Digital Service Delivery, E-Leaders 2021

Overview

The E-Leaders of the Working Group of the Digital Service Delivery Standards have worked on how to implement and update general principles for digital service standards.

A digital service standard is a government standard outlining the key principles and expectations of how departments or ministries should think about the design, procurement, implementation and delivery of best-in-class digital services.

The Working Group of the Digital Service Delivery Standards was coordinated by the UK Government Digital Service and part of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) E-Leaders Thematic Groups.

Digital Service Delivery Standards E-Leaders

The annual OECD E-Leaders meeting was held in London at the beginning of October 2021, hosted by the UK Government Digital Service.

The E-Leaders of the Working Group focused on how digital standards are useful in the context of designing and buying digital services.

The principles for digital service standards were discussed alongside the experiences from member states of designing and implementing their own digital agendas.

Working Group 2021 members

United Kingdom – Coordinator
OECD Digital Service Delivery team
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Egypt
Israel
Japan
Luxembourg
New Zealand
Portugal
Mexico
Morocco
Panama
Portugal
Republic of Ireland
Qatar
Uruguay

General findings

Among the digital service teams of the member states, we discussed how to develop and implement the best digital standards for investing in digital services.

We share the experience of public sector digital professionals who are part of the Working Group.

1. Update the Government Service Standard

The Government Service Standard helps the government to build and run good quality services. The E-leaders Working Group have reflected and contributed to the following good practice principles:

Meeting user needs

1.Understand users, their needs and the context
2. Solve a whole problem for users
3. Provide a joined up experience across all channels
4. Make the service simple to use
5. Make sure everyone can use the service

Building and running a service

6. Build the service with a multidisciplinary team
7. Use agile ways of working
8. Iterate and improve frequently
9. Protect users’ privacy
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data

Using the right technology

11. Choose the right tools and technology
12. Use and contribute to common standards, components and patterns
13. Operate a reliable service
14. Make new source code open

2. Implement Service Standard Principles

We propose a set of principles to complement the Government Service Standard and help governments to implement the points within the Service Standard.

Digital service design implementation principles

  1. Establish senior government level priority, endorsement and mandate to operate
  2. Form a specialised team with the technical capabilities for implementation
  3. Provide a whole-of-government approach to service design, back-to-front and front-to-back
  4. Consider legal mandates and implications for the implementation of the Service Standard
  5. Create an enabling governance process to support the implementation and assure alignment to Service Standard
  6. Run a series of workshops to test the new ways of working, processes and templates to gather feedback and refine
  7. Publish standard templates, guides and patterns for easy implementation
  8. Create an online manual to correctly assess the implementation activities and a tool repository
  9. Increase capability – government schemes or academies to increase understanding, such as agile for senior leaders.

3. Working Group Products

Working with other thematic groups, we hope to explore and produce an online set of playbooks that connect investment, buying and delivery amongst others.

Portugal: national participatory platform

Portugal implemented Participa.Gov, a national platform that supports citizen participation processes and uses secure and reliable technologies for citizens to vote. It consists of the various citizen participation process phases:

  1. Submission of the proposal
  2. Technical analysis
  3. Temporary results and complaints
  4. Votes
  5. Winning proposals
  6. Tracking the execution of the winning proposals

4. Areas for further development

  1. Include the public sector along with government
  2. Clarity on assessment teams – a central team and teams in the individual departments
  3. Show the assessment standard used for laws and regulations
  4. Clarify on assessment steps and guidance
  5. Ensure regular assessments to update the services consistent with the standards
  6. Show more visibility on interoperability for point 12 of the standard (Use and contribute to common standards, components and patterns) so that it is explicitly visible

Related reports

Read OECD E-Leaders Digital Service Delivery 2019 (5mb)