Government crest UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)

Go to Local Digital homepageALPHA

Laying the foundations for better local public services

GOV.UK Pay as a viable alternative e-payment provider

Contents:

  1. Project outputs
  2. Project timeline
  3. Feedback

This discovery aimed to explore how local authorities can make integration with GOV.UK Pay easier and reusable for everyone in local government.

The GOV.UK Pay contract model is financially beneficial for local authorities however, legacy finance systems and their relatively high integration costs  are key adoption barriers. Integration is currently undertaken separately by each local council with no common reusable solution available on the market.

Project outputs

All Local Digital Fund discovery projects were asked to provide the following information at completion:

  • User research report
  • Benefits case
  • Recommendations for next steps

Downloads

Alternative ways to view the outputs:

Contact [email protected] if you are having problems accessing the outputs.

Project details

Phase: Discovery

Funding granted: £52,103

Duration: December 2018 – April 2019

Partners: North East Lincolnshire Council, GDS GOV.UK Pay team, Publica Group (Cotswold DC, West Oxfordshire DC and Forest of Dean DC), Allerdale Council

Organisations: North East Lincolnshire Council, GDS GOV.UK Pay team, Publica Group, Allerdale Council

Services: Central and other services

Project links

Related projects:

Project timeline

December 2018 - discovery

GOV.UK Pay as a viable alternative e-payment provider discovery receives £52,103 from the Local Digital Fund.

April 2019 - discovery

GOV.UK Pay as a viable alternative e-payment provider discovery delivers project outputs which are published on the Local Digital website. Recommendation made for further discovery into income management and e-payment systems.

September 2019 - discovery

MHCLG awards £80,000 for discovery exploring income management and e-payment systems from the Local Digital Fund.

February 2020 - discovery

Project team delivers agreed outputs from income management and e-payment systems discovery, published openly on the Local Digital website.

March 2020 - alpha

Project is selected to be funded as part of Local Digital Fund. 

Project blogs about their bid. 

April to May 2020 - alpha

  • The project receives £100,000 funding
  • Setting up the team and collecting resources
  • Undertaking procurement activities
  • Project inception meeting to identify project vision
  • Project week notes about their pre-sprint 1

June 2020 - alpha

Project agrees alpha vision and goals, activities and outputs.

The project also identifies which team members would contribute to which activity.

Project publishes weeknotes about their pre-sprint 2.

Sprint 1 week notes: 

  • understanding how the IMS fits into a wider ecosystems of processes and technology solutions
  • research plan to extend the things that the discovery found with specifics about how councils procure their IMS. 
  • explored the likely technical architecture, both in terms of the target infrastructure and the features that we expect to ‘bundle’ with the IMS.
  • Started to prototype new features of the system
  • Started to create council personas for future users
  • Define reference architecture and infrastructure

Hosts 1st show and tell

July 2020 - alpha

Hosts 2nd show and tell:

  • Continue to prototype new features of the system
  • Started to design a first iteration of the support model
  • Continue to define reference architecture and infrastructure

Hosts 3rd show and tell:

  • Continue to prototype new features of the system
  • Continue to design a first iteration of the support model
  • Started to define service governance
  • Continue to define reference architecture and infrastructure

August 2020 - alpha

Finish the 7 project epics:

  • prototype new features of the system
  • create council personas for future users
  • define reference architecture and infrastructure
  • design a first iteration of the support model
  • create a cost model
  • define service governance
  • map the landscape

IMS Alpha – Show & Tell 4 (finale)

 

September 2020 - alpha

Prepares the project IMS Alpha – Final report and benefits case.

Feedback

Each project was assessed using these lenses by the Local Digital Collaboration Unit. We have provided feedback directly to the project teams and this is a summary of what we shared with them.

It aims to be constructive for both the project team and any other organisation wishing to learn about the project or make use of the work done.

  • The project team undertook a number of different user research methodologies (attitudinal feedback, A/B testing and usability testing) and considered a number of users in their research (staff, service users). The project team should consider developing user needs driven personas based on the user research collated as this might help make findings more usable for others.
  • The project produced a comprehensive overview of how the team worked, tools used and a timeline of how the project unfolded. This makes it easy to understand how the project was delivered and provides a useful model for other local authorities.
  • The team provided a good overview of what GOV.UK Pay is and how it is currently being used by local authorities. This might be useful for other councils considering GOV.UK Pay for their services.
  • The team produced extensive recommendations related to identified user needs. The project considers a longer term vision for this work and makes appropriate recommendations that will be implemented in the near future. The team should consider another Discovery or further user research to more clearly define their use case for the proposed Alpha.
  • The team produced a benefits case that outlines potential benefits and savings to the sector, service users and system providers. Once the recommendations presented in the outputs report are implemented, further analysis would show what additional benefits this project created in making it easier for councils to adopt GOV.UK Pay and make associated savings.