(AGENPARL) – LONDON ven 01 luglio 2022

The Service Standard helps teams create and operate good public services. It started out as something aimed at central government teams, but the latest version is something you can use even if you’re part of the wider public sector – local government, for example. And you can adapt it for non-transactional services too.

What has to be assessed

You must get your service assessed if it’s the responsibility of a central government department and either of the following apply:

• getting assessed is a condition of your Cabinet Office spend approval
• it’s a transactional service that’s new or being rebuilt – your spend approval will say whether what you’re doing counts as a rebuild

These rules apply even if your service is internal and will only be used by civil servants.

What counts as a transactional service

You’re required to get your service assessed against the Service Standard if you’re a central government department working on a transactional service. Your service is transactional if it allows users to either:

• exchange information, money, permission, goods or services
• submit personal information that results in a change to a government record

If you’re working on one of these services, you’ll usually need to arrange an assessment to check you’re meeting the standard. You’ll find out at spend control if you’re required to have an assessment.

If you’re using an online form builder

If you’re using a form building platform it must follow:

An individual form created using a form building platform will not need to have a service assessment unless any of the following apply:

• it’s likely to handle more than 10,000 transactions per year
• it supports vulnerable people, people in danger or responses to natural disasters
• it helps keep government accountable, and is required by law or regulation
• it’s likely to transfer more than £1 million each year to members of the public or organisations

Which bits of the service get assessed

The Service Standard requires you to think about the user’s wider journey. But that does not mean the entire journey will be assessed when you have your assessment.

The things that get assessed are:

You can still pass a service assessment if there are problems with the wider user journey, as long as you’ve done what’s reasonable in the circumstances to make things better. Service teams should be thinking about the wider journey their service is part of – but it’s important to fix that journey in increments, starting small.

Who will run your assessment

The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) will run your assessments if either:

• your service is likely to handle more than 100,000 transactions per year
• civil servants in more than one organisation will use your service

Otherwise, your service will be assessed by your department’s assessment team. If your department does not have an assessment team, you could ask for help in the #standard-assessments channel on cross-government Slack.

You can check when and how to book an assessment.

Voluntary assessments for central government services

Even if your service does not need an assessment, you can arrange one to check you’re building it in a way that meets the Service Standard.

If you want to arrange a voluntary assessment, contact:

• CDDO by emailing <a – if you expect your service to have more than 100,000 transactions per year
• your digital leader – if your service is likely to have fewer than 100,000 transactions per year

Assessments in local government

If you’re working in local government you can use the localgov digital Slack channel to ask for a peer review of your work.

Adapting the Service Standard

It’s possible to adapt the Service Standard to suit different contexts.

For example, you might be building a non-transactional service like a website or calculator. You will not need to publish data on the mandatory KPIs, but you should still know what your users are trying to do and be collecting data that helps you work out whether they’re able to do that or not.

Or if you’re creating a service for people who work in government, you could take a more relaxed view of things like uptime, as the service is unlikely to be needed 24 hours a day. But make sure to schedule any downtime outside of office hours.

If you’re creating a service that’s not for GOV.UK, it’s still a good idea to use the patterns in the GOV.UK Design System. But it’s not always appropriate to make your service look like GOV.UK.

You may also find the following guides useful:

Fonte/Source: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-assessments/check-if-need-to-meet-service-standard