Knowledge sharing – Digital Service Standards
27 September 2021
Last week we held our sixth knowledge sharing webinar, focused on the Digital Service Standards and how Sport Wales tested them as part of their recent discovery work.
Session overview
Ann Kempster, Head of Delivery at the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) gave an update on the standards and outlined the changes that had been made since the first iteration.
Two new standards have been added, bringing the total to 12 and they have been categorised into three themes:
- meeting user needs
- creating good digital teams
- using the right data and technology
Ann talked through each of the 12 standards and gave information on the thing’s organisations should be thinking about in applying them before handing to Maria Carmo and the team from Sport Wales.
How Sport Wales are using the standards
Maria gave a background into the work the CDPS have been doing with Sport Wales in helping them understand “how can Sport Wales increase the reach and impact of their community investments (grants)” during an 8 week ‘discovery’ phase.
Rebecca Pudsey and Steffan Berrow from Sport Wales explained how they used the digital service standards during this phase.
For the purpose of the webinar, they focused on two of the standards and gave an insight into the discussions they had as a team around how they were applying them:
- designing bilingual services
They did this by undertaking the discovery phase bilingually, including survey design, interviews and blog posts from the start. This prompted them to think about how their applications are currently received in Welsh.
- understanding users and their needs
This was a key consideration from the start and throughout the 8-week discovery period. The first exercise involved the team trying to understand who their users were. Secondly, they wanted to understand the needs and desires of the users identified. Reflecting on this standard made the team check and challenge from the outset.
What’s next for the Digital Service Standards?
Ann closed this part of the webinar by updating attendees on next steps which include advertising a Head of Standards role next week and setting up a standards board with the Chief Digital Officers from Welsh Government, Local Government, Health and CDPS.
Discussion and questions
In the discussion that followed we covered a wide range of topics including:
- how many organisations are designing services to the standards in Wales so far
- how the standards will improve the use, reuse and discoverability of data internally and externally within the public sector
- whether there will be sector specific standards for different sectors
- how the standards will be assessed and what the assurance process will be
- the approach the CDPS are taking to skills and capability linked with the standards
Watch the recording
If you were unable to attend the webinar, but would like to hear the conversation, you can access the recording here: Knowledge Sharing – Digital Service Standards
