Research focuses on information sharing in three examples in steps towards building common codes and processes
Dealing with the criminal justice system, moving goods across the border and coming to live in the UK have been picked out as test areas for understanding how several organisations have to share information to support people’s experiences with government.
They have been outlined in a Government Digital Service (GDS) blog, written by director of transformation Mark O’Neill, highlighting the work in preparing Government as a Platform, the development of a shared infrastructure for digital systems.
He said the three ‘user journeys’ are already being examined to provide some opening lessons on how to make things easier for users, and “how we can make the structure of government even more invisible”.
They have been chosen because they involve users having to share information with several organisations. In the case of criminal justice, it could involve a number of the 70 plus IT systems that manage similar sets of information.
“People get frustrated with government when they have to share the same information with different agencies time and time again,” O’Neill said. “If we can make it simpler to easily and safely share information, we can help them work faster and more efficiently. And, we can make things simpler, clearer, and faster for users.”
Collaboration and transformation
He added: “We’re working collaboratively across multiple organisations to find out if shared platforms will transform these user journeys.
“If we can make building blocks of code and functionality that can be re-used more widely across government, this can help to transform more departments and services too. We believe this will save money and provide better services.”
The project is now in the discovery phase, in which the team is speaking with service users and other government agencies. O’Neill said this part of the process should be completed soon.
Picture from gov.uk under Open Government Licence v3.0
