5.1 Activity: Advance digital transformation

We said we’d undertake a range of actions and discoveries, working with public service partners, to push transformation forward across Wales. This would include work such as baselining services, direct delivery and identifying priority areas for investment

To advance digital transformation, we’ve:

launched a comprehensive Digital Landscape Review to create a baseline of service delivery across the Welsh public sector and to prioritise areas for CDPS to support digital transformation
built 7 multidisciplinary teams to work with public sector partners in Wales on development of digital services

Henry Holms, a CDPS senior product manager, describes surveying the state of public services in Wales as part of the Digital Landscape Review team

The goal

The goal of the Digital Landscape Review (DLR) has been to develop a better understanding of existing digital public services in Wales to:

identify where CDPS can link up teams and services
prioritise areas for development and investment

The user needs

There has been, so far, no comprehensive picture of the state of digital public services in Wales. The DLR team have talked to service teams throughout the country about how well their services:

meet the needs of the people who use them
align with the Digital Service Standards for Wales

The data the team gathered throughout 2021-22 will help CDPS and others, such as the chief digital officers, to prioritise our work in 2022-23. We will focus our support on where it will have the biggest impact for service users.

Who was involved?

A diverse range of organisations from local authorities to Welsh Government sponsored bodies (such as the National Library of Wales and Sport Wales) and health and care organisations.

What we’ve achieved

Through the project’s discovery and alpha stages, the DLR team have:

identified several hundred Welsh public sector services
spoken to hundreds of people within more than 30 public sector organisations
run workshops to reveal common problems across services
worked out criteria for where CDPS can have the greatest impact

From the resulting evidence, the team concluded that organisations need more help to adopt the Digital Service Standards for Wales and to embed them in their day-to-day work. Other broad challenges include:

designing true bilingual, Welsh-English services rather than simply translating English to Welsh
encouraging widespread use of service analytics
embedding good cybersecurity and information security
broadening user research beyond simple surveys
making services more accessible, so no one gets left behind by digital transformation
encouraging a culture of continuous improvement, even when a service is live

What’s next?

The DLR is now well into its beta phase. From a list of 16 potential action areas identified by the DLR, the CDPS board consulted others about which areas to prioritise. The board prioritised 7 areas:

digital maturity in health
case management
digital procurement
cloud re-platforming
publishing
user accounts
online forms
measuring and tracking

CDPS, with the chief digital officers, is now looking at how to act on these priorities.

Multidisciplinary team: primary care services discovery

Anne-Marie Cunningham, associate medical director at Digital Health and Care Wales, on how CDPS is supporting DHCW to let patients access services in a more digital way.

The goal

Through wide-ranging interviews, to understand users’ (patients) and providers’ (GPs and practice staff) experience of primary health care in Wales and, particularly, of digital interactions.

The user needs

The COVID-19 pandemic made many of us interact with our GPs remotely, making the need for good digital healthcare services more pressing.

This discovery has helped health and care organisations to understand the needs of patients and healthcare providers in Wales better. That will help those organisations to make sound decisions when developing digital services for the public.

Who else was involved?

Digital Services for Patients and Public (DSPP) was the project sponsor.

Users and providers of patient-facing digital systems, including My Health Online, as well as GPs and GP practice nurses, managers and administration staff all took part in the research.

What we achieved

The discovery team carried out:

60 to 100-minute interviews with 14 respondents registered at practices in Wales
more than 35 hours of GP and GP practice staff interviews, with 23 participants, across all 7 health boards in Wales – from small to large practices in urban and rural areas, around one-fifth of them deprived

The team screened for diverse characteristics for all respondents, covering mental health needs, mobility issues and wide-ranging health conditions. The result was a very full view of patients’ and practitioners’ experiences of primary care services in Wales.

The discovery in numbers

17 hours of stakeholder interviews
35-plus hours of GP and practice staff interviews
20-plus hours of citizen interviews

The team covered 7 health boards, with one-third of practices in rural locations and 22% in deprived areas.

They analysed more than 50 documents and 7 survey responses from heads of primary care.

How did we share skills?

The team did 1-to-1 training with a DSPP delivery manager to turn their traditional, ‘waterfall’ project into an Agile one. They also demonstrated Agile ways of working within healthcare with light touch coaching in show and tells.

Stakeholders observed user research sessions and drawing up of service design maps, where they saw first-hand the value of user-centred design. They’ve since made videos and helped write blog posts to promote Agile principles.

What’s next?

Insights from the primary care discovery have helped DSPP to build a picture of the wider Welsh primary care landscape. The discovery team have presented their research to DHCW’s board, to help shape the future of primary care services in Wales. 

Multidisciplinary team: access to adult social care beta

Nita Sparkes, service delivery lead at Neath Port Talbot Council, on getting to grips with Agile working – and unfamiliar language – on a multidisciplinary team with CDPS.

The goal

Use text messages to improve communication with users of Neath Port Talbot (NPT) Council’s adult social care services.

The user needs

Research revealed that potential users of adult social care from NPT needed, among other things, to:

know how long they’d have to cope without help so they could make suitable arrangements
be regularly updated on the progress of their request so they knew it was still being considered
get the right level of information for their circumstances

The discovery team created personas – such as Carys and Hashim – to help discover adult social care users’ needs

Who else was involved?

NPT Council was CDPS’s main partner in this project. The team also worked earlier with Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent Councils.

What we achieved

CDPS worked with NPT to identify user needs, through research, and to test prototype text message services.

We:

did 2 rounds of user research with 19 users of NPT adult social care services
interviewed Welsh residents who’d accessed adult social care within the last 12 months.

I would have appreciated a text like this after my referral

User research response to a CDPS service prototype

How did we share skills?

Staff from NPT, Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent local authorities have worked in partnership with the team from CDPS.

Our technical lead held sessions with NPT developers and business analysts to develop the text service’s programming interface.

A CDPS squad member also did one-to-one coaching with an NPT council staff member to help them move into their first delivery manager role.

What’s next?

NPT has taken the lead on the ‘Track my request’ service. Having worked with the CDPS tech lead, the NPT tech team were able to rewrite the service’s code base to integrate with their existing text message service.

CDPS also gave NPT guidance on how to write text messages to meet developing user needs.

Multidisciplinary team: Natural Resources Wales hazardous waste discovery

Catrin Hornung, head of communications at Natural Resources Wales, explains how working with CDPS has changed the way she thinks about public services (in Welsh, with subtitles):

The goal

Use hazardous waste treatment as an opportunity to build a user-centred digital service, on Agile principles, in partnership with Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

The user needs

NRW is currently an ‘IT-led’ organisation using traditional, waterfall project management but it wants to become a user-focused one providing better services.

NRW’s hazardous waste treatment ticked several boxes for working with CDPS:

fragments of a service existed, and pain points were clear
there was a legal requirement for users to tell the government they were dealing with hazardous waste

A user-centred hazardous waste service would not only serve NRW’s customers better. It could also provide the organisation with more income and help it demonstrate the benefits of Agile working.

Natural Resources Wales used hazardous waste as an opportunity to work with CDPS on an Agile project, whose stages typically include

discovery (research)
alpha (experiment)
beta (testing)
live (public release)

Who else was involved?

CDPS has been working with NRW’s policy and operational teams to research the hazardous waste service.

What we did

As part of discovery, the combined multidisciplinary team have:

researched user needs with NRW subject matter experts and users of NRW hazardous waste services
analysed NRW’s customer data and website metrics
held workshops to define NRW and stakeholder needs

The team have then been able to narrow the problem down to:

improving the end-to-end ‘service’ (a full service doesn’t exist yet) for users
making hazardous waste treatment more efficient for users and NRW
increasing compliance with waste treatment laws

How did we share skills?

NRW colleagues were part of the discovery team throughout the project. CDPS team members coached them in Agile principles and user research practices. The team also held lunch and learn sessions on topics such as working in the open for NRW staff not directly involved in the project.

What’s next?

At the end of discovery, the team had a broad set of user needs. Around those needs, they could start building service prototypes in the next, alpha phase of Agile development.

Multidisciplinary team: remote-working hubs discovery

The goal

Find out more about the needs of public – and some private – sector staff who want to book spaces at remote working offices, ‘hubs’, in Wales simply and easily.

The user needs

In CDPS research, hub users told us about:

why they would use a hub – for example, for online meetings, to work during school holidays, to avoid other distractions at home or because of weak home wifi
their need for privacy and a quiet space to work – some public sector workers said they needed to keep their work confidential, including for meetings and displaying sensitive information on their screens
facilities they needed at a hub – including access to a printer, scanner and, importantly, enough charging sockets for devices

Who else was involved?

The Welsh Government’s Remote Working team was CDPS’s partner in this discovery.

What we did

The discovery team interviewed 14 potential hub users in rural, urban and suburban areas across Wales. They were male and female, and some spoke Welsh as a first language. Some were disabled, and some had mental health needs.

The team also spoke to 10 hub providers in the public and private sectors.

From this base of users and providers, the team gathered a broad set of user needs. CDPS has used those needs to make recommendations to the Welsh Government about choosing an online hub booking provider.

How did we share skills?

CDPS team members demonstrated Agile principles and a user-centred approach – including user interviews, personas and user needs – to the wider project team.

CDPS also brought procurement expertise (buying goods and services) to the project, helping to demonstrate routes to market.

What’s next?

Based on our research, CDPS has given the Welsh Government guidance about what to consider when choosing an online hub booking provider. That guidance includes how accessible the platform is, as well as the layout and facilities the hubs themselves should have.

Multidisciplinary team: Sport Wales grants

Owen Hathway, an assistant director at Sport Wales, on how working with CDPS has introduced user research and other skills to the whole organisation.

The goal

Increase the reach and impact of Sport Wales community investment grants.

The user needs

The current Sport Wales grant application process throws up significant barriers to people who want to apply for community sport funding.

Through discovery interviews, the project team found that users:

lacked a lot of information they needed about applying, especially about eligibility (whether they could apply)
were put off by complicated language in the application process

Throughout the alpha (experimental) stage of service development, the combined CDPS-Sport Wales team have been using user-centred design to:

provide information only where and when users need it in the application process
use simple language that users understand

A more inclusive service will reduce the burden on users, while meeting the organisational needs of Sport Wales. It promises to make grants accessible to everyone who is eligible – so sport funding can make the real difference that it should.

Who else was involved?

CDPS’s main partner in this project has been Sport Wales.

The combined team have also depended heavily on the participation of the people whose needs the service must meet – grass-roots sport clubs, associations and communities across Wales, with a special focus on hard-to-reach groups.

What the team achieved

In discovery, the team:

surveyed current and potential Sport Wales grant applicants, receiving 228 responses
did 59 interviews with current and potential applicants

In alpha, the team evaluated 4 online grant application prototypes, in 15 sessions, with previous grant applicants.

How did we share skills?

Sport Wales colleagues were part of the service development team, alongside CDPS. This experience increased their understanding of Agile and multidisciplinary team working.

Specifically, the CDPS team:

coached a Sport Wales subject matter expert to become a product manager
paired CDPS user researchers with Sport Wales researchers to increase their skills

CDPS team members also held masterclasses in Agile subjects (discovery, alpha, beta, live stages; what user needs are; how to ‘fail’) and Agile drop-in sessions for Sport Wales colleagues.

What’s next?

The team are now designing and testing an end-to-end user journey for sport grant applications, to launch this year.

Multidisciplinary team: Welsh Revenue Authority – data proof of concept

Melissa Quignon-Finch, Chief People and Communications Officer at the Welsh Revenue Authority, on how CDPS has helped the organisation sketch a path towards becoming fully digital.

The goal

Build a working proof of concept to demonstrate how data can support simpler, fairer and more efficient devolved land and property taxation.

The user needs

The Welsh Revenue Authority’s (WRA) ambition is to become a fully digital tax organisation for Wales. User-centred services, built on Agile principles, have the potential to make taxation simpler, fairer and more efficient.

A combined CDPS-WRA team explored how a data platform for land and property in Wales could support geographically varied taxes. They also considered how such a platform could be useful to other Welsh organisations in local government or the third sector.

Since January 2022, the team:

clarified the scale of ambition and where to start
brought opportunities and challenges to life
gave ministers potential policy options
demonstrated new ways of working

Who else was involved?

Along with the WRA, CDPS worked with the IT consultancy Kainos.

What has been achieved

The proof of concept team have started by:

understanding Land Transaction Tax rules and the data the tax needs to work, including creating step by step examples
publishing a project website and weeknotes – to clarify their thinking for themselves and, working in the open, to let everyone else know what they’re doing

The team have been doing user research with WRA service delivery teams to understand how they currently design services. They’ve also done workshops with policy teams to understand potential emergent needs.

How did we share skills?

CDPS transferred skills to WRA colleagues by:

coaching them in Agile, user-centred product delivery
giving them Agile training

What’s next?

The team will be creating 2 or 3 service prototypes that exemplify a user-centred approach and give ministers options about services they might go ahead and build.

Multidisciplinary team: Public Sector Broadband Aggregation scheme

The goal

Support an incident with a web-filtering service provided to schools through Public Sector Broadband Aggregation (PSBA) and prevent it happening again.

The user needs

The Welsh Government needed to understand the technical issues underlying an important service incident affecting how learners safely accessed the internet in schools. Schools needed to continue teaching through the incident in a way that did not negatively affect children’s learning.

Who else was involved?

As well as the Welsh Government team, local authorities and suppliers.

What we did

CDPS provided:

a crisis communications specialist to improve communications about the PSBA incident and give local authorities more helpful information to distribute to schools
an incident manager to help understand the technical issues involved and challenge the supplier

Working closely with partners and suppliers, these specialists helped to fully restore the service and to rebuild trust with local authorities.

In parallel, CDPS managed a ‘blameless post-mortem‘ (detailed examination) of the incident, covering communications, technical architecture, commercial arrangements, contracts and resolution.

How did we share skills?

Our specialists paired with Welsh Government staff to transfer skills and knowledge to better support the service in the future.

The post-mortem provided lessons to help prevent future incidents and handle them better when they do occur.

What’s next?

We are running a discovery into how a future web-filtering service could meet future needs of schools, learners and the new Curriculum for Wales.

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Looking back: CDPS year in review 2021 to 2022