Sponsor UK alpha assessment
The report for the Sponsor UK alpha assessment on 16 November 2022
Service Standard assessment report
Sponsor UK
| From: | |
| Assessment date: | 16/11/2022 |
| Stage: | Alpha |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Home Office |
Service description
This service aims to make it easier for users to understand and navigate the sponsorship process, and substantially reduce the time it takes to bring someone to the UK to work or study.
Service users
This service is for employers or educational institutes (or their representatives) who want to sponsor a worker or student to enter the UK.
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has been able to include a portion of contextual user research at the beginning of their alpha. This enabled them to explore the as-is journey in depth
- the team has created well documented user needs matrix and have shown examples when user needs have been used to influence design decisions
- the team has captured access needs when testing with their participants
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- increase the number of participants in testing and user research sessions of types that are more likely to encounter the greatest difficulties when using the system in the imminent future. This could be either because they are new to the process themselves (e.g. a non-experienced user in a frequent-usage organisation) or, most importantly, because they are new to it and their organisation is also new to it. Focusing on this latter user group especially (e.g. any business or organisation in the UK that do not have a licence to sponsor but might in the near future) should decrease the chances that the most vulnerable users will be unfairly burdened with the greatest difficulties when trying to sponsor a worker or a student. Improving the service for them should translate into benefits for all users. A greater proportion of participants during beta should belong to this more at-risk group than not; their number should be even higher than what you would expect their actual proportion in your future user base is
- do much more testing with users with a range of assisted digital needs, and do thorough accessibility testing and thinking into the future service. The expected increase in the range and number of users of this service in the imminent future implies that the user base should be considered comparable to the general population in terms of their assisted digital and access needs. An assisted digital journey should exist and be tested before the next assessment. The team should also test with non-native English speakers
- explore and understand to a certain level of confidence the users in the education sector (sponsors of students) and their needs, especially before starting to work around the bulk-upload function
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service met point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team clearly demonstrated the journey a user would have to take from user registration through to submission of the application as well as case working
- the team have identified entry and exit points and areas in which they can improve the GOV.UK guidance and signposting
- the team have scoped the work and have broken up their end-to-end blueprint map into three phases for private beta
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- explore and test the other journeys that a user could take when using this service including the bulk upload feature and fully scoping out the user needs and the processes the user goes through
- continue working in the open with other teams to make the experience of migrating to the UK to work or study quicker and easier
- consider how other parts of the sponsorship journey interact with this part of the service. The performance data work already thinks about the full journey as including other services, for example apply for a visa. The panel felt that perhaps this was one service with multiple products within it and that some opportunities to think about the big picture were being lost. It might be a good idea to do further research around expectations of migrants, for example
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- they are working towards reducing the data collected and reducing duplication by working with policy such as not asking for gender in the application process
- the team have used GOV.UK Notify to manage notifications rather than creating a new system to handle notifications. The team have considered GOV.UK Pay but it does not meet all their user needs currently
- the team have got a well-thought-out plan for how they are going to monitor user interaction in private beta through feedback and analytics. The panel were impressed to hear the team were thinking about how they could monitor and analyse how long it takes to discover as well as use the service. All relevant content on GOV.UK should ideally be thought of as part of the service
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- work closer with the front-line operations team to develop call scripts and the user support model further. The panel heard that the team have a prototype for ways to improve the operational model. It’s highly recommended that this is taken forward and then iterated upon, in the same way as the rest of the service.
- continue working with policy colleagues to develop the new service and reduce data collection and duplication
- build a service that is so simple to use that it doesn’t need user guides to be uploaded onto GOV.UK.
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the overall prototype that was developed was consistent with the GOV.UK Design System using existing components and patterns where possible
- the team are contributing to the GOV.UK Design System and Home Office Design system
- the team gave a good demonstration of how user research has informed the design iterations with a before and after recording. The team also demonstrated more design and content iterations to make the service simple to use
- the team demonstrated how they have made the service simpler to use by showing options only relevant to that organisation by applying dynamic routing during the application process
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue exploring non-happy path journeys and exit pages as well as designing and testing the error messages
- test and show all correspondence that is sent to the user via email as well as testing error messages and guidance pages that are linked from the service
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service did not meet point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team have mapped and demonstrated the existing sponsor facing support ecosystem as well as identifying opportunities in the new service for user support
- the team have shown ways their making their service available across a range of devices and how they have changed the designs to work across that range of devices
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue their efforts to test with a range of users who have a range of needs as mentioned in point 1 of the report
- test the offline journey with real users, which has not been done
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- all the roles were filled, with key roles filled by civil servants
- the team is working closely with the performance analyst function within the programme, which is helping them define programme level goals
- the team is working with product owners from the operational business area, who are involved in prioritising work
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider whether the balance is right between UCD staff in the core team and development staff in the numerous sub teams. During beta the small number of designers and user researchers may feel increasingly under pressure to feed work to these teams, rather than taking time to iterate it
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the large team are using agile ceremonies, Mural and Jira to work in an agile way
- the team had identified their riskiest assumptions and had used this as a way of focusing the alpha.
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider continuing to iterate some of the more waterfall-seeming ways of working. The panel felt that designing some screens in one team and then handing them over to another to develop could easily create blockages, and might limit any real changes to the design. That said, the team seemed to be handling this as well as possible in a large programme
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had made changes to the design as a result of research they’d done. It was particularly interesting to see the team had tested a completely different dashboard, before returning to the card view more commonly used in government services
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- take forward the work they discussed about updating and the continuing to iterate the GOV.UK content and the journey into the service, as this is part of the service too
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- consideration had been made for identity and authorisation checks to be made centrally
- the team has coordinated its efforts with the National Cyber Security Centre and adhered to the framework with other cryptography experts, considering any risks of interaction with upstream and downstream services
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- liaise with the DSA (Data Standards Authority); for further detailed thoughts on APIs for data interoperability, data standards, across the ecosystem agree a shared language of terms for data sharing agreements
- consider the benefits of the government One-login identification service
- continue to keep up to-date with security-related best practices
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had done so much thinking about performance data at alpha – it is genuinely impressive!
- the team is planning on monitoring several different metrics that use multiple data points and cover the end-to-end service, starting from a migrant applying for a visa. This will allow them to quantify benefits to the Home Office, but also shows a ‘whole problem’ mindset that is recommended by the panel
- the team have done lots of work baselining existing performance and are thinking creatively about how to do this even where existing data is not available
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- implement Google Analytics as planned and begin to monitor the performance of the new service
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team considered a variety of architectures that could potentially address user and organisational needs, including a central database and federated communication model
- the team has chosen an appropriate architecture within a complex space, taking learning from existing sponsor facing support ecosystems, including a variety of critical governments services including Companies House, Border Force
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure the elimination of duplication by further collaboration across government sharing and reusing technology, data and services in a clear communicated way
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has designed the system so that, with the source code, other organisations could easily stand up their own version of a Staff Passport system, noting parallels between the NHS and the Department for Education
- the team has moved to release source code, with patterns in GitHub
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- aim to release as much of the source code as possible, alongside other open-source code of the larger ecosystem, ideally as part of the deployment workflow. The team should be coding in the open where possible
- make sure it is clear which Open-Source Initiative licence applies to released source code
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team will use standard authentication mechanisms such as OAuth 2.0 and standard cryptographic methods based on elliptic curve public and private keys
- the team will host the system on a cloud provider using standard hosting patterns,
- the team uses the knowledge gained from the interim COVID-19 Digital Staff Passport service to inform technological decisions
- the system creates a centre for trust allowing to support dashboards of various quality, without compromising the ability to obtain information
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- keep up momentum with migration towards open source
- conduct an evaluation of serverless technology
- publish APIs
- keep the conversation with GOV.UK Pay open. While the team explained that service doesn’t currently meet the needs of the whole programme, there are benefits to using GOV.UK Pay, for example around accessibility and not having to maintain the payment element of the service. Continue to challenge the proposition from both the GDS and Home Office sides and aim to move to GOV.UK Pay if and when possible
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team will have both testing and monitoring in place, Including penetration resilience testing
- disaster recovery regions are situated in a London region and the team have done work to understand the need for the availability of components 24/7
- plans have been made for the scalability of the service
- the team will provide a pipeline for Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery with AWS Kubernetes quickly and easily deployed on live platform. Deployment pipelines include Jenkins and Terraform
- DDos protection is provided by AWS shield service
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure the service has been tested by companies which are part of the CHECK scheme, as per the NCSC recommendation
- consider having a team in place to respond to production issues of critical components in a timely manner
- be able to talk about their approach to validation for data, particularly for data migration from legacy systems
Next Steps
This service can now move into a private beta phase, subject to implementing the recommendations outlined in the report and getting approval from the CDDO spend control team. The service must meet the standard at beta assessment before launching public beta.
The panel would like to review the service in about six months. This would be for a workshop / review and not an assessment.
To get the service ready to launch on GOV.UK the team needs to:
- get a GOV.UK service domain name
- work with the GOV.UK content team on any changes required to GOV.UK content
Updates to this page
Published 14 December 2022