I've been digging into the
service standard and it's use - or not - in local government. The LGA and West Berkshire Council, along with LocalGovDigital, did some work on this earlier in year, which you
read about yourself if you like. Basically, lots of people in local government haven't heard of the service standard, when they have they find a lot of it is incompatible with their everyday reality, and nobody has the time to deal with it anyway.
Still, there remains a need for some kind of way of determining the quality or not of a digital thing going live within local government, particularly when most councils are on something of a journey to embed user centred, agile ways of working, and are a long way from it being the norm.
A couple of the councils I work with have expressed a need for such a thing, and in a spirit of helpfulness I threw myself into putting something together. I had the following things in mind when doing so:
It should be easier for councils to grapple with than the existing gov standard
I should remove words like ‘service’* which add confusion and complexity, so it's easier for councils to know when you use it
The focus must be on learning and improvement rather than a fixed standard that must be met - part of a journey rather than a fixed point in time
It should work as a tool to introduce and convince of the importance of some of these concepts to councils where they may be new
It needs to be embedded within an easy to follow process with guidance to help councils learn as they go
*to be clear, I have no problem at all with the concept of services and service design as a practice. It's really important. But for this specific thing, I want councils to use it even if they have only produced a form, or a web page, or something else really simple. The process of using the checklist then will hopefully encourage them to think beyond such small things and consider entire services in the future.
To avoid confusion, and to give this thing a practical, easy to engage with vibe, I'm calling it a "checklist". It has five main points, which are:
