The consular services section of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is aiming to strengthen its digital capability and develop a series of new services.
It has begun to look for a delivery partner to work with it under a two-year contract, to begin in November and valued at up to £4.5 million, to create new digital services for British citizens travelling or living abroad.
The FCDO currently has a small team working with internal business owners and subject matter experts, and has now laid out a requirement for a partner to set up internal teams with core skillsets to support the development of a range of products. This would take in roles such as delivery manager, business analyst, full stack developer and service designer.
Some early work has been done and a few simple service delivered – such as enabling British citizens to register interest in a flight back to the UK or apply for an emergency loan.
As yet the department has provided no specifics on new services, but has highlighted the need to support people who run into emergencies or need to access legal services while overseas.
“We seek a delivery partner to support the development of services around how our users contact and interact with us across multiple digital channels to meet the Government Service Standard,” the market notice says.
Image: FCDO main building from UK Government, Open Government Licence v2.0