PAYE Expense Service alpha report
Service Standard assessment report HMRC's PAYE Expense Service alpha assessment
Service Standard assessment report
PAYE Expense Service
| From: | GDS |
| Assessment date: | 21/01/2025 |
| Stage: | Alpha |
| Result: | Amber |
| Service provider: | HMRC |
Service description
- in the UK, any PAYE employee that has an applicable work expense can claim tax relief from HMRC if they: use their own money for things that they must buy for their job only use these things for their work
Conditions to apply:
- they must have paid tax in the year they’re claiming for
- the amount of tax relief they get cannot be more than the amount of tax they paid in that year
- they’ll get tax relief based on what they’ve spent and the rate at which they pay tax
Problem Statement: The expense journey is complex with limited guidance to reassure customers that they’re making the right claim.
Problem Areas:
- the customer journey is complex with multiple channels with different timelines and guidance
- guidance is inadequate with users (employees) becoming confused, then resorting to telephone support for help
- evidence upload constraints and limitations
- manual input of data from users potentially leading to errors and inaccurate information
Service users
This service is for anyone who pays PAYE and has employment expenses.
Size of Service:
- 8.64m employees who benefitted from relief on expenses in 2020-21 (during pandemic)
- 4.7m is the current figure for individuals who have employment expenses reflected in tax code
Things the service team has done well:
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the team defined a clear MVP for four expense types included in the service and they have plans to include all other expense types
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Great Stakeholder relationships demonstrated when they got Policy colleagues on side to increase the types of evidence a user needs to supply for working from home expenses
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the team has made pragmatic decisions to utilise existing strategic Pega cloud platform as a general platform that is common across all the SCA program of services
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great collaboration with the operational managers to understand the as-is and back-office operations, to gain better understanding of the case worker activities in handling and processing claims and shape the support model
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detailed service blueprint map, showcasing the back and front scene, visualising the complex interactions across users and channels
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the team mapped out the to-be support model (including the general help line, EST hand offs and Online Support Team - this includes users with access needs and digital assisted) and engaged with the Model Office to test the service; the team has plans to deliver artefacts that will support caseworkers in guiding customers through the service when needed
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the team has an understanding of technical constraints and limitations which currently fragment the user journey (for example document upload)
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 1 of the Standard.
During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- identification of and strategies to meet user needs - The service is solving a problem that the business has. We did not see evidence of the team strongly advocating for users based on a thorough understanding of what they need. HMRC provides a service which users can legitimately draw upon – the team needs to keep sight of this and develop a more granular and personalised way of describing these people
- the concept of ‘choosing’ to work at home is underworked. Reliance on the concept of ‘choosing’ seems to invite cases in which users are both eligible for tax relief and choosing to work from home. The team needs to address their use of language to ensure that users who are eligible are not dissuaded from applying. They then need to provide evidence on this point. This could include an assessment of comprehension as part of ongoing research
beta planning is not thorough enough for the team to move forward. Planning for this does not just fall on the user researcher. It is a whole team effort to think through and implement the logistics needed for a Private Beta. It was evident that very little thought had been put into how users are going to be identified, recruited, and onboarded onto the Private Beta. It is also unclear how they will track and understand applications through the case management process, and how case workers will be engaged in this process. The research activities in the plan are more suggestive of Alpha-style research than Private Beta. The team needs to thoroughly think about Private Beta planning as a matter of urgency - the panel would appreciate greater collaboration between research and design. The connection between research and content changes seemed weak. The team should be able to demonstrate a through-line from research to design
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service was amber for point 2 of the Standard.
During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- clearly articulated changes in eligibility criteria for users working from home - there is a significant shift in who can claim expenses for working from home, decreasing the circumstances when users can claim. Consideration should be made to clarify the guidance preceding the service, as well as apply better triaging of the user up front through the Interactive Guidance before they start their claim journey. The current iteration of the “Choosing to work from home” screen doesn’t make the user eligibility clear and opens up an opportunity for users to complete their claims incorrectly or fraudulently (changing their answer from “Yes” to “Have you chosen to work from home?” to “No” after being presented the “You are not eligible to claim” screen). Care should be taken to consider this user group’s needs and guidance and signposting of support provided on relevant screens to ensure contact with HMRC is reduced and compliance increased. Beneficial to note that this part of the journey has been changed from the previous iteration, “Has xyz employer told you that you must work from home”, which to a degree was clearer
- sufficient guidance and signposting for users around supporting documentation they need to be prepared to provide in order for their claims to be successfully processed and completed, as well as contact with HMRC reduced
- consideration of how to reduce the input of user contact details (email and telephone) - in the current iteration users are asked to provide this information every time they start a new expense type claim. This may mean the user will need to provide their email and telephone number several times when filling in multiple claims
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- for the user contact details, consider asking for their contact details upfront before they’ve started their claim. Playback their contact details on the “Check your answers” page and offer an opportunity to correct the contact details if wrong.
- invite the gov.uk and Interactive Guidance teams to joint crits and content audits of the entire, end-to-end journey (from flat gov.uk guidance, through IG and the service itself) to ensure better signposting of eligibility criteria and triaging efforts (especially for users who must work from home). Ensure to include representatives from the HMRC comms team to raise awareness of the changes to the service, to increase findability of the service and to signpost users to the appropriate guidance on eligibility.
- consider reaching out to the wider design community for regular critiques (this can be easily accommodated within the Digital Services community and the panel would be happy to support) as well as ensure regular RAD reviews are scheduled to support with a more holistic peer review from fellow HMRC designers. This will support the team in informing design pattern choices and alignment with the HMRC style guide, between others.
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard.
Before Beta the team should:
- consider the employers’ role in supporting employees/referring them to the service and assisting to make correct claims and to provide appropriate documentation. The panel understands the team is planning to explore this post the MVP launch
- consider the role of charities/third party organisations advising employees in making successful claims
- continue working with the gov.uk and IG teams to ensure streamlined experience across the end to end journey
- continue working with operational colleagues to gain feedback on future iterations and their potential impact on back office operations
- continue engaging with the support teams and Model Office to further test and refine the support model across the journey
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 4 of the Standard.
During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- prominent guidance and signposting and user reassurance. The guidance provided within the service is not sufficiently prominent or clearly signposted to users. This risks users missing critical information needed to complete their journey successfully. This includes prompts/hint text on individual screens which may leave users more likely to encounter confusion or errors when completing their tasks. The service does not provide enough information about what evidence users need to supply to support their claim. This may lead to incomplete submissions, delays in processing and increased contact with HMRC
- refined content for clarity. Some content within the service could benefit from further refinement to reduce cognitive load. Simplified explanations and clearer instructions are needed to help users understand what they must do to successfully make a claim
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- as above, consider working more closely with gov.uk and IG teams, as well as reach out to the wider design communities to help with further iterations of the service.
- on relevant screens include examples of possible supporting documents users may need to provide for their claims.
- consider re-writing the “Declaration” section of the “Check your answers” page to soften the language.
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 5 of the Standard.
During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- as previously mentioned, sufficient explanation (and signposting to relevant guidance) of circumstances when a user may be eligible to claim for working from home. This links to further work needed around guidance and appropriate IG triaging of the user up front. This may likely lead to circumstances where users who are ineligible for working from home expenses attempt to proceed with a claim. As this is potentially a significant cohort of users (between 2022 and 2023 it was circa 480k claims) it’s prudent this expense claim journey is reviewed to ensure clarity for users, diminished HMRC contact and increased compliance
- the service seems to have an outsized impact on users with disabilities or health conditions. The team clearly thought about this in their sampling, as they had excellent representation from users with access needs. However, this representation did not carry through to a shared understanding of why the needs of this group may be particularly important for this service. The panel needs more evidence that the team is understanding and advocating for issues that may be specifically affecting users with disabilities and health conditions
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 6 of the Standard.
During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- an established development team with the right skills profile to seamlessly transition the service teams into Beta phase
- a fragmented and waterfall approach to design, analysis and development could create friction and unnecessary overheads with the different teams
- a full multi-disciplinary team to move the service into the next phase. It was referenced many times that they use a Dev team and an UCD team - it was not clear that this was one team as the UCD team have a weekly meeting with the devs
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 7 of the Standard.
- during the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of: requirements from the user. The service is led by the Business with Business requirements driving the design of the service
- whilst the team work in sprints there was no evidence of the team reflecting on the sprint in order to make iterative improvements to the way they work
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 8 of the Standard.
During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- the ability of the service team to quickly prototype with real code, test, deploy and put the service in front of the end users for frequent iterations and improvements
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service: - as mentioned above, consider reaching out to the wider design communities to help with further iterations of the service via crits and peer reviews.
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- provide more detailed insights into the Security Guardrails, Security Checklists and the Security Assurance steps being undertaken
- take Incremental automation steps and use of the Pega platforms security testing earlier in the cycle have more detailed insights into the roles and RBAC and ABAC for the different users of the service
- provide more details on mTLS, PKI used and storage of private keys
- ensure Risk Assessments and Data Impact Assessments are conducted and in an integrated way with other impacted services
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- although the team had a full understanding of the mandatory KPI’s as well as some other KPI’s they had no idea how to calculate the cost per transaction. This needs to be fully analysed and a process put in place before public beta.
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- show more details on the non-functional requirements especially around performance and volumetric that will feed through the performance based NFR testing.
- more specific details on usage of the Pega platform for the PAYE Expenses service for example RBAC. ABAC, encryption in transit and at rest and specifically the storage of private keys.
- be more active in recording key architectural and applications design decisions through standard Architecture Decision Records as outlined by GDS and used in other departments for example https://gds-way.digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk/standards/architecture-decisions.html#how-to-document-decisions https://docs.modernising.opg.service.justice.gov.uk/adr
- the data architecture to link the data sources, processing and curation for reporting to support the KPIs for the service.
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- take detailed steps in making the Pega React code, the Gov.UK Design system to support the SPA, and any large-scale custom java code open source in GitHub
- clear documentation for other teams that plan to understand and use these components in their projects
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- where possible, show evidence of actively using and sharing common components and patterns across the SCA services and other government departments.
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 14 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- provide evidence of testing and preparations for runbooks for failure and disaster recovery scenarios to meet RTO and RPO, once the service is released into a production environment.
- give more details around the KPIs and SLAs and how general tooling and the Pega Platform tooling will be used to report on these.
- give consideration on how and when to decommission the existing service.
Next Steps
This service can now move into a private beta phase, subject to addressing the amber points within three months time and CDDO spend approval.
To get the service ready to launch on GOV.UK the team needs to:
- get a GOV.UK service domain name
- work with the GOV.UK content team on any changes required to GOV.UK content