Here’s the latest from the Transformation Programme, including some news from the departments and agencies among our exemplar services.
Releases
This month saw one new service released to users as a public beta. PAYE for employees allows employees to tell HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) about changes to their company car. The service enables users to: check their current car details; remove or replace a car; add or remove a fuel benefit; and add a new car. By keeping this information up to date, employees can make sure they are paying the right amount of tax.
This service - which HMRC anticipates will be used by 41m people - is the first of the exemplars to be supported by GOV.UK Verify, the new way for users to prove who they are online, enabling everyone to use government services securely and safely. The Verify team at GDS have worked closely with HMRC to ensure that the two services are fully integrated and the path through the registration process is clear and straightforward. Throughout PAYE for employees’ public beta phase, user feedback will inform continuous improvements and further testing for both the exemplar itself and for Verify.
Across the exemplars
I’m sure celebrations will be taking place this week at the Skills Funding Agency in Coventry following the news that Apprenticeship Applications has passed its Digital by Default Service Standard and will now proceed to launch as a public beta service on GOV.UK. The team went into the assessment really well prepared and it’s great to see their hard work pay off. Throughout the public beta phase, the team will be building their full-strength in-house digital delivery team, looking at their plans for publishing open source code and making the necessary content changes to ensure the new service sits well alongside existing services on GOV.UK. A full copy of the assessment report will be available on the GDS Data blog very soon.
The team at Vehicle Management, one of DVLA’s exemplars, have started work on their private beta which allows users to transfer ownership of a vehicle. The team is aiming to control the release of this industry-facing service over a period of weeks, testing with users from the motor trade and reacting to their feedback in preparation a Digital by Default Service Standard assessment to take the service public in late December.
Ministry of Justice’s CDO Paul Shetler shared lessons from the department’s 3 digital exemplars at a Silicon Valley event about the intersection between IT and business in large public organisations. Paul showcased some of the work that’s been started in creating common components that can be more easily reused across government and you can read more about his visit to America here.
Whilst we’re on the subject of MoJ exemplars, this recent blog post from user researcher Nicole Kobilansky on Prison visit booking is worth a look. Nicole gives an insight into how the team researched and designed an assisted digital solution for the 20% of users who have difficulty using the digital Prison visit booking service.
The exemplars are all being designed with user needs in mind and, of course, those users include the staff members who oversee the process behind the scenes, as well as the citizens accessing the front-end service on their computers and mobile devices. On 21 October the Registered Traveller Service team took the new back-end case working system live and successfully decommissioned the old one. This a big step towards the wholesale redesign of the service to the benefit of all who use it. [If you want to know more about the Registered Traveller Service, you can watch this new video which includes interviews with existing Registered Travellers, Border Force officers, and the exemplar’s service manager.
Civil Service Awards
Finally, I’m pleased to share the news that 2 exemplar projects have been shortlisted for the Civil Service Awards 2014 in the digital category. The awards celebrate the outstanding achievements made by civil servants across the country and the digital award recognises innovation using digital technology to solve a problem or make things better.
Congratulations to the teams who worked so hard to develop DVLA’s View Driver Record service (since renamed View driving licence, in response to user feedback) and Cabinet Office’s online Individual Electoral Registration (also known as Register to vote) - your nominations are well-deserved but you face tough competition from the digital team at the Department of Health. With the winners being announced today, everyone on the Transformation Programme is keeping their fingers crossed!
2 comments
Comment by Dr Mark Baker posted on
This is an excellent update service, but is there a single URL where we can see the complete road map for digital transformation for the Government Digital Service?
Comment by Rebecca Hales posted on
We're glad you enjoy reading our regular updates.
There's no single webpage where the Transformation Programme publishes its complete roadmap. However, you can get an overview of the status of all of the exemplar projects here: https://www.gov.uk/transformation
We also publish target delivery dates on each of the individual service pages.