The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) has identified three topics as priorities for a planned update of the Service Manual for government services.
It has indicated that it will focus on types of service, large scale transformation projects and continuous improvement.
This comes as part of an effort to review all of its products and services to ensure they are aligned with good practice across government. The Service Manual, developed to help teams meet the Service Standard, is one of the largest.
CDDO’s plans have been described in a blogpost by its digital strategy lead, Connie Briggs, and senior product manager, Ben Carpenter.
Risk and impact
They said the services team has looked at the risk and impact of all of its topic areas and subsequently identified the three to work on first.
Types of services including common components, services that provide information, low volume services and form builders, internal services and applications for back office staff, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) services, and multi-platform services such as enterprise resource planning solutions.
This derives from the fact that, while all subject to the high level principles of the Service Standard, they have individual nuances in how they need to be managed and there is no specific guidance for them – with current guidance mainly targeted at transactional services.
The initial focus will be on COTS services.
Pain points in transformation
The need for more information within the Service Manual on large scale transformation projects derives from there being a range of pain points on which teams need help. These include challenges around multiple assessment points to limited whole service vision, and can be complicated when no single organisation owns the full service.
CDDO has set up a small cross-government working group to address the pain points and plans to share experiences of what works and what points to consider.
Thirdly, guidance on continuous improvement has emerged as a priority as there is little available for how to make live services better. This is prompting research on user research, running a service in a sustainable way and how the live phase works.
“We know that there’s lots of good practice on these topics already the government digital and data profession that we might not be aware of,” Briggs and Carpenter said, and that they would like to hear from teams in government who could contribute.
