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Government’s core unit dedicated to digital strategy and implementation is to create and publish new guidance for departments including defining tenets reflecting ‘services that are not narrow, simple and transactional’

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The Central Digital and Data Office is to create and publish a formal government-wide “service definition” focusing on the provision of outcomes for users.

The organisation has unveiled plans to include the definition in government’s Service Manual – a collection of guidance intended to support development teams in creating public services that meet the required standards.

The initiative to define what a service is and should be reflects a landscape characterised by “services that are not narrow, simple and transactional”, according to a new blog post from Ben Tate, CDDO’s head of strategy and standards.

Tate cites the example of the service through which citizens obtain a passport which, in the terms set out by the new definition, will encompass “not just the process of applying… but all the checks that happen behind the scenes, the producing of documents, and the sending and receiving of them too”.

“When we talk about a service, we mean all the things that government collectively provides to deliver an outcome for all of its users, through any path a user takes to reach their goal,” the blog adds.

Outcomes in this case include both what users are seeking to achieve or obtain, as well as things that government wishes to deliver – such as a new policy.

Within each of these two outcome areas, there are “three levels”, Tate writes.

First, there is the outcome needed to complete “a specific process or step in a journey, for example a user understanding that their driving licence application is being processed”.

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Beyond this is the ultimate service outcome sought by government and users – which, in the case of driving-licence applications, is achieved when “government is confident that a citizen has passed a test, is properly licenced and has the right documents”.

Finally, there is the broader onward outcome, “for example being able to legally and safely drive a car on the road”, according to the blog.

The definition will reflect “a number of different things” that are required to work as intended in order to achieve these outcomes. This will include: “user-facing and internal systems; people and the tasks they carry out to run the service; products and processes; [and] buildings and infrastructure”.

The new guidance will also seek to define “all the things [users] interact with” during the delivery of the service, such as  search and navigation tools, advice, digital or paper forms, checking processes, and customer support.

CDDO’s definition will make clear that “a service also includes all the technology and data that supports its operation from start to finish” – which often includes connecting systems across multiple departments or government disciplines.

Departments will also be instructed that services must “work across all channels [including] websites, apps, campaigns, text, post, phone, [and] face-to-face” operations.

The Service Definition will be added to the Service Manual in due course, where it will sit alongside guidance on areas including agile methodologies, assembling the right ream, technology requirements, accessibility considerations, design approaches, user research, and how to measure outcomes.

“There have been successful attempts to define a service and there’s usually a close relationship between the definition of a service and its scope,” Tate adds. “However, we’ve learned that scope does not itself define a service. It’s all about understanding the outcome that you want to deliver. A broader or narrower scope says more about the organisation’s ambitions. So, now we feel it’s time to introduce an official definition of a service for the specific purpose of focussing on outcomes, and tying all of the different types and scopes of services together.”