Apply for the Armed Forces Compensation and War Pension Scheme
The alpha report of Ministry of Defence's Apply for the Armed Forces Compensation and War Pension Scheme service assessment on 20/02/2020
Apply for the Armed Forces Compensation and War Pension Schemes service
| From: | Central Digital and Data Office |
| Assessment date: | 20/02/20 |
| Stage: | Alpha |
| Result: | Not met |
| Service provider: | Ministry of Defence |
Previous assessment reports
N/A
Service description
Veterans are reliant on an outdated paper-based claims process which does not easily enable users to access the compensation they are entitled to. This service allows users to apply for compensation by submitting information related to an injury or illness which has occurred as a result of or during service.
Service users
Veterans who have obtained or developed an injury or illness as a result of or during service or someone using the service on behalf of a veteran.
These users could range from:
- injured or uninjured pension-aged individuals who are no longer working
- those who have left the service with injuries at a working age
- widows or those bereaved through service
- those who served in the Second World War and subsequent National Service between 1939 to 1960
- those who have left the service and following another career or looking for a new career
- employees of charitable organisations
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- user needs have been identified and iterated in discovery and alpha through user research, which has included users with assisted digital needs, and low confidence levels. The team also provided evidence demonstrating a significant group of their users are suffering from mental health issues. All these needs are reflected in the personas the team has identified
- through their user research the team has understood user knowledge, behaviour, and capabilities. They have also made a great effort to understand their users’ experiences and pain points, which have been reflected in a user’s journey map through the service
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the team has shared their insights and findings with other relevant teams. They have consistently engaged with policy and operational colleagues, and have developed personas for all relevant internal staff groups
- the team has used a variety of appropriate user research methods with a range of users throughout alpha
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- employ a permanent User Researcher. Without this there is no service sustainability moving into beta. The team must have a permanent User Researcher to ensure service development remains user-centred
- develop a user research plan for the beta phase. This should have been written in alpha. Given the lack of committed user research resource moving into beta, a user research plan would have been of great benefit in evidencing the work required
- be clearer about how users’ needs have been prioritised in alpha prototype development, and how they will be prioritised in beta development
- given the uncertainties involved around technical elements of the service, as well as the complexities of user behaviour and the interaction with other services, it is recommended that a service blueprint be developed as part of Beta
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service met point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has started to address their users’ problems, focusing on the problems they have identified with the claim form
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- focus on the end-to-end service journey. At this stage this service focuses on the front-end and is waiting for the back-end work to start. Until this happens the end-to-end benefits cannot be realised
- show how development of the back end is being led by the user needs emerging from the alpha and private beta phases
- improve the service provided after the claim form has been submitted. Improvements should reduce the time the process takes, and reduce the number of status-chasing phone calls users make
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has changed current GOV.UK pages, making the existing service easier to find
- the team includes someone with a background in operations, who has detailed knowledge of the paper, in person, and phone-based aspects of the existing service
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- reconsider the identity checking step, which blocks applicants from proceeding for up to 24 hours. This is likely to be a barrier, especially for claimants who get assistance filling in the form. At the moment 38% of claimants using the paper form do so with some assistance
- explore how the digital service could help those in the protected population claim online, rather than excluding them
- reword and reduce the number of questions asked by the paper form, based on what the team has learned from making the online form
- look at how the service could access information that the Ministry of Defence already knows about the user, for example their service record, rather than having the user fill it in
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team’s design work on translating the long paper form to digital has been excellent. They’ve worked methodically but still got a lot done in a short time
- the team has reduced the number of questions asked by about a third
- they have made targeted improvements to questions that users found confusing or off putting. The improvements they’ve made demonstrate their understanding of the users’ context
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- spend more time on the content design of the service. They’ve made good, targeted improvements to some questions, appropriate for the alpha stage. But for a beta assessment the team needs to show consistently high quality content throughout the service. This means clear, not overly-verbose, without spelling mistakes, and written in GOV.UK style. The panel is concerned that without a full time content designer on the team there won’t be someone responsible for meeting this standard
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service met point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has done research with users of assistive technology during their alpha phase
- they have a good understanding of how the wording of questions can present barriers to people who are anxious about using the service
- they are benefitting from the accessibility of components from the GOV.UK Design System
- the existing offline service has good support provision for users who need help making a claim
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- beware that the KPIs around reduced call volumes and reduced home visits are met through improving the service, not making support harder to access
- do an accessibility audit to make sure the services complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service did not meet point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- for the alpha phase the service has a good multidisciplinary team in place who have delivered good work
- the team currently is made up of a blend of contractors and civil servants who have experience in delivering services
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- define roles and responsibilities. The Service Owner also plays the role of Product Owner, yet is not empowered to change the whole service. For example ownership of the off-line form and (yet to be built) back-end of the service sits within a different team
- make sure knowledge is not lost. Most of the current team will not be part of the beta work so a plan needs to be put in place to ensure knowledge is not lost during the resource changeover
- put a plan in place to ensure the service team has access to a Delivery Manager
- whilst the Automation Garage will be providing Architecture and Development resources for the team to build the solution, there is not a plan in place for beta yet. Having a technical lead embedded in the team would provide assurance and continuity going forward, be that a contract, permanent or ring fenced Automation Garage lead on the team
- there needs to be a sustainable resourcing approach to delivering the service, covering the key roles of a service team
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team showed good evidence of their use of agile ways of working
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- be clear how they will continue to work in agile when the new team members start and the relationship with the Automation Garage begins
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team showed good evidence of iterating the service to frequently improve it, covering aspects of design and content
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- work with the owner of the off-line form to produce a roadmap of improvements to that part of the service based on user research findings
- ensure there is a plan in place to have a multidisciplinary team to continue to improve and iterate the service
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team is very aware of the sensitivity of the data involved for the service and has a strict framework of governance around it. This scrutiny starts with the data itself and its classification and continues through to the services processing it. The panel was impressed with the teams due diligence
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- the service team should check whether it’s appropriate to use GOV.UK Notify to send emails containing special category personal data (specifically data concerning a person’s health). If this isn’t an appropriate way for the service to send submissions to the back office then the team should be prepared to explore other options
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had a good understanding of analytics and KPIs to show what good looked like
- the team had engaged with GDS and had plans in place to be able to use data to iterate the service
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue improving the plan evidencing what data they are wanting to collect that shows they are meeting user needs identified through their user research
- ensure they influence KPIs for the back-end of the service
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team has planned a robust yet simple architecture that will allow for easy iteration and a resilient, scalable service. They have planned to containerise the application and deploy it on GOV.UK PaaS with continuous improvement and development supported by a Jenkins pipeline. For the webform, they will be using .NET Core 3.1 for the APIs and user interface and the GOV.UK Design System with no javascript, as they have a keen eye towards the accessibility requirements of their users. Finally, for managing state they will utilise cookies and a Redis cache and notifications will be sent using GOV.UK Notify
- the panel was pleased with the approach the service team took towards determining how to structure their data and the story they told around it. When looking at the data underlying the service, the team considered various data structures and said that at first they did not appreciate just how complex it could get. The service team let the data and research inform their solution and found that using a graph data structure was the best fit
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team currently has a private Github and have plan to make their source code public in beta
13. Use and contribute to common standards, components and patterns
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team has planned to use common components such as GOV.UK Notify, GOV.UK Platform as a Service and the Design System in their architecture. They were also planning on using GOV.UK Verify and the service team has been investigating alternative means of identity verification and are talking with other departments about what they are doing to have a viable alternative to pursue in beta
- for their prototyping, the service team decided to use the GOV.UK Prototyping Kit with Heroku, and while the service team said that there was some learning around this as it was their first time using it, it gave them the ability to more dynamically iterate their designs
- the service team plans to create a reusable, dynamic form component that can handle many levels of nested and repeating data. As a common problem this presents the team with an opportunity to share this across the wider government and the panel would encourage this
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- as there would be a benefit to using Verify for the service team, they should find out if there’s capacity to use it from their GDS contact
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team has put a lot of thought into their plans for beta, having an eye on ensuring that the service itself is reliable. The team has planned architecture that will be easy to remediate and ensure the health of individual components as well as building colour around what would happen in the event of a service disruption for dependencies
- the service team was also able to assure that in the event of a long running outage that the paper process will always be available. In fact, as this journey will always remain an option the service team have been able to effect change in the paper form, making the journey more user friendly as a whole
Published 17 April 2020