Prevent E-Learning Alpha Reassessment
The service provides three training modules aimed to: educate users about the Prevent programme, how to make an informed referral and how the Channel programme works.
Digital Service Standard assessment report
Prevent E-Learning Alpha Reassessment
| From: | Central Digital and Data Office |
| Reassessment date: | 09/06/20 |
| Stage: | Alpha Reassessment |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Home Office |
Previous assessment reports
- Alpha assessment report: 21st January 2020, Not Met
Service description
The service provides three training modules aimed to: educate users about the Prevent programme, how to make an informed referral and how the Channel programme works. Users will also have the opportunity to undertake a shorter refresher module. Each module provides a knowledge check at the beginning and end to help measure learning. The Home Office provides the training at no cost to users to ensure consistency with government policy. The training is aimed at all public sector workers under the Prevent Duty. On completion of the training, users should have an awareness of where and how to refer individuals to the Prevent programme for further help. For the general public and the intended user base, the platform will also feature a basic landing page providing details about the Prevent programme.
Service users
Prevent is a key part of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy (CONTEST). The Prevent statutory duty was introduced through the Counter Terrorism and Security Act (CTSA) 2015. Section 26 of the CTSA (2015) places a duty on certain bodies in the exercise of their functions to have ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’.
The Duty requires local authorities, schools, colleges, universities, health bodies, prisons and probation, and police to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism as part of their day-to-day work. The service is aimed at public sector workers from the key users listed above.
There are 5.42m public sector workers in the UK (16.5% of UK employment) – of that 1.69m work in the NHS; 1.5m in education; 2.02m in local government (including 238,000 police) and; 45,434 in prisons and probation. In contrast, the private sector employs 27.34m. (source: ONS public sector employment September 2019).
The specified authorities are required to ensure that staff have training that gives them the knowledge and confidence to identify individuals at risk of being drawn into all forms of terrorism, and to challenge extremist ideas which can be used to legitimise terrorism and are shared by terrorist groups.
1. Understand user needs
Decision
The service Met point 1 of the Standard
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has conducted further research and carried out analysis and syntheses of existing research to understand commonalities and differences in the needs of different user groups. This has helped them to understand that there are more needs that are in common than differences
- the team has also made efforts to speak to and uncover the needs of the community, friends and family
- the team have continued to conduct research with people with access needs and impairments
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- to continue researching with members of the community, member’s friends and family as the numbers researched to date is not enough to uncover in-depth needs and pain points
- continue to understand/test service to uncover further needs and pain points of users who are on the lower end of the digital inclusion scale. How could this service support these users? Are users aware of this service, do they understand what it offers and how it could help them
2. Do ongoing user research
Decision
The service Met point 2 of the Standard
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has continued to research and re-analyse existing research to further identify needs and pain points to feed into the journey map
- the team has a plan for ongoing research
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure the end to end service journey works for all users identified
- to ensure service is tested with users of assistive technology and users that fall in the assisted digital spectrum
- ensure ongoing research is inclusive (testing end to end journey with a diverse number of users)
12. Make sure users succeed first time
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
Regarding the solution presented at the service assessment:
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team is invested in reducing the duration of the training modules to meet the current average time of a website visit, so users can complete the training in one sitting
- the service team has made a considerable effort to make the training content as easy as possible for users to absorb and retain the key messages
- the service team has taken on board the recommendation that they concentrate on designing the service not just the training content. They have utilised components and patterns from the GDS Design System within a whole journey intended to act as an exemplar going forward
- the team created a whole journey prototype after being recommended to test the end-to-end service experience. The suggested aim of a minimum ‘condensed’ journey that could simulate the end-to-end experience, has been created and researched with and iterated on
- the service team have explored reviewing the service name to help all users find the service and understand what it does and researched early ideas with users
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider the usage of the components and patterns utilised from the GDS Design System
- speak to GDS about undertaking a content review on the full journey before using this as an exemplar. The service team have documented 65 content changes, so a lot will hopefully be improved by going through a review process as soon as possible
- the service team should continue to prototype and test entire journeys, including how different users find and access the service and any steps that happen before and after the training modules (routing according to sector, emission of proof of completion, etc) and provide evidence that users are succeeding first time
- continue exploring the service name to help all users find the service and understand what it does. The team have made good progress, they could consider a closed card sort in subsequent research sessions in order to arrive at a verb-based service name
- in line with the recommendations provided in point 2, it’s advisable that, before developing the presented solution further, the team explore different solutions to address the problems identified in user research, considering the wider context and how this service links to the existing Prevent training ecosystem