Over the past few years, more and more people have been adding voice assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant to their homes and using them on their smartphones.

The most popular way to use these assistants is to ask questions - and we know users often expect to find answers from government. So we decided to put together a small team to look at how to meet this emerging need on GOV.UK.

Why voice assistants matter for GOV.UK

Smart speaker ownership is growing rapidly in the UK - 8% of adults now own one, up 3% in 2018 so far. In 2016 Google reported 20% of searches on Android devices were voice searches.

The leading voice platforms do not share data on user’s specific queries, but conversations we’ve had with teams at Amazon and Google made it clear that many users are asking questions where government is the best source.

Voice interfaces are nothing new for many people with access needs, who might use software like Dragon Naturally Speaking. But there's much excitement in the accessibility community about voice assistants. Their dramatically simpler interface has the potential to help lots of people who find computers and phones hard to use right now.

For GOV.UK, working on voice is an opportunity to meet the rising expectations of users and make government more accessible.

Tackling voice at scale

As government we need to approach voice services in a consistent way.

The recent GDS Innovation Survey has shown many local authorities, agencies and government departments are already exploring how to they can use voice to deliver information and services.

So in keeping with government’s design principles GOV.UK’s approach to this needs to be:

• cross-platform
• cross-government
• consistent
• scalable

Our team had experience creating apps and skills for voice assistants, but we wanted to find out if it was possible to support all the major voice platforms without having to build apps for each one.

Starting with the answers

We started by getting to grips with the different ways voice services provide users with answers.

We found there are three sources of information they use:

• search engines – these scan the web to provide relevant links and speakable snippets of content
• knowledge engines – these use a combination of data and computation to provide answers to fact-based questions
• third-party applications – known as skills on Alexa and Cortana, every major voice platform now has an app store

Here’s how it works for some of the most popular voice assistants:

This analysis helped us realise we could increase the number of answers we provide in voice assistants simply by making it easier for search and knowledge engines to use GOV.UK as a data source.

Making GOV.UK more understandable to search engines

Because we publish on the open web and prioritise good content design, GOV.UK guidance is already a source of speakable answers on some voice platforms.

This works because search engines crawl our content and use machine learning to extract speakable answers. You can see it in action in this Google Assistant demo we made:

But we realised there was more we could do. By using the schema.org structured data standard we can give search engines extra context to help make sense of our pages.

This quarter we implemented:

• Article schema for all guidance on GOV.UK
• NewsArticle schema for all news on GOV.UK
• HowTo schema for our new step-by-step journeys

There are also wider implications for our content strategy that we will need more time to think through. We already write content with all the clarity, natural language and brevity we can, but good spoken answers require even more. For example, Amazon recommend a voice answer be speakable in just one breath.

With this in mind we plan to:

• double down on open publishing, ensuring guidance isn’t hidden in services
• improve our use of structured data to make our content more understandable to search engines
• integrate (even more) concise answers into our guidance

Getting GOV.UK data into knowledge engines

Where search engines scan the web to find answers, knowledge engines use databases of known facts to work them out.

We think the most powerful way to help users of voice assistants is to make the canonical data that government publishes available in a format which knowledge engines can use to provide answers.

We’re currently talking to some of the major knowledge engines to understand the easiest standards-based way for them to use the data published on GOV.UK via an API.

We already have an API for Content on GOV.UK, but it does not provide the detailed structure that knowledge engines need. So a few weeks ago we began a small experiment and created a new API that provides a limited set of highly structured content.

We’ll let you know the results of the experiment after it’s concluded.

The current limitations of voice apps and skills

You might have noticed we’ve focused on being able to answer questions. We have not mentioned transactions with government - things like making a benefit claim or booking a driving test. This is because at the moment voice interfaces do not really have any way for us to handle:

• data privacy – many voice services hold records of conversations
• verifying identity – many government services require a high level of identity assurance
• inputting personal data – even inputting a full address at the moment can be awkward

These are significant blockers for many government transactions. But we’ll continue to keep a close eye on the voice landscape, and hopefully as the technology improves we'll start to see some new features and cross-platform standards in these areas.

What the future sounds like

If you want to get a sense of the potential of voice, here are few queries you can try out on Google Assistant on Android or iOS right now:

• How long does it take to get a new passport?
• How much does a driving test cost?
• When will I get child benefit paid?

Sam Dub is a product manager on GOV.UK and Mark Hurrell is the Head of Graphic Design for GDS.

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It’s been almost a year since the GovTech Catalyst was announced - the £20 million fund set up to help private sector innovators tackle public sector problems.

There are 3 rounds of the Catalyst and following the first round earlier this year, the 5 successful challenges have included tackling Daesh online imagery, tracking waste and addressing loneliness and rural isolation.

At the TechUK Smarter State conference today, Minister for Implementation Oliver Dowden announced the next 5 successful challenges from public sector organisations to get funding. These challenges are:

1. How might we improve firefighter safety and operational response? Submitted by Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service
2. How might we make better use of data to guide public sector audits? Submitted by Northern Ireland Audit Office
3. How might we automatically detect and identify illicit goods during the journey across the border without impacting fluidity of trade? Submitted by Home Office, Border Force Detection Services
4. How might we understand the overlaps between business regulations? Submitted by Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Better Regulation Executive
5. How might we guarantee prescription continuity while people move between care providers? Submitted by Northern Ireland Prison Service & South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust

These 5 challenges will be launched as Small Business Research Initiative competitions for tech companies, with the first competition on keeping emergency responders safe launching mid October.

The full list of all Round 2 submitted challenges both successful and unsuccessful funded can be found on GOV.UK.

Simplifying the application process

We gathered feedback from our users who took part in the Round 1 application process and further simplified it for Round 2 applicants.

For example, it became apparent not all users had access to Microsoft Word - which was initially required to fill out the Expression of Interest form.

So for Round 2 - inspired by the GDS Open Standards Board - we published a list of questions on GOV.UK and asked our users to send us an email answering them. We also designed the questions around the main criteria for the GovTech Catalyst fund.

We removed a question which asked users to describe a solution to their problem, as the aim of the Catalyst is to explore and test multiple approaches to a problem.

And we also scrapped the requirement to upload a signature, as it was not strictly needed.

Making it easier to evaluate challenges

The evaluation of Round 1 challenges was lengthy. The cross-government review board of 12 people scored 51 submitted challenges against 6 categories, 2 of which overlapped. The GovTech Catalyst team then followed up with a round of 1 hour interviews asking a further 14 questions.

The final scores clustered around a very narrow range instead of a naturally forming bell curve, so it was difficult to have a clear idea which challenges met the criteria particularly well and to differentiate between those in the middle.

To simplify this process for Round 2 we formed a smaller, multi-disciplinary assessment panel of 7 specialists from across central government.

We split evaluation into 2 areas: questions that could be answered yes or no, and then just 3 categories of weighted scoring, which put more value on understanding of user needs above over other factors in deciding where to invest public money.

The criteria used to evaluate the challenges

What we learned

The scores this time were a lot more differentiated and followed the expected normal distribution pattern, making it easier to determine the highest scoring challenges.

We used a mathematical formula to work out how much the evaluation panel disagreed with each other about each challenge submission. This meant we had a much shorter moderation meeting and were able to focus on the challenges that had the largest amount of disagreement.

Incidentally, the overall level of disagreement between panel members was about the same as in Round 1.

The cross-government panel, which included members from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Innovate UK and HM Treasury, praised the efficiency of the new evaluation process and said the lessons learned made implementing the second round much smoother.

What’s next

We expect to launch at least 15 competitions to the market. Here's a summary of the current status of the three rounds of competitions.

Round 1

Competition 4 - Using data to better understand and respond to road congestion is open now.

The first GovTech Catalyst contracts are in the final stages of a competitive process to work on innovative solutions to the Daesh imagery challenge.

Round 2

Challenge 1 - How might we improve firefighter safety and situational awareness? This will go out to competition to tech suppliers on 15 October. The other four competitions will opening in November through to February 2019.

Round 3

We expect to open Round 3 - our final call for public sector challenges - this October.

Lisa Scott is the product manager and Breandan Knowlton is a technical architect working on the GovTech Catalyst.

GovTech meetups are held in various locations across the country every month, providing the opportunity to find out the latest updates on the GovTech challenges.

Start-ups are also invited to attend, specifically those working in emerging tech and actively looking to supply to the public sector.

The next meet-ups are 1 November in Newcastle and 22 November in Belfast.

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We first talked about updating the service standard around a year ago. Since then, we’ve talked to hundreds of people in central and local government.

It’s still a work in progress, but we think we’re getting close to a final draft which supports the government’s ambition to deliver joined up, end to end services that meet user needs. So we thought it would be useful to provide some details about the direction it’s going in.

What’s not changing

For the most part, we’ll ask service teams to keep doing what they’re doing.

We’ll still ask service teams to start with user needs and to build services in an agile, iterative way with a multidisciplinary team - based on data and user research.

We’ll still ask service teams to make services that are simple to use, accessible and secure to make sure people can still get assisted digital support if they need it.

We’ll still promote open standards and ask service teams to open source new code.

And we’ll still ask service teams to avoid locking in particular technology solutions, reuse patterns and components where possible and to automate what can be automated.

New format

While the intent behind large parts of the standard will not change, the format will.

Each point willhave a section explaining why it’s important and how it can help service teams make better decisions, deliver faster and build services that work for users.

We want the standard to be useful to all parts of government involved in providing services. People should not be following the standard because they have to: they should be following the standard because it helps them to deliver better services for users.

What’s been added

With the update we’re planning a name change - from the ‘Digital Service Standard’ to the ‘Government Service Standard’. It’s significant because we want it to be useful to the whole of government.

The Government Transformation Strategy is committed to delivering joined up, end to end services. That means bringing together isolated transactions into a service that makes sense from the user’s point of view.

That’s only possible if you understand - and can influence - the wider context for the service.

There are service teams in government doing this already, but we want to make it standard practice for teams to talk during service assessments about how they’re addressing challenges that make it difficult to meet user needs. In particular, the challenges they have with:

• making a transaction part of a wider service that solves a whole problem for users (even when that means working across organisational boundaries)
• delivering a joined up experience across different channels
• internal systems and processes
• technology platforms

It’s important to recognise that challenges to do with ‘hard’ constraints like legislation, contracts, governance or technology infrastructure can not be resolved overnight but we’ll be asking service teams to:

• explain the long term plan to address the issue
• explain how they’re working around it in the meantime

Making services more inclusive

As well as making services accessible to disabled people and those with limited access to technology, we’ll ask service teams to think about inclusion in the broader sense. For example, if you’re asking for proof of where someone lives, have you considered the needs of someone who does not have a fixed address?

Iterating and improving services

It’s probably not practical - or a good use of public money- to assign a full development team to every service, forever. But it’s important that services do not go into stasis.

So we’ll ask service teams to ensure their approach to continuous improvement meets the challenge of changing user needs and developments in technology.

What’s being removed

We’re looking at how we can make more time for service teams and assessors to discuss the things we’ve added. To do this we plan to consolidate some points and remove a couple altogether.

For example, we plan to remove the requirement to encourage people to use the service online. Not because it’s not important, but because we think the lower cost of providing services online means there’s already enough of an incentive to do it.

Service assessments

The scope for service assessments will not change as part of this update. The trigger for an assessment is still the same: technology spending on a digital service. We expect people to have questions about this, so we’re producing some clearer guidance on what’s in scope.

Moving to the new version of the standard

We will not expect people to start using the updated standard immediately - there will be at least a couple of months’ notice between the new version being published in the autumn and service teams having to use it.

If a team has their alpha service assessment before that cut-off date, or they’ve already had their alpha, they can continue to use the old version.

The future for the standard (after this version)

This new version of the standard is designed to nudge things in the direction of joined up, end to end services, without making unreasonable demands on service teams.

But in the future, we want to do more.

In particular, we want to work with the operational delivery and policy professions to develop a joined-up view on how the process of creating and operating services should work. And we want to draw on their expertise to provide more concrete guidance on things like designing for non-digital channels.

It’s been 3 years since we last updated the standard. In future, we want to make smaller, more frequent updates and we’ll provide plenty of notice when things change.

Stephen Gill is content lead for service design and standards at GDS.

If you’re working on a service team in the UK government and have a question about how the change might affect you, contact GDS at dbd-assessments@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.

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The GDS accessibility team has had a busy few months preparing for an influential upcoming law.

The Accessibility of public sector websites and apps: new duties and regulations, which comes into effect on 23 September, states public sector websites and apps must be accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities.

Part of our preparations included a consultation to give users a chance to respond on the regulations. It's always the aim of GOV.UK to be as accessible as possible, and specific GOV.UK guidance on consultations says it should be targeted to the audiences affected. Therefore, this consultation and response needed to be published in accessible formats.

To do this, we worked with a content designer to make the wording understandable, provided multiple ways to respond and provided a British Sign Language (BSL) and Easy Read version. We also made sure the online survey was accessible.

Working with a content designer

GOV.UK content should always be written in plain English, so a content designer helped turn some of the policy-heavy wording into simpler language.

For instance, we changed some headings to show more clearly what would be affected. 'Summary’ went to ‘What is this consultation for?’ and ‘Timescale’ changed to ‘When the changes are planned to happen’.

Ideally, a content designer should work on the consultation wording  from the beginning, rather than editing it down once it’s been written. We also published it in HTML, rather than PDF, to increase the accessibility of the consultation. We previously blogged about why content should be published in HTML and not PDF.

Using BSL

BSL is the most common form of sign language in Britain and has a different structure and syntax to the English language. We provided a consultation overview, information and questions, the means to respond and the response in BSL.

We found best practice when choosing a BSL supplier was to pick one that:

• used an in-house qualified BSL translator to be as accurate as possible, ensuring a quick fix to any issues
• provided captions on videos
• provided the option to split videos up to allow users to access the most relevant information

Creating an Easy Read version

Easy Read is a format that uses pictures to support the meaning of text. It uses short sentences and simple words to focus on the core information. It was developed for people with learning disabilities to clearly understand information.   

A screenshot from the Easy Read Consultation overview

We provided an Easy Read version of the Consultation Overview, Consultation Information, Consultation Questions and Government Response.

We found best practice when choosing an Easy Read supplier was to pick one that:

• co-produces Easy Read documents with people with learning disabilities
• quality checked the content with a learning disability charity

We used a company that created Easy Read documents from stock imagery as we found the costs of illustrations was significantly higher.

Choosing an accessible survey tool

There were multiple ways of responding to the consultation questions - an online survey, by telephone, through BSL video or e-mail. Providing people with choice is always a positive for accessibility.

It was helpful for us to use an online survey tool as it made analysing the data more efficient. We made sure the tool we used had performed a web audit on accessibility and had acted on the report. The audit tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 AA - advice which explains how to make websites accessible for disabled and older people.

When choosing which tool to use, look into the accessibility of a platform as early as possible and always ask for evidence to support a company’s claims.

Lessons learned

The person running the consultation must understand its target audience. This will help determine the format it’s published in and how people can respond.

A consultation with a broad audience should be made as accessible as possible using the different formats. With a narrower audience, consultations must offer an alternative version, if requested, within a reasonable timeframe.

We also found it’s not possible to publish all formats of the consultation at the same time. Consultation wording is often not signed off until the last minute, and you cannot create your BSL or Easy Read version without this official confirmation.

We were able to publish the HTML version immediately, but had to explain to the audience that BSL and Easy Read versions were still to come to manage expectations. Easy Read usually takes a few days, and BSL one to 2 weeks, to create a translation. But we decided it was better to give the majority of people longer on the consultation, than to delay publication while waiting.

We found the Easy Read version was helpful to a lot of respondents and not necessarily just for those with learning difficulties. It was read as a quick and simpler version.

When content is accessible, it helps everyone.

We are always keen to improve, so please let us know of any examples of accessibility consultation best practice in the comments.

If you would like more information about this work including costings please email accessibility@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.  

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YouTube has more than one billion users, almost one third of the internet. With all these potential users, it’s important the Government Digital Service (GDS) YouTube channel has accessible, useful and strategic videos.

Since GDS was set up in 2011, films and animations have always been integral to the organisation. They allow us to explain complex concepts in simple ways.

As part of our recent review of our social media strategy, we realised our YouTube channel was not living up to its full potential. Following a channel audit, we’ve refreshed it with a new look, reorganised the content and made films easier to find.

Why did it need an update?

The channel turned six in March this year. Although every video that was published was created with a clear purpose, there was no narrative to link them together so did not appear to be a cohesive channel. It did not feel or look like it was representing the great work that GDS did and continues to do.

Historical analytics showed in the beginning, users and subscribers grew rapidly, but has since plateaued. Other government department channels, such as the Met Office and the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), were performing much better with strong content and large subscriber bases.

So, we did an audit. The key findings were:

• retention was very good on shorter films
• most popular content were films with public-facing topics and messaging
• subscriber count has continued to grow, but slower than we would like
• films were sometime hard to find if it was accompanied by an undescriptive title or vague thumbnail
• playlists were out of date
• some films were no longer relevant

What changes did we make?

Making sure content is still relevant

We unlisted more than 200 pieces of old and duplicated content. Unlisting means you hide a video from a public-facing channel, but it remains online and continues to work if it is embedded or linked to in a webpage. This meant only the most relevant content was being seen by the public.

Since 2011, we have updated films when necessary, but it also meant multiple versions were published. This led to confusing search results as sometimes the older version would appear higher in search results. Unlisting older content stopped this.

Grouping films together by series

We countered content being hard to find by building 16 new playlists and series which are organised by topic so viewers can easily find related material. For example, if you just want to see films about Accessibility, there’s a playlist for that.

Series also means multiple films in the same playlists target similar audiences. Therefore introductions are not needed for each video - a new episode can simply pick up where the previous one left off. This gives us the freedom to develop content in response to the changing digital landscape. Series also encourages viewers to watch through the entire playlist, rather than just one video.

Each new series was given a designated colour for use in their thumbnails, for example pink for transformation and black for GOV.UK. This smartened up the look and feel of the channel, building trust in the video before it had been viewed and making it easy to associate films by the topics and series they belonged to.

Make films easy to find and accessible

The YouTube channel follows the GOV.UK guidance on accessibility - we want to make the content as accessible as possible. However, some of the older films on the channel had not been reviewed to check whether they had subtitles.

All the public films with dialogue have now been checked for accuracy and no new film will be published without them. Subtitles can be switched on by clicking the ‘Subtitles/CC’ button in the YouTube player.

We also found many old films had little or no metadata for search engine optimisation (SEO), which meant they were difficult to find via a search result on YouTube or via a search engine.

So we changed our titles to be more descriptive of the video’s content. This meant renaming titles with questions like “what is”, “how does” and “why we” so the audience knows they will receive an answer before they watch.

Our descriptions now also include at least one external link so viewers can find out more information if they want to. This might be to a GOV.UK service or product page, the GDS blog or our social media.

What’s next?

We did a show and tell for GDS staff to hear what they thought of the updates. Feedback included themes on what videos the YouTube channel should host.

Colleagues wanted to see videos that educate rather than instruct, more animation, films on innovation and more timeless videos. Timeless for GDS means answering perennial digital government questions, for example ways of working, stories of transformation or our principles.

We want to go further on the colour schemes. Going forward, films created for a specific playlist will adopt their series colour within the film graphics too, for example all Innovation films will be purple.

To increase interactivity, films will now hold for around 5 to 10 seconds at the end to allow end cards to appear. End cards are interactive elements that allow the user to click through to related content, playlists or the GDS channel. This provides viewers with curated similar content that should improve retention across the channel.

Ultimately we want to make the GDS YouTube channel a destination where users can learn digital practices, see GDS’ great work in action and understand the digital transformation of government as a whole.

We’re always keen to improve, so please let us know what you think of the updates in the comments.

Alastair Mogford is a motion graphics designer and film-maker at GDS.

To see the newly updated channel, head to the Government Digital Service on YouTube.

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The Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Fast Stream has been running for 4 years now. Our fast streamers work in an unparalleled range of roles from enabling businesses to trade, to improving access to justice, protecting us from cyber attacks and safeguarding our environment.

We also help those who need support - including society’s most vulnerable people - so our work is really important.

Choosing the right technology for these services can be life changing for millions of people.

So the public sector needs leaders who get technology. It needs people who are passionate about applying digital tools to public problems and people who understand the potential of technology across and beyond government.

Our leaders should also reflect the diversity of the public that we serve, and this year we climbed into the top 10 of the Social Mobility Employer Index.

Now’s your chance to join us and make a difference because the DDaT Fast Stream has just started accepting applications for its next round.

It’s a 4 year programme open to graduates and current civil servants, designed to grow future leaders across government.

What you will do

Currently ranked number 2 in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers, the Fast Stream is a fantastic opportunity to get your career off to a flying start.

We give fast streamers the opportunity to work across many government departments and a variety of different public sector organisations.

They undertake 6 different roles over the 4 years, developing essential digital, data and technology skills as well as a broad range of experience and training that's vital for senior leaders in the Civil Service.

This training may include learning about emerging technologies and agile methodologies at the GDS Academy, data analytics with the Office of National Statistics, cyber security techniques, or learning how to code. Throughout the programme you’ll be learning from brilliant and talented colleagues and mentors.

Over the past 4 years, the scope of the DDaT Fast Stream has continuously adapted to meet the needs of digital government.

Earlier this year we introduced a new learning programme for final year fast streamers. It includes a residential course at Cranfield University focused on leadership, policy, technology, strategy and performance - alongside a competition to attend a major technology conference in the US or the UK.

Crossing borders

This month we led a team of 11 fast streamers on a week long programme of activities in the US, including attending TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018.

We met with innovative technology companies to learn about their ways of working and emerging technologies. Some of these new technologies will become commonplace, such as linking medical devices with doctors and patients so that remote diagnosis and intervention can occur.  

Also on the agenda was meeting the British Consulate’s technology team to discuss how they work with British companies seeking to gain access to the US tech sector.

We also met the GBX community - British expats who are tech investors, executives and coaches. They shared insights into the San Francisco technology environment including the corporate, investment and social culture underpinning it.

We ended the trip with a visit to the San Francisco State Government to discuss its digital service programmes and the Civic Bridge project, where it partners with industry volunteers to work on social problems.

It was a valuable opportunity for our fast streamers to develop their knowledge and bring it back to the UK government.

Sinéad Krzyzyk, who was part of the group, said learning about a different side of the technology industry would help her engage with business stakeholders and allow her to “take back the best parts of that world” into her department.

“It was really useful for understanding emerging technology and seeing where we could solve government problems with innovative solutions," she added.

The DDaT Fast Stream is an opportunity to be a part of something which matters: applying technology to help build a better and safer society that is easier for people to navigate.

As technology continues to develop and new ideas generate a world of possibilities, businesses are ever increasingly becoming technology organisations.

Being on the DDaT Fast Stream will give you essential skills, unique experiences and the best possible start to your career.

And at the same time, you can help make the UK a better place.

Iain Boyd manages the DDaT Fast Stream programme. You can follow him on Twitter @iain_boyd

Applications for the DDaT Fast Stream are open until 25 October 2018.

You can ask Iain a question during the Fast Stream Facebook Live Q&A on 25 September from 12 to 1pm. There will also be a Twitter Q&A in early October - follow @DigiCareersGov for updates.

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New regulations have just come into force which means from next year, every new public sector website and app will need to meet certain accessibility standards and publish a statement saying they have been met. Existing websites will have until 2020 to comply.

The aim of the regulations is to ensure public sector websites and mobile apps are accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities.

The new regulations are called ‘The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018’. They are now law in the UK and implement the EU Directive on the accessibility of public sector websites and mobile applications.

At the Government Digital Service (GDS), we’ve published guidance that will support organisations to meet the requirements and help make public sector websites more accessible. We also offer a range of support to help public sector websites become more accessible.

Here’s what public sector website owners will need to do and and how we’re supporting them:

The important dates

You’ll need to comply with the regulations from 23 September 2019. This is when it will start applying to new websites (those published after 22 September 2018). They come into force in 3 stages:

The requirements will apply to all public sector bodies, although certain organisations and types of content may be exempt.

Even where you are exempt by these regulations all UK service providers have a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 (or, in Northern Ireland, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995). Meeting accessibility standards is a way of proving that you’ve made reasonable adjustments.

What you need to do

There are 2 main requirements:

• meet accessibility standards - this means making your website ‘perceivable, operable, understandable and robust’ for all users - you can achieve this by making sure it meets the international accessibility standard, WCAG 2.1 AA or its European equivalent, EN301 549
• publish an accessibility statement - this must be based on a template statement that will be provided by early 2019

How to do this and how GDS can help

Here are some steps you can take to meet the requirements and to make sure your website is as accessible as possible:

1. Read the GDS guidance on what accessibility is and why you need to invest in it. This provides more detail on the key dates and what you need to do. It also provides links to resources that can help you.
2. Ask fellow employees working on web content and digital products if they are preparing to comply with the regulations by September 2019. Make sure they are familiar with the guidance.
3. Consider including accessibility as part of the contract evaluation when signing off on technology spend or procurement.  
4. Make sure your organisation is aware of the responsibility to communicate the requirements to its associated agencies and bodies. If so, consider nominating an official to be accountable for this communication.
5. Make sure there is expertise within your organisation by advocating for people to receive training in accessibility. GDS offers regular accessibility training which is open to anyone in central government. You can see dates and details on how to register on our events and training page.

Understanding accessibility

As well as providing guidance and support specifically relating to the regulations, GDS also offers other resources around accessibility.

This includes the cross-government accessibility community, which is open to everyone in central government regardless of whether you are in an accessibility-related role. The community is a place where you can get support, ask questions and share best practice.

We have an accessibility empathy lab at our London office, which features different technologies and software that people use to interact with online services.

And we have also put together a reading list on accessibility featuring advice, tips and case studies of people experiencing accessibility barriers.

Helping organisations meet the new regulations is just one part of our work to make public services accessible to all. We aim to make sure there are no online or offline barriers preventing people from accessing services they need to use.

Anthony Ilona is a policy engagement manager at GDS.

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Recently, we’ve blogged about what we’re doing to make it easier to blog at the Government Digital Service, (GDS) our GDS YouTube channel refresh and our use of Instagram.

All of these changes are part of the more strategic approach we’re taking to our communications across GDS and part of our plan to tell the story of our work and the transformation taking place across government.

Last week we published our first ever communications strategy for GDS. It’s a fantastic milestone for us, bringing together the aims of the organisation and showcasing the value that comms can contribute to telling our story and giving our audiences a say in how we are working.

It seeks to engage people in the work of GDS simply and effectively. Our work should be driven by insights and should meet the needs of our audiences.

The strategy will:

• weave GDS’s strategic priorities through all our communications and engagement activity
• enable colleagues at GDS to see their work communicated
• increase confidence, trust and support for GDS both internally and externally, building our reputation across government and within the sector

Taking a strategic approach aligns comms to the organisational business objectives, as well as cross-government and Cabinet Office priorities. As a function of the Cabinet Office, we’ve ensured we’re working to best practice as recommended by the Government Communications Service.

Campaign themes

Having a solid communications and engagement strategy means we can focus resource and effort to ensure priorities are given the attention and time they require.

This does not mean other areas are missed - we want to shout about the great work taking place across GDS and that’s why we’ve established a process to manage delivery.  We’ll be aligning all our communications to 3 key campaign themes for the year:

Transforming government for all

To show citizens and government the benefits to be had through the transformation of services and the role GDS plays in delivery.

Innovating for the future

To show how GDS, in collaboration with other government departments, is using innovative technologies to deliver the services users need and expect when interacting with government.

Collaborating to deliver the best

To support both the recruitment of high quality talent into government and the development of skills and culture to transform public services

The three themes of transformation, collaboration and innovation may sound familiar: they are the themes we referenced at Sprint 18.

They also link into the aims of the Government Transformation Strategy and the Cabinet Office’s objectives.   

The strategy is delivery

We continually monitor and refine who our audience is and how we can best reach them. This ensures we use the right channel, at the right time, to engage with them. To help us do this we look at where our audiences are already talking about things. It’s much better to go to where the conversation is already happening rather than insisting they come to us.

We’re also planning proactive communications based around priority programmes of work, bringing together the work taking place across GDS to give it a consistent voice, message and look.

We’ve already seen increased engagement with our content when it’s more strategic and we concentrate our efforts on fewer, better maintained channels, with better quality content.

For example, the recent blog post on why GOV.UK content should be published in HTML not PDF received 25,000 unique views within a week and the Digital Marketplace Twitter account has seen engagement double in the past 12 months by focusing efforts on growing this channel as opposed to spreading our effort across multiple channels.

The scope of content we are creating and delivering is increasing in quality, focus and impact thanks our our strategic approach.

Show the thing

We’ll be working hard to deliver all the communications we have planned for the rest of this year including events, creative content, blog posts and more - ensuring we’re telling the stories that matter to the people who want or need to hear them.

This includes a strong focus on internal communications, making sure our staff are well informed and engaged in the work of GDS and can see how the work they are delivering is directly supporting the society we serve.

We’ll also be measuring our impact quarterly using the Government Communication Service Evaluation Framework. To allow us to adapt our campaigns on a quarterly basis, this agile planning cycle gives us the ability to be responsive to campaign insights and adapt our approach.

Read the full strategy on GOV.UK. For more information you can contact us at gds-comms@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.

Lucy Denton is the Head of Strategic Communications and Campaigns at GDS.

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In the first episode of a new series of GDS podcasts, senior writer Angus Montgomery talks with the outgoing head of GOV.UK, Neil Williams, about his time here. They discuss successes and challenges, the realities of working in an agile way and what the future holds for the nation’s website.

Neil has been a part of the Government Digital Service (GDS) since the very beginning. He was involved in the initial discussions that led to GDS being set up in 2011.

After 7 years, Neil is leaving GDS this week to join Croydon Council as its Chief Digital Officer. Jen Allum, formerly lead product manager on GOV.UK, will become the interim head of GOV.UK.

In future episodes of the GDS podcast we’ll be talking to people both inside and outside GDS and discussing digital transformation, innovation and cross-government collaboration.

You can read a transcript and subscribe to future GDS podcasts on Podbean.

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Defra is committed to getting to zero avoidable waste in the UK by 2050. We want to move towards a circular economy - where waste can be reused and moved back into the production cycle, rather than just being disposed of.

To do this, we need to have a full understanding of how waste is created and what happens to it. We need to be able to track waste movement and waste levels in real-time throughout the waste chain with no additional burden to carriers or companies.

And we need to be able to spot opportunities where, for example, 2 or more companies or industrial facilities could join up and the waste from one could become the raw material of another.

We think digitisation and using innovative technologies gives us the chance to do this. That’s why we submitted a bid to the GovTech Catalyst innovation programme to tackle this issue. And why we’re delighted to secure funding.

The GovTech Catalyst is a new Government Digital Service (GDS) initiative, run in partnership with Innovate UK. It makes £20 million of research and development funding available for public bodies to bid for across 3 years. Funding is awarded in tranches, with suppliers invited to submit innovative proposals to help meet each GovTech challenge.

Our GovTech bid for funding centred on help to design and build a solution to track waste throughout its lifecycle across the UK. We called our bid Smart Waste Tracking.

How we put our bid together

In order for GovTech Catalyst bids to be successful, they need to meet a number of criteria. For example they must be current service or policy delivery problems that are clearly understood and they must require a technology innovation to solve them.

In addition, bidders must have the resources available to work on the challenge in order to move quickly, because the way GovTech works is that funding is rapidly committed to proof of concept work – there is no long lead time or specification stage.

At Defra, we had a number of issues that we thought might potentially work as a GovTech challenge. These are from our  25 year Plan to Improve the Environment, which we published in January. This is an ambitious, flagship to address key environmental issues.

Based on this document, Defra Digital carried out a compressed consultation exercise across the Department and spoke directly to policy leads to build up a picture of the biggest challenges facing Defra.  We distilled these conversations into a longlist of high-level themes and challenges.

Alongside Smart Waste Tracking, these included other issues such as Richer Flood Forecasting and Protecting Our Environment from Chemicals.

We developed a set of analysis criteria to help us rank the Defra challenges and Smart Waste Tracking emerged as the front runner. A joint Digital and Policy team shaped the GovTech bid submission, conducting due diligence on any potential solutions that are already available, and clarifying the benefits.

We won - what now?

After we were awarded the funding, our challenge was opened up to suppliers to submit their solutions.

We ran a supplier engagement event in Bristol in June to talk about the challenge. We wanted to give businesses the opportunity to ask us questions and hear direct from policy leads, not just from Defra but from other Devolved Administrations. Waste is a UK wide issue, so we have been keen to link up with colleagues from Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We received a steady flow of questions and when the competition closed to entries in July, we found we received 50 proposals to work with us on the Smart Waste Tracking challenge.

Shortlisting the winners

We now need to sit down and evaluate all the bids to select a Top 5 to take forward into proof of concept phase. Innovate UK will help us with that exercise and we have been talking to them about our needs and assessment priorities.

We’re really open-minded about what solutions this process will generate. We know the problem of waste tracking across the UK is so vast that it is extremely unlikely that one single product or solution will solve all the issues and unlock all the benefits. But what we do hope is that GovTech will answer a part of the overall problem in ways that then enable us to iterate, improve and expand.

One of the most exciting things about the Catalyst is that it is helping us to fast-track funding to target a specific problem and accelerate to Proof of Concept stage so that we can very quickly start to test viability.

Top 5 tips for people wanting to submit bids

The GovTech experience has been really exciting and very different to the way we would traditionally spin-up a new project.

For other public bodies considering bidding for GovTech funding, here are some observations on our experience to date that may be helpful:

1. Start your thinking and consultation early. We found that when we started talking to people about this initiative, almost everybody had a good idea they wanted to share. Our problem was not identifying challenge candidates – but identifying the RIGHT challenge candidate.
2. Talk to people. The more you talk to people up and down the organisation, the better view you will have of the really big challenges. We found that common themes began to emerge and that helped us to focus on the most meaningful challenges.
3. Have your team ready. The GovTech process is quick but immersive. It’s not something you can pay lip service to. Once you have submitted your challenge bid, you need to be ready to commit serious team time to back it if it’s successful. Make sure you can draw on and commit subject matter experts and support those experts with the right team around them, especially when it comes to communications and engagement work.
4. Don’t expect to have all the answers. This is a new initiative and one of the intentions is to find innovative and creative answers to long-term challenges. Don’t be put off if you don’t have an immediate answer to a new or interesting problem.
5. Be ready to talk about what you are doing. We found that lots of different people from lots of different organisations want to talk to us about Smart Waste Tracking so be prepared to cater for lots of interest in your challenge.

Find out more about the GovTech Catalyst.

Read more about how to submit a challenge and the challenge selection criteria.

Some of the Mental Health Network posters around GDS

Today is World Mental Health Day and at the Government Digital Service (GDS) we’re joining in with a number of activities to break down taboos and raise awareness of the support and information available to colleagues.

We’ll be starting the day with a wellness breakfast - run in conjunction with the Black Asian Minority Ethnic network - and we’re teaming up with the GDS fitness club to promote the importance of exercise for good mental health.

In the afternoon we’re hosting a mental health discussion (with tea and cakes). People will also be able to buy green ribbons to raise money and awareness for the Mental Health Foundation.

The Mental Health Network at GDS

At the 2016 GDS unconference, staff decided a mental health related network would be a good idea. So we formed a working group to create the network and coordinate activities.

We want GDS to have great collective mental health and be an even better place to work. We take a user-centred approach to the network, seeking to understand the needs of our colleagues and to provide a network that can help meet them.

We want to help colleagues get the information and support they need. We’re here to help give voice to their mental health related questions and concerns.

It’s not an easy task. There’s still a lot of stigma around mental health. A particular challenge, not unique to this topic, is that colleagues’ involvement is often private, sensitive and invisible. It’s hard to measure what we do.

Even so, our network does a range of activities, including:

• online Q&A events, where colleagues (anonymously, if they like) suggest and vote for  topics. Afterwards, we capture, anonymise and store all questions and replies in a Google document that anyone can access as an ongoing resource.
• weekly picnics for colleagues to meet up, discuss the network and share their experiences or just their lunch!
• a new starter survey to learn more about the mental health challenges of being a newcomer at GDS
• events - we invite speakers into GDS, such as Gavin Elliot from the Department of Work and Pensions, who gave a really powerful talk about Imposter Syndrome - the persistent fear of “being found out” or of “being exposed as a fraud” in the workplace
• cinema trips and quiz nights

We’ve also appointed David Dilley, GDS’s Deputy Director of Digital, as our new champion. He says the network has helped him personally and he hopes to, in turn, now help others:

“It’s been through the work of the mental health network and the openness of others at GDS and the Cabinet Office that I’ve gradually (very gradually to be honest!) been able to be more open and honest about my own mental health.”

Read more about the Mental Health Network's principles.

Member feedback

These quotes from some of our members tell us the network is really valuable to lots of people:

“In the years I've been at GDS the thing that’s helped me immensely is the good, kind people it has - especially in the Mental Health Network. I noticed it most in the Slack channel it runs, where people were communicating and being open about their own struggles. That encouraged me to open up too and also help others. It's invaluable. It's led me to finding good friends and getting the extra support I needed such as long term therapy.” - Anonymous

“I feel incredibly proud that GDS has a place where staff can talk openly and honestly about mental health. It makes me feel supported to be my whole self and more importantly, to learn about how my colleagues and friends look after their own mental health. The resources, tools and tips we all share help every single one of us.” - Anonymous

“Without the support and understanding of my colleagues when I was struggling, I wouldn't have been able to support them when they needed help.” - Anonymous

If you work at GDS you can find mental health information and resources on the wiki. Just search for ‘mental health network’ or visit the #network-mental-health channel on GDS’s Slack.

You can access resources on mental health by visiting Mind, CALM (for preventing male suicide) and if you’re into podcasts, Blurtitout.

Helen Nickols is a senior content designer and Ben Carpenter is the lead of Inclusive Services at GDS. They are co-leads of the Mental Health Network.

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At GDS our mission is to help government work better for everyone. Through digital transformation we want to put more power in the hands of citizens. And by helping government be more effective and efficient, we save money for taxpayers.

This digital transformation means several things. It means building new digital channels that let people easily access services like applying for a new passport, updating their driving licence or checking their state pension. It means building digital skills and capability across the civil service through initiatives like the GDS Academy so that government is equipped for the future. And it also means sorting out the fundamental drivers that will allow all this transformation to happen.

One of the fundamental drivers for digital transformation is digital identity - letting people prove that they are who they say they are online. Over the past years we have been working closely with partners across government to develop a digital identity platform GOV.UK Verify to address this.

GOV.UK Verify is now mature enough for us to take it to the next stage - opening it up beyond the public sector for the private sector to take the lead.

Here’s how that will work.

GOV.UK Verify so far

GOV.UK Verify went live in May 2016 and is now used by organisations across government to help users do things like check their personal tax account and view or share their driving licence information.

GOV.UK Verify works by letting users prove their identity to a trusted partner company. The company asks some questions to establish the user’s identity. They’ll check these against records held by mobile phone providers, credit agencies, the Passport Office or the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. They will then confirm the user’s identity to the government service they are using.

This process means information about users isn’t stored in one place and there's no unnecessary sharing of information. Furthermore, all identity providers have to meet government and international standards for security and data protection.

So far nearly 3 million people have created a GOV.UK Verify account. They have performed over 7.5 million secure transactions with government.

Through GOV.UK Verify, the UK is recognised as a global leader in digital identity. The GOV.UK Verify model has been emulated and used by governments around the world, from the USA to the European Union.

Working with the private sector

The standards and guidelines that currently underpin the way GOV.UK Verify works will now be opened up to the private sector to build on.

Through these standards and guidelines, GDS and government will ensure there is trust and confidence in the emergent digital identity market. And the private sector will invest to ensure the success of the market, bringing in even more innovation and forward-thinking solutions.

We are taking this approach because we know digital identity is an issue across the whole economy. In the UK alone, identity fraud costs the government between £1 billion and £4 billion a year. And it costs the UK economy between £5 billion and £14 billion.

Using Verify for government services

While the private sector works on new developments, GOV.UK Verify will continue to protect public-sector digital services from identity fraud and other malicious activity. We’ve signed new contracts with 5 private-sector identity providers, who will support GOV.UK Verify over the next 18 months.

GOV.UK Verify users can choose to use any one of these 5 certified companies to verify their identity online: Barclays, Digidentity, Experian, Post Office and SecureIdentity. People who have GOV.UK Verify accounts with other companies can still use their accounts for the next 12 months, while they set up accounts with the current certified companies.

To keep Verify affordable for government, we're using a tiered pricing system to reduce the price the government pays the providers over the 18-month period. As the number of users increases, the cost for government will go down. We are working to get to a position where GOV.UK Verify is cost-neutral for government and sustainable and self-supporting.

And we’ve been working hard to ensure that the providers we are working with are, along with the rest of the private sector, empowered to develop commercial solutions that will benefit users and government.

Identity assurance for the future

We want GOV.UK Verify to be the foundation for identity platforms that can be used across the public and private sectors. So that the same digital identity platform that helps you check your state pension could in the future help you check your savings account too.

This approach means that GOV.UK Verify will continue to protect public-sector digital services. And it means that the private sector will be empowered to develop affordable identity assurance services that will meet all of our future private and public-sector needs. It enables a long-term, sustainable solution.

It means people can continue to use online services safely, securely and with the knowledge that a whole ecosystem of public and private partners are working to make their experience - and their lives - even easier.

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The 'Apply for your first provisional driving licence' step by step navigation page

Since GOV.UK launched 6 years ago it has been the home of government’s online content and the starting point for online services.

Every week millions of people use GOV.UK to do complex and sometimes life-changing tasks, such as learning to drive, registering a birth or starting a business.

We want to make these tasks as easy as possible - by making content simple and user journeys intuitive. This is good for users because it makes it quicker to get things done. And it’s good for government because it reduces unnecessary contact and casework.

Why we need to look at end to end services

We know users face challenges carrying out tasks. There’s a lot of information to find for a start. Depending on the task, there might be appointments to book, forms to fill in, applications to be made and tests to take.

And what makes this even harder is that each step needs to be done at the right time and in the right order.

That’s why government needs to look at every step of this task. From the first thing the user does, to the last thing they need to do. We need to look at services from end to end.

The difficulty government faces when trying to make this easier is that people’s real-world tasks do not always fit neatly with the way government is organised into departments and agencies.

For example, a business wanting to hire their first employee needs information and services from 5 different areas of government before they can hire them:

Organising GOV.UK by topic and task

Rather than organise GOV.UK around the structure of government, we’ve been working to organise content around user needs at scale. So, rather than being organised by department, content on GOV.UK is now organised into a single site-wide system of user-centred topics.

This topic structure will power new ways to search and browse the site, making things much easier to find.

But we want to go further - we want to make things easier to do.

So about a year ago we started experimenting with a new way for users to navigate GOV.UK. These experiments evolved into what we now call step by step navigation.

It looks like this on GOV.UK:

This page outlines the process for learning to drive a car

It means that, for the first time, we can show the user everything they’ll need to do to complete a task, whether that’s Learning to drive or Employing someone.

The navigation follows you throughout your journey, indicating what to do now and next. It also shows you previous steps you might have missed. For example, getting a provisional driving licence before booking a driving theory test.

Step by step navigation appears alongside content of each step

Step by step navigation is designed to work with all existing content types and transactions on GOV.UK. Where appropriate, transactions can be broken down further using the separate task list pattern.

Developing the design

The design evolved over 8 rounds of research and iteration, including an in-depth review at the brilliant Digital Accessibility Centre in Neath.

Around half way through the lab research we began testing the pattern on GOV.UK. Analytics data showed that the first examples of step by step navigation were getting a lot of traffic. For example, learn to drive a car was used 1.24 million times in the first 6 months.

We ask users for feedback with the ‘Is this useful?’ survey banner at the bottom of every page on the site. This showed users were finding it useful.

The 'Is this page useful?' banner

We also ran a remote user research study where we asked users to complete a series of tasks before and after 3 step by step journeys were published.

The study showed the step by step navigation resulted in a significant increase in users’ successful task completion, as well as an increase in confidence they could use GOV.UK to find what they needed.

Scaling the approach

With encouraging data coming in, over the past 6 months we’ve been working to scale this approach so it can be used for the more complex tasks users need to do. These include:

As this table shows, the content that sits within these journeys often crosses multiple government departments and we need a collaborative approach to make these journeys better for users. Creating a new process for cross-government working to support this has been equally as important as designing a new way of navigating.

Over the past 6 months we’ve collaborated with more than 15 different departments to publish 25 step by step journeys.

We’re also indebted to the team at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency who helped us map the first journeys: Learn to drive a car and Become a driving instructor when our work was still in prototype form. They’ve written a great blog post about the process.

Next steps

We’ll be continuing to work with departments to map and publish step by step navigation for some of the most high priority and complex user journeys within government. As we do this we’ll keep a close eye on performance data to ensure this approach is still working well for users.

If you’re in a department or agency team and want to work with us to put together step by step journeys, we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at modelling-services@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.

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Beverley Smith during a GDS Academy class in Ottawa

I’m a facilitator and the Head of the Digital Faculty at the GDS Academy. I’ve been part of the team for more than 4 years, helping the UK government achieve its ambition to have one of the most digitally skilled populations of public servants in the world.

I have recently returned from spending a week in Ottawa, Canada. Along with Elaine McKenna, another experienced GDS Academy facilitator, we were invited to upskill and collaborate with colleagues from the Canadian government.

The GDS Academy is increasingly sharing its expertise with governments in other countries, and our work has come to serve as an inspiration overseas. In December last year, we blogged about our international journey, in particular the visit from a Canadian government delegation where they attended our Hands on Agile for Leaders course, which led directly to this new collaboration.

What we did in Ottawa

Across the week, we ran courses, spoke to public servants and had some amusing misunderstandings with some British sayings and our accents - what does ‘swinging the lead’ mean?

I delivered 3 day-long digital and agile awareness courses to 50 attendees while Elaine delivered 2 one and a half day courses for leaders to 35 Canadian public servants. We adapted our existing GDS Academy course content to meet the user needs we had identified in advance and changed our delivery as we went along, depending on the reactions of the groups.

Aneeta Bains, Chief Digital Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister for Innovation, Science and Economic Development in Canada, spoke during both leaders’ courses about the ongoing plans to take digital government forward in their country.

David Blair from the Office of the Chief Information Officer, took the opportunity to briefly introduce some of the new tools and frameworks they are developing. This resulted in some lively discussions and feedback that may influence their final products.

The feedback we received

We received very positive feedback from the students and those whom we met in Ottawa. Here’s what some of them said:  

"I was really impressed with the amount of information that was conveyed and, even more so, with the approach of the UK GDS facilitators. The activities helped us understand the roles involved in agile management, how to diagnose successes and risks and real-world application in many leadership domains." - Neil Bouwer, Vice President of the Canada School of the Public Service

"The Digital and Agile Awareness course was a fresh and well-constructed walk through of the importance of user-centric design, the core principles of Agile and how we can apply it in Canada. I walked away with several new insights on how to frame the roles of agile teams, despite leading one for the past several years." - Chris Allison, Director General of Digital Services at the Canadian government

"The course is giving me a much broader and comprehensive understanding of what it means to be digital, and also how they are actually working digitally in the UK. It’s the theory plus the very practical look at how they are doing it." - Zoe Langevin, Economic and Policy analyst, Natural Resources Canada

What we learned from our visit

Elaine and I found the experience to be very rewarding and thought-provoking. The key learning was about how both governments face similar issues and challenges. Another learning was the importance of engaging with partners across all levels of an organisation, which is something we did during our trip.

We also learned that no matter where you are, Lego and origami both go down well as interactive ways of embedding knowledge - learning by doing. And everyone loved the GDS stickers.

We also thought the Canadian government’s approach to accessibility was very impressive.

One Team Gov Canada

I also managed a fleeting visit to a One Team Gov Canada meeting. It was great to make international connections and again identify the common challenges and opportunities that both Canada and the UK face.

I hope that we can continue the relationship with our Canadian colleagues by supporting the design, development and delivery of future learning interventions.

Since our return, we've been delighted to see the Canadian government has announced the creation of its own Digital Academy. We wish them every success and I hope that we can continue the relationship with our Canadian colleagues by supporting the design, development and delivery of future learning interventions.

To find out more about our learning offer visit the GDS Academy website or follow @GDSacademy on Twitter.

For more information on how the GDS Academy helps foreign governments please contact ddatprofession@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.

Just over 10 years ago nearly every cinema-goer in the UK saw their favourite films projected on scratched 35mm film. There were only 2 digital projectors in the whole of the United Kingdom.

Fast forward to today and almost every cinema in the nation has a digital projector. This transformation has saved millions of pounds, raised and standardised film quality and crucially, gives the audience a better viewing experience.

I was a founding employee of Arts Alliance Media (AAM), one of the companies that spearheaded this huge digital transformation. I spent 13 years at the company pioneering this cinema technology in the UK and overseas.

While cinema and government may appear dimensions apart, the digital transformations of both sectors face similar challenges and want to secure similar benefits. Since joining the Government Digital Service (GDS) as the chief operating officer last month I have noticed a number of similarities - and some crucial differences.  

How government and cinema digital transformation is the same

Managing multiple stakeholders

When I worked at AAM I had to help manage people’s concerns and expectations on what digitisation would mean for them. For example, how could we assure fair access to the new technology for both independent films and blockbusters.

Government is a huge organisation with lots of existing structures and sign-off processes. This means managing different stakeholders is a vital skill to ensure a successful transformation.

Users first

There were difficulties in persuading the cinema industry of how going digital would benefit viewers. But showing film distributors how movies looked to the typical film-goer at their local cinema, rather than at a top cinema with a great projectionist - that was a ‘light bulb’ moment for them.

Starting with user needs is the guiding principle at GDS. Doing this will ensure we build and do the right thing and that we are truly transforming government for the better.

Unexpected benefits

Some benefits of digitising the cinema industry were clear from the outset, like not having to transport film reels. However, others were a surprise.

For instance, as digital prints do not have to be returned to the distributor like a 35mm print, cinemas can keep screening films that have a consistent interest weeks or months after release.

This was seen early on in the digital transformation process with one cinema having a weekly screening of climbing documentary ‘Touching the Void’ for several months after the release date.

I’ve also seen unanticipated benefits at GDS. For example, the work on structuring GOV.UK content has had an unexpected advantage to our users through allowing voice assistants to access the information. As the digital transformations continue I am excited to see what other great things happen.

Three ways government is different

Support

I have been hugely supported at GDS during my first few weeks as I settle down to my new role, giving me more time to adjust than you may do in a private company. Everyone has been willing to spend time getting me up to speed on the hugely varied work that GDS does.

I am eager to start improving the internal processes here so that everyone can spend more time on GDS’s great work on digital transformation.

Diversity

After having worked in digital for 20 years what immediately struck me was the diversity at GDS. I have never been anywhere else even approaching the gender and ethnic minority diversity or an equally gender balanced management team.

Serving citizens

I have always worked in the private sector and in a profit-driven environment. The public sector is different. Without profit as your end goal, your strategy and direction are governed by the your duties to the society and government you serve.

This switch in focus is a huge motivation for me and I cannot wait to get started with continuing the transformation journey and making government work better for users.

Fiona Deans is the chief operating officer at the Government Digital Service.

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We’re planning the first ever Services Week – a series of cross-government events that will look at how we can work together to deliver end-to-end user-focused services.

At GDS, we’ve been doing a lot of work this year to help make government services better. This includes launching the GOV.UK Design System, developing step by step service journeys on GOV.UK and preparing to publish the new Government Service Standard.

A big part of this work is about helping teams across government work with each other, so that we can deliver whole services for users. This is why we’ve been working on projects like Service Communities, which bring together everyone involved in delivering a service, regardless of their role or department.

And it’s why we’re planning the first cross-government Services Week – which will be held 28 January to 1 February. And we need you to help us deliver it.

What will we talk about?

Services Week will be an opportunity to talk about end-to-end services and, in particular, how we can work together across government to deliver these services for users.

Some of the things we will talk about include looking at how whole services can:

• make sure services let users do what they need to do
• reduce operational cost
• make things better for users

Services Week will take place across the country and there will be show and tells, workshops and meetups. We also hope that people will deliver remote presentations and publish blog posts throughout the week.

But we do not know exactly what will happen yet, because we’re leaving the final agenda up to the participants – which is where you come in!

How will it work?

Services Week will be a cross-government series of events in multiple locations throughout the country.

The User-Centred Design team at GDS will provide resources and a framework for the week, but the agenda and all the events will be generated by the people taking part. This means departments and organisations can use the week to talk about whatever aspect of whole services they want.

Services Week will be what departments and organisations want it to be – at a time and place convenient for them.

You might decide to run a show and tell about your work, organise a meetup of designers in your area or stream a remote case study presentation. It’s entirely up to you.

How you can take part

GDS is producing a series of resources to help you run and promote your events.

These include pre-packaged workshop ideas and guidance on how to run a workshop and poster designs, which you can download and print out to promote the week.

And you can also join in the conversation on social media using #servicesweek.

You can contribute your event to the agenda and follow it as it develops over the coming weeks. Alternatively, you can view the published version and email us to add your event.

If you’re interested in getting involved, please complete the expression of interest form and please email us if you have any questions or comments.

GDS is returning to the Public Sector Show Manchester on Tuesday 20 November 2018.

A day of learning, discussion and inspiration, the event is aimed at those looking to deliver smarter, better and more efficient public services.

GDS will be located at Stand C2. Come and see us to learn:

• how GDS can help support your digital transformation
• how you can best use innovative technology to solve problems
• how to ensure your workforce is ready for the future
• how to use off-the-shelf digital transformation tools to meet your user needs

In addition to meeting GDS experts at our stand, you can also hear from key GDS representatives on stage throughout the day.

Our Director General Kevin Cunnington will be giving a keynote speech on how digital transformation can help government work better for everyone.

GDS Academy’s Head of Operations Paul Schagen will appear on a panel discussion on workforce and leadership, and GDS will also be running a panel on innovation in government and transforming services using emerging technologies.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Public Sector Show Manchester will be held at Manchester Central on Tuesday 20 November 2018. Register for tickets and follow @Public_SectorUK for more information.

The Digital Marketplace has transformed the way the public sector buys IT and digital services since its launch 4 years ago. By opening up the procurement market to suppliers of all sizes, rather than just large technology companies, it has led to increased competition, lower prices and more specialised and local suppliers.

As of the end of July, more than £4.22 billion has been spent through the Digital Marketplace with more than 90% of the suppliers being small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

As the Government Digital Service and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) celebrates our collaboration and fourth birthday, we thought it would be a good time to take stock and call out just a couple of things we’ve achieved over this past year and look at where we’re going.

Building a community

CCS has led on setting up the UK’s first public sector digital buying community. It’s been incredibly popular with attendance at meetups increasing five-fold in just 6 months. This work has also supported the Local Digital Declaration through its inception, launch and expansion.

We also spoke to London’s Hackney Council, a Digital Marketplace buyer, which was able to quickly and securely find the right digital expertise for their organisation and help retain and recruit foster carers.

Do the hard work to make things simple

The Digital Marketplace wants to make it easier for suppliers to work with the public sector. We’ve worked to help this by ensuring the Digital Marketplace is compliant with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

We wrote about this work in more detail in May, which included implementing a privacy notice, retention schedules and contract variations.

We’ve helped deliver the new public sector contract by working as a multidisciplinary team with CCS policy and the Government Legal Department.

We’ve continued our ‘business as usual’ activity with CCS, including delivering the next iterations of its G-Cloud (G10) and Digital Outcomes and Specialists (DOS3) commercial agreements.

We’ve also been looking at how we might apply the lessons learned from designing, delivering and continuously improving the Digital Marketplace to support a broader range of:

• users (buyers, suppliers, and procurement and commercial practitioners)
• commercial agreements (not just the digital and technology category)
• UK public sector organisations
• non-UK public sector organisations

A global vision

We want to work with UK suppliers to transform government procurement in emerging economies and help create new opportunities in overseas markets.

We've previously blogged about the Global Digital Marketplace project, where we visited 6 countries to assess the feasibility of working with them.

In the next few months I’ll be making a further announcement on this project.

We look forward to growing the marketplace, encouraging more public sectors to use it and sharing our learnings with our friends and colleagues in international governments.

For more information you can:

• find people and technology on the Digital Marketplace
• find details about buying from Digital Marketplace 
• find the latest sales information on the Digital Marketplace sales page
• follow @GOVUKdigimkt on Twitter

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Minister for Implementation Oliver Dowden at the first innovation morning event

At GDS, we want to help all of government use emerging technologies in the right way to address the right problems.

The Technology Innovation in Government Survey, which we published earlier this year, found there’s great work happening in organisations across government. This includes the Ministry of Defence exploring augmented reality and the Ministry of Justice looking at robotic process automation to improve the courts system.

Our next step is to set the direction for how government should use emerging technologies. We want to make sure we can share best practice across organisations and can scale the good work that’s already happening.

This is why we’re developing an innovation strategy for government, which we will publish next year.

Getting expert input into the strategy

As we work on the strategy, we want to hear from experts in industry and academia - as well as the public sector. This is so we can get valuable input and talk about issues that affect all our sectors.

That’s why we’re holding a series of ‘innovation mornings’ with Minister for Implementation Oliver Dowden and tech experts from across the industry.

We held our first innovation morning at TechUK in London last month. The minister and GDS representatives were joined by delegates from large organisations like IBM and Amazon Web Services, as well as smaller start-ups like Famiio and CognitionX.

Here’s what we talked about and what we’ll be doing next.

Emerging technologies bring huge opportunities for government

We already know that emerging technologies can help the public sector.

The GovTech Catalyst programme, run by GDS, is linking up private-sector innovators with public sector challenges. For example by helping Defra track waste movement across the country or helping Mid and West Wales Fire Service track firefighters while on calls.

It was clear from the conversation at the innovation morning there are huge opportunities to use new technologies to drive efficiencies and improve people’s experience using government services. And we can already see examples of this happening.

What was also clear is there are things that the innovation strategy should address, in order to make it as easy as possible for government to use emerging technology.

Making it easier to innovate

Delegates identified 3 main potential barriers to using emerging technology in government:

• a need to build capability and an innovation culture among civil servants
• procurement making it hard for innovative startups to work with government
• issues around combining legacy infrastructure with new technology

The delegates discussed potential ways to approach these challenges. They also acknowledged that work is already happening to address these issues - for example by building capability through the GDS Academy and tackling procurement through the Digital Marketplace.

These are things we will aim to build on as we develop the innovation strategy.

Our first innovation morning gave us lots of food for thought and many offers of help from the experts present. The next morning is planned for January and we are excited to see what that one holds.

Izzy Watson is an innovation policy advisor at GDS.

If you have an idea about the opportunities and challenges around innovation and emerging technologies in government, or want to find out more about the innovation strategy, contact us at innovation-strategy@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.

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