Get a fishing rod license
Report for the Get a fishing rod license live assessment on the 11th May 2021
Service Standard assessment report
Get a fishing rod license
| From: | Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) |
| Assessment date: | 11/05/2021 |
| Stage: | Live |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | DEFRA |
Previous assessment reports
Service description
This service aims to help anglers get a fishing licence.
Service users
This service is for:
- recreational anglers
- telesales and assisted digital
- national enforcement service
- incident communications service
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:
- the service team has a good understanding of their users and their needs and identified that there are differences in what is required for primary and secondary users of this service
- the service team provided very good evidence on the high level overview of the users. The case studies were particularly interesting as it showed the feedback that was provided by various users and the problems the service team are trying to resolve
- a good use of data analytics helped drive user research and understand user activity
- a sufficient amount of user research has been delivered using various methods, mainly through remote research (e.g. surveys, telephone surveys, to reach customers not online, remote interviews). Prior to COVID most research was delivered on a face to face basis
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- change the way they recruit participants. The team advised they source participants based on them volunteering to take part. This may cause the results to be skewed a little, as it’s normally the more keen and engaged users who will come forward through this method. The panel recommends exploring other methods of recruitment to ensure you are listening to harder to reach users as well
- consider carrying out research with users on the lower end of the digital inclusion scale
- conduct user research with a wider age range. The majority of research has been carried out with younger users (up to early 20s) and older users (people over 50). Consider carrying out research with more people aged between mid 20s and early 50s
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 is working with other parts of DEFRA and 3rd parties such as Angler’s Trust to collaborate on the end to end journey
- the team is working to simplify other parts of the journey to help users with their end goal – eg. the renewal of licenses, so users don’t have to provide repeat information, and a multibuy option
- the team has gathered policy input and worked with policy to implement a 30 minute minimum timescale for a license to be valid from purchasing, in an effort to reduce enforcement evasion
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure the knowledge and documentation of this service is being shared with the rest of Government, in an effort to work in the open and enable collaboration with those working in similar problem areas
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:
- research has been carried out with internal staff to understand their user needs, and iterations to the service have been made based on these findings
- research findings suggested that users are comfortable in completing the process and have very little difficulty in getting from the start to the end of the journey
- good evidence where people are able to purchase a licence online and the quicker journey for the digital channel was a positive. There is also an option for people to purchase a licence at a Post Office, with licences able to be purchased on a Sunday if required
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 continues to work on new ways to make the service simple and easier, including: automated notifications for license expiry, exploring paperless licenses, trying a simplified way to renew the permit without users having to give repeat information and enabling multiple purchases. There was clear evidence of user research informing the prioritisation and iterative design of these changes
- the team has acted on their previous assessment recommendations, simplifying how users see and understand price and informing users they need to do a catch return if they purchase some licence types
- the team has shown great use of the GOV.UK Design System patterns and has been testing new ideas with users using the prototype kit
- the team is aware of usability issues such as the pricing box on mobile phones
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- address a recommendation from the previous service assessment (Beta reassessment), please consider acting on the following recommendation: “The results returned by the address lookup feature are all in uppercase, which makes it harder to read (especially if you’re dyslexic).” I’d suggest the team update it to the GOV.UK Design System ‘Address lookup’ pattern to solve this issue and also avoid asking for the building number, allowing users to look up only using the postcode
- collaborate with the GOV.UK Design System to feed the new patterns you have been working on – eg. calendar picker
- act on the suggested content changes from the content review
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:
- there was a sufficient amount of research delivered with people with various levels of digital confidence and disabilities
- the team is aware of the outstanding accessibility issues on their service, flagged on their independent accessibility audit and listed on the service’s accessibility statement
- users have the option of two offline routes to access the service, via the post office or by calling the Environment Agency. The helpline number is made available on every page of the service
- the team conducted research around users buying the license for other people, and have changed the content on the pages specifically to help with that use case. A multibuy journey is also in the team’s roadmap
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- fix an outstanding accessibility issue. Even though most issues on the accessibility statement affect enhancement rather than core functionality, the service should still be compliant to WCAG 2.1 AA. We advise the team to prioritise fixing any outstanding accessibility issues
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the make-up of the service team in live will remain largely the same with people in key roles including user research
- the team’s roadmap looks encouraging and the team gave excellent detail of the new features of the service
- the team presented details of a plan to increase DEFRA roles within the team when contractors contracts come to an end
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- the service team must ensure of a good knowledge transfer to new members of the 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 is working in an agile way and this will continue into Live. The team are currently using scrum methodology and ceremonies including backlog refinement and are improving ways of working by holding regular retrospectives
- the team has established clear service and product ownership with decision making appropriately devolved down to service team level
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:
- new items are added as a result of users research
- the service team were also able to evidence on their roadmap past and planned future releases
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- look to release more often. The service team evidenced 4 releases since October. The panel had expected to see evidence of more frequent releases and the team should consider releasing more often where appropriate
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 has aimed for ensuring their service is secure by design and the service team articulated well how they achieve that. Topics such as testing, automation, penetration testing regimes and access and authentication measures in a live running environment were covered in discussions
- ensuring the service team and production running responsibilities are clearly defined, the service that runs in production is managed by Defra’s Webops team
- the service team explained that changes to the service will land back with the Data Protection Officer for assessment and approval and there are bi-weekly check-ins with the Senior Responsible Officers and a fuller briefing made every month
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- address barriers to releasing more frequently. When discussing the speed at which changes can be implemented and proceed through to production the team described the constraints around continuous releases, which are not possible at this time due to departmental policy and change approval process. There is a process to release hotfixes though, and having a route to release urgent fixes and updates is paramount, particularly in regards to security updates. While the panel understands the barriers posed by departmental change policy, the team could explore what would be required to influence change to this process as it would benefit to the service as a whole and better align with modern ways of working
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 are measuring and analysing performance against the four mandatory KPIs
- the team are using performance data from their various data sources to inform business decisions and are also using this data to prioritise user research
- the team are planning to publish data on data.gov.uk
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- establish a performance framework which will enable them to monitor how the service is performing against their overall goals and ensure the service is meeting its user needs
- look to engage a Performance Analyst to establish the performance framework and implement to enable the team to monitor service performance at scale
- (must) publish their data on data.gov.uk
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:
- one aspect of the service team’s roadmap includes adding an option for a direct debit feature. There already exists a large number of legacy direct debit users and the team has experience with migrating those users to a new provider once already. The service team explained how their first choice is to utilise GOV.UK Pay which has not yet implemented a direct debit facility but are working towards it. When questioned on if GOV.UK Pay doesn’t or isn’t able to deliver this facility the service team explained that they will, and are prepared to, explore and find another option as they need a permanent recurring payment facility
- the service team explained how the codebase wasn’t maintainable and impacted their ability to implement and deploy changes. To address this the team did a refresh of the code and components. Now the new codebase sits on an easy to manage single repository and the release process has been simplified. Not only that, but they have ensured that as much testing as possible is automated
- alongside the codebase the service team also made numerous improvements to the Dynamics CRM, notably two major upgrades to the underlying platform and replacing old middleware. The team took the time to remodel internal data models to ensure the system can be continuously improved
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 code is publicly available on Github: https://github.com/DEFRA/rod-licensing as is the test repo: https://github.com/DEFRA/rod-licensing-tests/
- parameters and other sensitive information and components are stored on a private Gitlabs account
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common 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 makes use of GOV.UK Notify, Pay and the Design System and patterns
- the service team noted that they have given presentations on the technology and approach as well as advising the Ivory Digital Service on their approach
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- making contact with GOV.UK Pay as part of their work on recurring payments and their continued involvement offers a great opportunity to feed into development of the common component if it goes ahead
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 have made a number of improvements to both the service and CRM system that will ensure longevity and future proofing for continual improvement
- when questioned about alternate routes in the unlikely event of a system outage, the service team explained there is still the traditional route of using the post office. The service team noted and the panel were pleased to hear there has not been an outage since ‘refresh’ changes improved the deployment pipeline and stability of continual running
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- the service team are in the process of determining what tool or tools they will use as a long term knowledge base solution. It was mentioned that Defra has confluence as an option already and is one they are considering. The team should explore and look to refine how they store knowledge that is currently captured ensuring the breadth of knowledge inclusive of things like external support and contact points, runbook type activities, onboarding processes, operational support etc are all documented will help ensure ease of the live running of the service
Published 11 June 2021