The digital team in the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is developing a tool for a common approach to the digitisation of forms.
Its lead product manager, Jenny Taylor, said the Digital Express Toolkit is now in its private beta format and subject to tests for potential new features.
“We’re going beyond just making a forms builder as a technological solution,” she said. “We’re working on a new proposition for how Defra can create, manage, and benefit from a consistent approach to online forms and data submitted by members of the public.
“As we digitise forms, we’re actively seeking opportunities to improve the user journey and exploring how back end processes could be automated to reduce the manual burden on staff to validate and process data.”
Departmental needs
The move has come in response to Defra’s need to build forms meet its specific standards while complying with those for accessibility and style in government forms.
An analysis of all the departments 579 forms in 2023 found that, while some of them were straightforward enough to be digitised using the GOV.UK Forms builder, most required additional features not yet available.
This has led to the development of the Digital Express Toolkit with a code used by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and Home Office. It has been designed for use in parallel with GOV.UK Forms, and with specific features such as a secure file upload.
The team is now working on making the forms designer more intuitive and accessible, shaping a service map to support policy and operational teams, and to align with the work of other Defra bodies such as the Digital Robotic Automation Centre of Excellence.
Break down barriers
Taylor emphasised that Defra has over 35 arm’s length bodies and that it wants to break down barriers for launching new services or forms within the family.
“We want to break down existing barriers for releasing new services or forms within Defra whilst providing options for integration with existing Defra technology, so our teams can meet the needs of the public faster, and at a lower cost to taxpayers,” Taylor said.
