2.3.1. Sport Wales grants: improving access and impact
Objective 2: Support others to ensure that people can access digital public services by helping them create services that are designed around user needs
Objective 3: Work with others to develop a digital workforce strategy for public services in Wales and support practical measures to create a pipeline of skilled professionals
Five Ways of Working: Long-term, involvement, collaboration, prevention
7 well-being goals: A resilient Wales, a healthier Wales, a more equal Wales, a Wales of more cohesive communities
In last year’s annual review, we highlighted the work we were doing with Sport Wales to increase the reach and impact of their community grants system.
In June 2022, we completed our extended alpha phase.
Here’s Owen Hathway, Assistant Director, Insights, Policy and Public Affairs with a recap and update.
Transcript
“I'm Owen Hathaway, I'm the Assistant Director for Insights, Policy and Public Affairs at Sport Wales
It was a two-pronged approach really. Firstly, what was the type of system we needed to put in place and the procurement around that, that was going to make the user journey as easy and as intuitive and as accessible as possible, ensuring that when people actually engage with our grant system, that they find it easy to use, they have a good experience and they want to come back and we could make it a successful application process, but secondly, we also recognised that we really needed to reach new users. We wanted to expand the reach of our funds, we didn't want to continue to just support people who were already aware of us and had a positive experience to Sport Wales, but what about those clubs, community groups, individuals, who neither new Sport Wales or if they did, potentially had negative views about the organisation and therefore were put off from applying.
So, we spent a lot of time working with CDPS around user research, understanding the public, those who had previously applied, those who have never applied, those who have been successful and unsuccessful, to really be able to reframe our grants approach, the types of grants we offer, how we advertise them, how we communicated them and how we work with the public, so that we've got more people, from more deprived communities from different ethnic minority groups, for those who have different types of needs and different types of sports to be able to apply to Sport Wales and then as I say that procurement process, to ensure that once they did, they had a good experience.
The project is still evolving really, we are continually now in a process of understanding Agile ways of work and thanks to the work we did with the Centre, we are embedding that approach across our organisation, so we are continually going out to the community, understanding user needs in a different way, some of that will lead to different ways of investing and different ways of our grant surviving, but actually what we've discovered is by having that user-centric approach, that Agile ways of working, that working with community and around user reach and user needs, we've developed it into different parts of the business, so the governance team or the sports system team, those who work with athletes, those who work on our communications, are all operating in a slightly different way post this project because we've embedded different ways of working across the organisation.
As for our investments team, we've rolled out new things such as the way in which we invest. We've got a new grant coming out, looking at different investments around energy efficiency, different investments around capital funding and we've actually employed individuals in community focused roles, so that we are not only actively working with communities to ensure that they're able to access our funding but upskill in those communities so that becomes a sustainable practice.
So, from the top to bottom of our organisation, the project that we've had with the Centre has changed the way we work and it's a continually evolving process that has been embedding across a number of different work streams.
It's too soon to say exactly what the impact has been, we've certainly seen a slight uptake in terms of the engagement we've had around our funding because of the communications we've approached, we're getting far more applications in and particularly more applications in from new users, so it does appear to be some really early positive signs around the engagement process that we are changing the language around some of our funds, changing the focus of our communications and that user experience has been a little bit different and that's really positive.
Another thing we implemented that in early signs has been really successful, is an expression of interest form, so previously we had applicants apply specifically to certain grants. Now we're asking people just to tell us about what they want, tell us about why they need it, and that work around which grant is applicable, how they go about the process, is all done by us, so that expression of interest has started a conversation, more often than not, that means it's a much better experience and we are able to support more people to more positive outcomes but even when it doesn't involve funding, it's created a dialogue that leads us to have a better relationship with the community, I think long term, that's where we expect to see the big change
I'd love to look back in a few years' time and see that our funding is going to even more disproportionately invested in deprived communities, we are seeing more first-time applicants, we are seeing a broader range of sports applying and a broader range of applicants in terms of gender, race disability. These are incremental steps to get to that ultimate endpoint but certainly, the signs are positive thus far.
So, there's a couple of next steps. Some of them are tangible and some of them are more long-term. We are currently embedding the new investment system; we've been developing that as part of a procurement service that the Centre for Digital Public Services really work with us to develop. That will be coming online during the course of this year, a lot of work is going on in the background around ensuring that the forms the eligibility criteria etc is accessible and easy as possible, that we strip out all the admin for those who are applying. That's a tangible change we'll see in the next few months.
We are having new roles in the community; they are coming online and we're seeing better relationships as a result of those. So, some really quick wins to be had here. Long term next steps are how to continually evolve that, we are launching new funds time and again, we've got an energy fund that's launching in the next few weeks which will be the new fund that Sport Wales has launched since 2020, showing that adaptability and flexibility. But certainly, we are looking to constantly learn from the funds that we launch, to be able to reflect and reimagine those as an ongoing process and work with communities and work with applicants to be able to ensure that how we design those funds, how we launch them, how we assess them, how we evaluate the success is all being led by user need, which is a substantial shift in approach for the organisation.”
They have also built a new digital team, by upskilling existing staff and creating 2 digital apprentice roles.
To help them achieve this, they have been linking the work they did with CDPS to their organisational strategy.
Brian Davies, Chief Executive Officer, explains:
Transcript
“The work we've been doing with CDPS has resonated so much with our own strategy that was formulated through our involvement with CDPS. Our strategy talks about being person-centred, and our work with CDPS talks about measuring the needs of users. We also talk about agility in our strategy and our approach and the work with CDPS talks about adapting and testing and reiterating things, not being afraid to fail.
So, there's so many things that we've learned, I think we've learned mutually with CDPS how to approach some of the things that are important. Working with CDPS has given us the confidence to deliver things, by actually being clear on what the issues are before we develop the solution. It sounds obvious and straightforward but sometimes it takes a third party to actually point out where you might be running before you can walk, and the other thing we're definitely going to take forward following the work with CDPS, is the fact that we need to protect time for individuals when they're looking at some of these projects and developments, and that is really important.
The staff fed back that the way we protected their time to concentrate on a particular area of work was invaluable. Again, it sounds fairly obvious, but sometimes when you're in the heat of developing things, or initiating things, it gets lost in the fog. So, it's been really useful, and we'll definitely take all those things forward in other work that we do.
Bringing CDPS in meant that we needed to work together in an embedded fashion, not just sort of casually dropping in and out, and where we protected time for our staff to concentrate on a particular project and that was also then dedicated by CDPS as well, so they effectively became an internal team, albeit online or you know over Teams or Zoom. If you don't do that, you run the risk of not really working collaboratively on the project and getting the synergy that is potentially there. The staff that we've used from CDPS, or the resources that we've used from CDPS, I think have also felt that they are part of our team, so there's a mutual responsibility here to make sure it's a two-way street and that both parties feel engaged and valued. I do believe we got that with our relationship with CDPS on the projects.
I would just add that I think as a public body, it's great when you come across another public body that was more or less sharing the same values and principles and effectively the same strategy about involving and listening to people. At the end of the day, we're trying to develop a product i.e., sport and physical activity for the public in Wales, and digital can play an important part in reaching areas we may not be reaching. So, working with an agency that has skills in the digital environment has hopefully helped us bridge into a community we might not be fully engaged with at the minute.
So, it's been you know really invaluable, and I know the staff have worked on the projects with CDPS have really enjoyed it and will take lessons forward.”
Tara Rhoseyn, Digital and Service Design Programme Manager, tells us about the new Agile way of working and the recruitment of digital apprentices:
Transcript
“One of the first key things we did is making sure that we've established new Agile ways of working and principles, to ensure that we can deliver projects and services that really meet user needs across the business.
So, we're now introducing a process by which anyone from Sport Wales can request help or guidance from the team, for a project or idea they have, and we can then form project teams with those colleagues to directly work on them together, following a lot of that Agile project methodologies, that we've learned through working with CDPS.
Another really big aspect of important work that we learned from CDPS, is also just how you communicate, really kind of embedding that Agile value of working in the open.
So, one of the big tasks that we're doing at the moment, is figuring out a communication plan and delivering on that. so that internally, we're sharing key outputs that we create as a team, you know things like writing posts on what we've learnt, even if it's something that we would do differently in the future, that's made such a big difference to how the team is working because we're building trust with colleagues, and we're constantly improving our processes, that even at this early stage, we're really kind of trying to embed that iterative approach that we learned through working with CDPS.
We're really passionate about growing our own internal capacity in terms of digital talent and skills, largely because it means that we can deliver services with greater control and sustainability in the long run, and we saw the apprenticeships as a really positive way of doing that, it's such a powerful jump start to a career. You're not only gaining full-time employment, you're also earning a bachelor's degree alongside, and in exchange we get staff who are learning up-to-date best practice and can deliver digital projects for us, as part of their learning and I find that because of the nature of an apprenticeship, you know, you're moving around a lot to different teams, we have our apprentices move teams between the infrastructure side and the service design, product development side every six months. You're learning as much as you can, you're learning from completely different skills and areas. In the degree course you're also meeting other apprentices from different organisations, so I found that it's not only advanced the technical skills of the apprentices, but it's actually really advanced the professional social development skills of them.
So, I think one of the things that I find that CDPS has done so successfully, and not just for our organisation, across the public sector in Wales, is just instilling more confidence to try things. I think for so many public sector bodies, the answer to creating a digital solution is to just go out to tender, get somebody and say this is what I want, here's money, just go build it, and I think what CDPS has actually done is turned that on its head and said you know, maybe there's a better way of doing this, we can design things that are going to be more sustainable for you, more sustainable for your user base, and actually, we have more confidence now to just either try things on our own, or when we are going out to tender we have such a better idea of the kinds of ways that we want to work together.”
User-centred champions
The team at Sport Wales are also championing user-centred approaches. At their summit this year, which attracted almost 200 people from Welsh sport's governing bodies, clubs, trusts, and local authorities, they highlighted the value of working with users and avoiding assumptions when making decisions.
We worked with them to deliver 3 workshops and challenged assumptions that engaging with users is time-consuming and expensive. We introduced the concept of iterations, testing and continuous learning to make small but meaningful improvements.
Read more
Once upon a time … on an Agile service team
2.3.2. Natural Resources Wales: Waste services: showing the value of user-centred design
Objective 2: Support others to ensure that people can access digital public services by helping them create services that are designed around user needs
Five Ways of Working: Involvement, collaboration
7 well-being goals: A globally responsible Wales
The hazardous waste discovery and waste exemptions alpha were the first projects CDPS and Natural Resources Wales worked on together. It highlighted the benefits of user-centred, Agile service design rather than a traditional, ‘waterfall’ approach.
CDPS worked with Natural Resources Wales’s policy and operational teams and subject-matter experts to understand the current hazardous waste and waste exemptions services. In discovery, the team interviewed organisations that produce and receive hazardous waste. In the alpha phase, they did research with farmers, farmers union staff and an agricultural consultant.
Natural Resources Wales began exploring how they might improve the quality of the Welsh language content and explored a concept called ‘bilingual pair writing,’ where content designers involve a translator in the writing process. Rather than just sending the finished English language content to the translation team, they first met the translator to run through the thinking behind the content and discussed areas where a literal translation of the English into Welsh was problematic. The team also began developing a set of principles to ensure better translations and started work on a framework for bilingual pair writing.
Sharing knowledge and skills
Throughout the discovery and alpha, Natural Resources Wales gave online webinars and masterclasses to their wider staff on different aspects of Agile, content creation and user-centred design. The team’s aim was to highlight the benefits of user-centred design and nudge the organisation towards adopting this approach, which is also a goal of Natural Resources Wales’s new digital strategy and aligns with the Digital Service Standards for Wales.
Read more
Bringing our digital strategy to life
2.3.3. Learn by making
Objective 2: Support others to ensure that people can access digital public services by helping them create services that are designed around user needs
Objective 3: Work with others to develop a digital workforce strategy for public services in Wales and support practical measures to create a pipeline of skilled professionals
Five Ways of Working: Involvement, collaboration
7 well-being goals: A resilient Wales, a Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language
Learn by making was a short experiment to explore how people learn by making things and to test whether CDPS should run a digital learning lab as part of our service offering.
It was a digital lab, made up of 8 practical, immersive sessions to learn digital skills and create a digital service – in the open, for real.
The labs were split into 4 themes:
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introducing Agile service design – introducing techniques with practical activities and fast-paced design challenges
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how to research the problem space – experience qualitative and quantitative research techniques and learn how to identify and prioritise problems to solve
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how to learn by making – design and build prototypes to test your assumptions and learn about real users
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how to build momentum – explore how sharing in the open builds momentum
Natural Resources Wales took part in our first cohort.
The team worked on a prototype to simplify getting permission to use Natural Resources Wales land.
They used the GOV.UK Prototype Kit and carried out with 3 users of Natural Resources Wales’s current permissions service.
Heledd Evans, Digital Manager, explains why she was keen for the team to get involved:
“Natural Resources Wales’s digital strategy was approved by the board last March, which means that a significant change is needed if we’re to improve services for our users.
As a team, we have a good overview of the problems people have using our website and the impact that has on the workload of colleagues in Natural Resources Wales.
We’re not short of ideas for how we make things better, but we’re usually reacting and grappling with ‘organisational asks,’ rather than concentrating on the work that could be of more value for users and Natural Resources Wales.
We jumped at the chance to be part of the learn by making labs.
We wanted to:
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give the team a safe space to explore new ideas – outside of the boundaries of Natural Resources Wales ways of working
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dedicate a fixed amount of the team’s time to explore different approaches to our problems
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create something using standard prototyping kits
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build confidence by trialling things quickly
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experience coaching by experts in Agile and user-centred design
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strengthen confidence in the knowledge and skills we have as a team
We realise this is a very different approach to how things have been done in the past in Natural Resources Wales.”
Their user research found that:
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the current process is not working for users
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there is too much content within the current journey
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the prototype was shown to be easier to use
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users value transparent decision making
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the current service is causing unintended consequences
We asked participants what they learned, and what they will bring back to their organisation:
How was the experience different to what you’ve done before?
“We tend to work on content provided by others in the organisation. When the organisation’s wants around what the content should say (and how it should say it) are firm, this can be challenging. The freedom to create a thing together to meet users’ needs in as simple a way as possible was great.”
What will you take back to the workplace to implement?
“More working in the open. When we’ve tried to work weeknotes and blogs in the open in the past we have agonised over what to say and how to say it. But Giles Turnball encouraged us to be brave, be ourselves and show the thing! This is something we really want to practise and make part of our work every day.”
How will you take this work forward in your team?
“I’m really proud of what the team managed to do in 8 days, and so grateful that they had this opportunity. The team and others are now inspired! And we’re reflecting on what to do next. Not only with the prototype, but with empowering our team to use their expertise to give things a go, test, trial new approaches, and write regular weeknotes.”
Read more
Learning by making things: introducing an experiment