Request A Service Record - Beta Reassessment Report
The reassessment report for MOD's Request A Service Record service on 21st October 2020
Digital Service Standard assessment report
Request A Service Record
| From: | Central Digital and Data Office |
| Assessment date: | 21/10/20 |
| Stage: | Beta |
| Result: | Not Met |
| Service provider: | MOD |
Previous assessment reports
- Alpha assessment report: 7th August 2017, MOD Internal Assessment, Met
- Beta assessment report: 5th March 2020, GDS Assessment, Not Met
Service description
MOD holds approximately 10 million archived service records containing information on people who served in the armed forces from 1780 to 1960. The records are due to be transferred to the National Archives. Whilst held by MOD, access to them for members of the public is provided under Freedom of Information Legislation. The current service provides a set of downloadable forms which can be completed and sent by post to the service disclosure branches (Army, Navy and RAF) and requires payment by cheque of the £30 administration fee. The service currently receives around 30,000 requests per annum.
On receipt of a request, the disclosure branch logs the request and conducts a search for the record based on the details given. When the record is found, it is copied, redacted as required and sent to the requestor, completing the transaction. Private beta for the new service commenced in May 2019 with key aims of improving user journeys by removing the need to post forms and payment.
Service users
Users fall into two key groups:
- family members – users range from those just starting their journey in family history research or making a one-off request ‘I want my grandfather’s service record’ to those who are experienced and enthusiastic family history researchers familiar with the numerous official channels and processes involved e.g. findmypast.com, ancestry.com, local records offices, national archives
- genealogists - professional family history researchers and historians also use the service. Genealogists and family history researchers often work on behalf of others and request multiple records associated with a family/name. Military historians and historical researchers may be looking for details of members of a troop or regiment and again may request multiple records at one time
3. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team have created from scratch the team and ways of working, having not done this before
- the team have built up support from the CIO to ensure buy-in and funding for the service
- the team are proactively working with the commercial team and their processes to recruit and onboard when needed
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to engage stakeholders in the journey and ensure that they understand the process, the different roles and responsibilities in the team and the value to agile ways of working
- consider increasing the frequency of show and tells and having interactive sessions with relevant stakeholder
- working with other service teams around government can help to support with ideas around working with colleagues outside of the typical DDaT directorates, working with colleagues used to more traditional project management and setting up agile functions in teams and the department
- there have been blockers with recruiting and other activities, such as recruiting for a developer and content designer, agreeing and arranging the accessibility audit. Consider whether there is a way to alleviate such blockers, such as decision making in the team to go out and carry out such activities without the need for commercial - or other - approval each time
7. Understand security and privacy issues
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team have acted on all recommendations from the previous assessment
- there is now a privacy page explaining what happens to the user’s data
- there is now a cookie policy page that explains what cookies are used and allows users to opt out of optional tracking cookies
- users can now clear their session data using the ‘Leave now’ button to prevent subsequent users potentially being able to access their personal information
- the recent penetration test found only a few minor security issues and the worst of these have already been mitigated
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- test the ‘Leave now’ button with users and iterate - the panel does not think the design or content of the button is quite right as it is currently. It is worth investigating the addition of an ‘are you sure you want to delete everything?’ step before actually clearing the data, and testing different placement and wording of the button itself. There are some examples of “are you sure” patterns in the Design System backlog at https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog/issues/9
- currently users have to click the ‘Accept all cookies’ button before the cookie banner goes away. There should also be some way to accept only essential cookies - if the user interacts with the cookies page to reject analytics cookies they should not then have to click ‘Accept all cookies’ to dismiss the banner
- implement a consistent process for ensuring all software components are security patched in a timely fashion
10. Test the end-to-end service
Decision
The service did not meet point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- smoke tests that automate journeys through the service have been added to the existing functional and unit tests
- zero downtime deployments have been implemented on GOV.UK PaaS using Blue-Green deployment approach
- the deployment pipeline runs a full test suite and tests must pass before new code is released to production
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- test changes to the service with a wide range of browsers and assistive technologies to ensure it works for all users
- fix outstanding accessibility issues to meet level AA of the WCAG 2.1. There are quite a few errors such as the error summary links not working, labels that don’t link to the relevant input and skip links missing
- complete an external accessibility audit and fix any issues to the WCAG 2.1 standard
11. Make a plan for being offline
Decision
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- fallback pages for use when the main service is unavailable have been implemented in a different PaaS region
- the team understand the potential impact of third party dependencies going down (GOV.UK Pay, GOV.UK Notify, Docker Hub) and how they might recover and ensure no service record applications are lost if they did
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- widen the range of people who could potentially re-deploy or otherwise mitigate failures/outages - a runbook shared with the team that includes steps needed in various scenarios could spread the weight of responsibility
13. Make the user experience consistent with GOV.UK
Decision
The service did not meet point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- compared to the previous assessment the service team have made improvements on the usage of GOV.UK components and patterns
- all broken elements have been fixed such as the icon missing on the ‘Start now’ button and the GOV.UK Transport font loads
- the service is responsive and works on mobile devices
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- must correct the few inconsistencies remaining, such as on the ‘Your Details’ page the radio buttons are bold, the error summary component being in the wrong position and the inline error messages are missing
- must improve the content, especially the error messages and the hint text. There are many examples of the use of ‘please’, ‘okay’ and other phrases which are not standard practice
- it is recommended to do another external content audit before next assessment to check that all inconsistencies are met
- must do further research on the ‘leave now’ button as the content and functionality is unexpected and is not a normal pattern. The service team could explore doing a ‘Are you sure’ confirmation page so users can confirm their action before losing all of their details
- it is recommended the team fix the GOV.UK favicon in the browser tab and the page tab title doesn’t describe what is on the page which should come out of the accessibility audit
- must improve the 419 error page which is inconsistent with the standard GOV.UK patterns and make sure it is helping the user go back into the journey and to start again
- it is recommended to improve the service name further particularly around the phrasing of ‘deceased’s’. An alternative service name could be ‘Apply for a deceased person’s military record’ for example or it could match the relevant chapter, ‘Apply for the records of someone who’s deceased’
- on the ‘Your details’ page if the user selects ‘I am mother/father’ it then asks you to ‘Confirm here if the serviceperson did NOT have a living Spouse/Civil Partner at the time of death’. The service team must review this checkbox as the next page is very similar so could this be removed? If not, the content must be improved to be more user friendly
- update the CSS being used on the service. The CSS being used is an older version of the newest GOV.UK release so may be missing critical accessibility improvements. If the accessibility audit doesn’t raise any contrast or styling issues then this is recommended
14. Encourage everyone to use the digital service
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team have improved their personas and have done more research to understand the potential users and their needs
- they have improved the service name through understanding the search terms users may enter to find the service
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- put in place new as well as improving old processes to manage user expectations of the service. There is some concern that by going digital the users expectations could change and the users might start expecting records quicker. The service team are working towards this
- point 13 refers regarding further iterations to be considered for the service name
15. Collect performance data
Decision
The service met point 15 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team now had access to data about the offline parts of the service (e.g. average time taken to receive records, the percentage of requests where no records can be found)
- the team can now compare the end-to-end performance of journeys which started online or offline
- the team now has a workable plan for evaluating the end-to-end service up to the point where records are received by the user
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
-
track more events on the online journey (e.g. validation errors, form selections, use of the ‘Leave Now’ button) - this is quick and easy to apply, and will mean the team is better informed when making future iterations. e.g.:
- if there are common ‘other’ reasons for leaving a service these could be included in the list instead of being entered in a free text field
- frequently-occurring validation errors could be eliminated through clearer instructions/layout
16. Identify performance indicators
Decision
The service met point 16 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had run a performance framework exercise to identify and prioritise a set of performance indicators (and sources) specific to the service and derived from their business/user needs
- used the standard GDS performance framework template
- got external input from former GDS staff
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- start collecting the data they’ve identified as important
- analyse data and identify areas for further research or opportunities to improve the service
- simplify the sharing and interpretation of data, e.g. through the use of dashboards, standardised reports etc.