Digital and Agile: the foundations

In this video, we're going to focus on Service failure. We’ll look at: 

• What it means 
• Examples to demonstrate this 
• The impact it has 

You should have completed the task where we asked these two questions: 

• How much does the Government spend on services? 
• What percentage of this is on service failure? 

Research by GDS research found that: 

• 80% of the cost of government is spent on services 
• up to 60% of that cost is spent on service failure 

Whilst this applied to the UK as a whole, we see a similar picture here in Wales. 

This isn't surprising though. The Government is the oldest and largest service provider in the UK. Its services include anything from applying for a passport, paying taxes or exporting goods. There are thousands of these in total. 

This quote from Lou Downe highlights this. Service failure costs us. It’s even more important that we use money to deliver the best value possible. Especially in Wales, where we tend to have smaller budgets and smaller teams. Many teams end up having to do more with less.  

But what is service failure? 

It's when a user gets stuck when they try to do something. Let's look at some example that may cause this to happen: 

• There may be a question on a form that is difficult to understand. As a result, users don't know how to fill it in, so they have to seek help to complete it. 
• There are broken links or dead ends. This means they can't get to or find what they're looking for. 
• Phone lines are busy or closed. Users can't get through. They can't speak to someone to help them. This again, stops them from completing the task. 
• There may be content which is inaccessible. This could be for a range of reasons, but it acts as a blocker for users. 

Most of the time, it's small things that cause barriers. But they prevent users from completing the task they're trying to complete. The service doesn't meet their basic needs. 

Here's an example that Lou Downe referenced in their presentation, Bad Services. 

At one point, on the GOV.UK website, "Contact DVLA" was 8th on the list of "Top Content". So one of the most popular services people were looking for was a phone number. This is because users can't find what they're looking for, so they want to speak to somebody to ask. 

As an example, if you wanted to take your vehicle off the road, you'd have to submit a "Statutory Off Road Notifcation". Otherwise known by the acronym SORN. But unless you knew that, it'd be difficult to find. So what would a user do? Probably reach for the phone to speak to someone. 

They’ve since renamed that service to "Register your vehicle as off the road". This makes much more sense. It's the kind of thing a user would search for, so they're much more likely to find it. 

But why is this important? 

Service failure has a negative impact on both the users and the organisation: 

• It costs time and money because of unnecessary phone calls or missed appointments. That's time and money that could be better spent elsewhere. 
• Cause users to lose faith, if they have a negative experience. They might find a service difficult to use, causing frustration or confusion. This can impact how they engage in future. This is a particular problem in the context of delivering public services. Most of the time users don't have a choice but to use our service. 
• It puts users at risk. It prevents users accessing the service when they need it. In some contexts, this can result in the worst outcomes for people. Especially if someone drops out of the system altogether.​