Case study: Government Gateway delivery of secure online services

'…the Government Gateway is a major government asset and, with over 11 million users, it has become a linchpin in the delivery of Public Sector e-services to citizens and businesses alike. We have achieved this by focusing on the quality of the service provided to our customers whilst keeping up with ever changing requirements to ensure the Gateway is well positioned for the future and continues to be at the heart of the Transformational Government agenda.' Chris Haynes, Director of e-Delivery Team, Cabinet Office (July 2007)

Introduction
The Government Gateway is the e-government ‘Champion Asset' to allow businesses and citizens to communicate and transact with government departments electronically. Services available to individuals include online tax self-assessment, child benefit, real-time state pension forecast and driving licence application. Organisations benefit from a host of online services including Corporation Tax, VAT payment and PAYE services. Overall it is integral to 125 e-services making it the single most diverse piece of common IT infrastructure in the UK.

The Government Gateway is directed by the Cabinet Office e-Delivery Team (EDT), who are responsible for driving forward the pan-government adoption of this shared service.

Atos Origin has been working with the EDT, Microsoft and other suppliers since the inception of the Government Gateway in 2001. It developed the crucial components of the Payments Engine to deliver secure payment transactions and the Helpdesk application to provide an online knowledge portal to customers. It also demonstrated strong expertise in application development and infrastructure support.

Atos Origin was awarded a £46.7 million prime supplier contract following a competitive tender in 2006, to deliver the end-to-end IT managed services, including the management of all third-party suppliers.

The challenge
The increase in scope and complexities of the Government Gateway services since 2001 drove the need to appoint Atos Origin, a long term Government Gateway supplier, to be the managed service provider, to coordinate, manage and deliver the full breadth of services. The supplier's remit includes the management of a new delivery platform, the development of existing and new services tailored to the needs of each customer, such as local councils or national entities like HM Revenue & Customs, as well as stakeholder management.

Most importantly, the supplier's job is to work with the EDT to drive forward the proliferation of Government Gateway services to more national bodies, local bodies and citizens. It is also charged with delivering demonstrable value for money, exemplified by best practice and proven by increased take up of the services.

The solution
The IT solution is a managed service to deliver everything needed to design, build and operate a next generation Government Gateway platform. A platform that includes:

> Secure Data Centre Hosting
> Operational Support and a 24/7 Service Desk
> Service enrolment, registration, payment, transaction management, alerts, and printing – all customised and configured to meet the infrastructure and business requirements of individual customers
> Major project and programme management, including functional enhancements and the introduction of scalable architecture to grow with future capacity demands
> A full range of Service Management activities including Incident, Problem, Change and Release Management, IT Service Continuity Management
> Full responsibility for third-party management

Atos Origin devotes expert technical and management resources for each discipline, and methodologies and transparent reporting ensures full partnership for the EDT and all the suppliers under management.

For example, it manages peak usage patterns in the live system which is critical to achieving HM Revenue & Customs deadlines. Last year it managed the processing of 1.42 million PAYE forms during April and May. It also delivered impressive system stability in January, as 3 million people completed their self-assessment tax forms online. It processed 150,000 self-assessment forms on the busiest day.

The UK online
> 11 million citizens and companies are now e-enabled. In context, that's equivalent to 120 new Wembley Stadiums, filled to capacity. Or, in other words, an online UK community of registered users, seven times greater than Barclays Bank.
> 20 million online forms electronically submitted since its inception in 2001. This is an impressive statistic when you consider that if each form had been submitted in paper, via first class post, this would have cost over £6 million in stamps alone.
> At peak times 2 people access online government services via the Government Gateway every second of every day – that's more than a hundred every minute.
> On its peak day 150,000 people logged on to the Government Gateway to file their tax return, that's the equivalent to the population of a town like Oxford, or the number of people at the Glastonbury festival in 2007.
> 125 secure e-enabled services, spanning 12 central government departments, 14 government agencies and 35 local authorities - making it the most diverse piece of pan-government common IT infrastructure in the UK.

The benefits
The EDT has realised a number of independent and linked benefits by outsourcing the design, build, operation and future development of the Government Gateway. It is able to streamline their operations and focus on their core business objective to lead the expansion and development of technology services within Transformational Government.

At the same time, Atos Origin, the EDT and Microsoft are able to combine their strengths and knowledge from industry and the Public Sector, under the auspice of ‘enGage', to drive forward the future vision and roadmap of the Government Gateway.

For government departments, the Government Gateway provides common infrastructure components, freeing up delivery teams to focus on the rich content of their online services. For citizens, business and government departments, the Government Gateway provides:

> Cost reductions for Public Sector organisations to e-enable services
> Single sign-on facility and joined-up transactions across government
> The ability to handle millions of transactions securely and with complete confidence

Partnership for future services/
Atos Origin works closely with the EDT and Microsoft to deliver continuous service improvement and assessment of new technologies in order to ensure the Government Gateway remains at the forefront of Transformational Government.