United Kingdom – England and Wales
National e-Justice systems
Successful up and running national e‐Justice system?
Office of the Public Guardian: Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA)
• First of 25 government digital exemplars to pass the Government Digital Service ‘Digital by Default Service Standard’ assessment and go into live service
• A deed put in place to appoint people to manage your affairs in case you were to ever lack mental capacity in the future for
health and welfare, and property and financial affairs
• Aim: to make it faster, easier and cheaper for users
The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG)
OPG: Executive Agency of the Ministry of Justice:
• Registers lasting powers of attorney (LPA) and enduring powers of attorney (EPA), which allow people to choose who they want to make decisions on their behalf were they to lose mental
capacity
• Supervises deputies appointed by the Court of Protection (normally where an attorney hasn’t been appointed prior to mental capacity being lost)
• Investigates allegations of abuse against attorneys or deputies
• Maintains registers of deputies, LPAs and EPAs
Digital Services in the UK: England and Wales
Government Service Design Manual
From April 2014 all new and redesigned digital government services will need to be so good that people prefer to use them
Discovery: Feb 2012
Alpha:
Feb – Apr 2012
Beta:
Jul 2012 – Jul 2013
Live: May 2014
Discovery: Feb 2012
Digital journey: paper – discovery – Alpha – Beta ‐ Live
Key drivers for this success?
• Meeting user needs – using agile development to build a core digital service quickly and then continually improving it to
make it better
• Digital by default – all new and redesigned digital government services that are so good people prefer to use them
• Reducing cost – for users and for Government
Government Digital Services saved €250m last year by:
• scrutinising digital and IT spend requests across government
• transitioning websites to single site GOV.UK
• transforming online services
Lasting Powers of Attorney Dashboard
Aiming to achieve 80% digital applications by 2016
Measure user feedback
Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) ‐ successes
• Anticipated volume – 300,000 applications per year
• Very positive feedback from users of the service
• LPA service named runner‐up in Civil Service Awards
• Reduction in error rates moving from paper‐based to digital service
• Service performance measured and published
• 90% of digital users paying online – shifted €3.5m from cheques to online payments
• First exemplar to pass the live Digital by Default Service Standard assessment – Ministry of Justice a leading digital department
• Now in live service release
Lasting Powers of Attorney ‐ challenges
• Agency‐wide digital transformation to allow the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) to become a digital exemplar
• Building support models for new digital services – the service wrap
• Going first!
• Design and digital skills needed are very new
• A Lasting Power of Attorney is a Deed – we are still challenged by the need for a ‘wet’ signature and may need legislative
changes
Overcoming design and implementation problems
• Agile approach – open and transparent, closer to users, empowering teams, seeing risks early and addressing them
• Support from Government Digital Services to meet Digital by Default Service Standard – includes assisted digital
• Involved users in designing and developing the service making the many small improvements users asked for
• New ways of procuring: new government digital frameworks, user stories instead of rigid specification, shorter contracts to allow flexibility, open source software development and
support
Agile delivery methods
• Using ‘Scrum’ methodology for software development
• Building incrementally: iterative, small products delivered quickly, focused on user need
• Team empowered to deliver
• Testing with real users as soon as possible
• Short, time‐boxed cycles (sprints)
• Moved focus from process to customer outcomes, we no
longer measure how quickly we digitally move a piece of paper but measure what the impact is on the customer
Digitising Criminal Justice System ‐ challenges
• OPG is a single agency, Criminal Justice System much more complex, integrating systems between many different players e.g. digital case files, storing and accessing digital evidence
• Crime is becoming more digital, evidential base is becoming more digital even for non‐digital crimes
• Agile approach to build a Criminal Justice System for the future
• Empower teams to have authority for making fast decisions and identifying benefits ‐ what can we do now that meets future need?
• User‐first: find out who they are, involve them early, ask them what they want, build to their needs, take their feedback and act on it
More details
• Office of the Public Guardian Lasting Power of Attorney:
https://www.gov.uk/lasting‐power‐of‐attorney
• Government Digital by Default Service Standard:
https://www.gov.uk/service‐manual/digital‐by‐default
• Ministry of Justice Digital Strategy:
• http://open.justice.gov.uk/digital‐strategy/
• Christine Lewis, Ministry of Justice: Christine.lewis@justice.gsi.gov.uk
• Kit Collingwood‐Richardson, Head of Digital, Office of the Public Guardian:
kit.collingwood@publicguardian.gsi.gov.uk
