 1s. Consider if some questions could be written as statements to make them shorter - a 2i to ensure consistency with GDS style across all content in the service is recommended
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 or point 6 of the Standard.
Recommendations - there are some unknowns surrounding the long-term service ownership and team that will be providing BAU and continuous improvement support for this service. The team should consider putting in place a formal agreement between the Cabinet Office and CDDO that specifies the requirements and structure that would need to be in place to support this service once it goes live. Off the back of this, they should also agree a transition plan to communicate at their live assessment
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.
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 10 of the Standard.
Recommendations - the team has considered a number of the metrics they could use to measure the performance of their service. A Performance Framework would help them to collate all the thinking in this space and help the team to map metrics to user needs and hypotheses. This will help in defining the top priority metrics and KPI’s to use. They team needs to run a Performance Framework workshop to provide a Performance Framework document before the next assessment - the team will be using Google Analytics to capture user behaviour of users on the service. For the next assessment, the team needs to show that they have: - had signoff from their SIRO on using Google Analytics - anonymised the IP address within Google Analytics - set up a cookie compliance page allowing users to change their cookie decision - ensured they have a relevant cookie collection information page
Their Performance Analyst will be able to lead on this.
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 amber for point 12 of the Standard.
Recommendations - complete the current work being undertaken to produce a GOV.UK Mendix Marketplace design element and publish this to the Mendix website - consider publishing this to an open GitHub repository so that other government departments could potentially contribute to this work - review the potential to publish other work form this service, for example the questionnaire module
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 13 of the Standard.
Recommendations - follow up on the advice in point 11 to align the service more closely to the Design System - provide an update on the potential need for the ability to easily import or export data from the service as needed, for example through APIs or manual importing/exporting of files
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 14 of the Standard.
Recommendations - provide an update on the support mechanisms for the service and add support links or contact information to the service - carry out further client-side performance testing. As the service does not use the official GOV.UK frontend toolkit, there are many opportunities to improve the user experience and performance (not to mention the sustainability benefits) through further caching and compression. A basic Lighthouse report has identified many opportunities to improve the user experience and reduce page load times with some relatively minor changes.
Next Steps
This service can now move into a public beta phase, subject to addressing the amber points 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