TECHNOLOGY INSIGHT
GOV.UK and GDS
Samantha Mann MAAT MCIPPDip, CIPP senior policy and research officer, discusses GDS’s plans
F ollowing on from the article ‘GOV. UK’s content headache’, which was published in the March issue of Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward , I have been tasked with exploring whether for the payroll profession GOV. UK continues to be the first port of call for authoritative and reliable information. So, let us consider developments since the Government Digital Service (GDS) blog covered in the March article. Transformation strategy In Government Transformation Strategy 2017 to 2020 (http://bit.ly/2lnh1qV), the GDS has made clear that they aim to make GOV.UK work harder for its users through the publication of the GOV.UK roadmap for 2017–18 (http://bit.ly/2oIzVcw) which will see them change “both our direction and our pace”. The roadmap, which is a combination of tactical, achievable, visible bits of work, alongside longer term transformational work, has four objectives as follows. ● Group and transform content – this work aims to build on research carried out by the ‘finding things’ team and improve the content to be found on GOV.UK. The aspiration is that once each content theme mission is done, departments will be more aware of the changes that they need to make to their content team structures, how and what content they publish and how users talk about the content they produce. ● Measurably improve common user journeys – amongst other things this work will look to improve the search facility on GOV.UK. ● Help users hold government to account – it should be easy for people to see how and what government is doing, so this stream of work looks to make it possible for end users to easily see how content on GOV. UK has changed over time and to provide a supported application programming interface
for content, so that anyone can reliably take a feed of page content. ● Improve the platform basics – several strands to this work should see (amongst other things) an improvement to the email subscription service of GOV.UK and continued improvements to the GDS campaign and blogging platforms. If achieved this will ensure that the GDS will achieve its aim “… to make the single domain work harder for users.” ...enabled by the use of digital management systems which removes the organisational lag... More change ahead Change is something that we in the payroll profession are well-versed in dealing with. However, in the past we have been assured of receiving timely, informative, detailed (where needed) and concise guidance from, amongst others, HM Revenue & Customs. As GOV.UK is central to the success of the transformation of government to become ‘digital by design’ we can only hope that change in this context doesn’t result in a lessening of a service that many professionals find to be inadequate, searching instead for other sources for authoritative guidance. This is unacceptable. Timeliness Timeliness is something that is of increasing concern when we consider the subject of authoritative guidance from government departments and agencies. If we take, as a recent example, optional remuneration arrangements, which
introduces a revaluation of the benefits code, the draft guidance that will be included in HMRC’s Employment Income Manual was not published until 20 March 2017. For employers entering in to contractual arrangements with employees and even allowing for an element of transitional protection this guidance came late in the day and was not backed up with updates to booklets 480 or 490 which are not due to be published until May. For another example, let us look to gender pay gap (GPG) reporting: the data that is to be used in the first year of mandatory reporting has been inputted and collected throughout 2016 and early 2017; how GPG friendly is that data? After all, many payroll and human resources practitioners and employers will not have been aware of the need to prepare for this data capture. Even at the point of writing this article (March), there still remains many questions, particularly for software developers, who once again are working hard to ensure that their products assist their clients with the successful delivery of this new mandated obligation. Draft guidance issued on the ACAS website and produced in partnership with the Government Equalities Office – whilst usefully more detailed than the ‘Jack and Jill’ approach to some GOV.UK material – still came late in the day for too many people. The future We are aware that GDS are working with stakeholders to improve the usability of GOV.UK and we can only hope that for us in the payroll profession the guidance published via GOV.UK will return to the high quality that we require. It must enable employers, software developers and the professional community that serve employers and business, to deliver full employer compliance for increasing and complex legal obligations. n
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | May 2017 | Issue 30 46
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