Digital government during
the coronavirus crisis

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Gavin Freeguard | Marcus Shepheard
AuthorDavies
Oliver
1 | Author 2

About this report
The coronavirus pandemic is the most significant
crisis that the UK has faced in generations. It
has created a surge in demand for services andinformation. It forced a dramatic reorganisationof how departments operate as officials shifted
to working remotely. And it tested the capacity of
government to co-ordinate and deliver solutions.
Digital technology has helped the government
to manage many of these issues and has enableda more effective response than would have beenotherwise possible. The response was not perfect,and high-profile failures such as the attempt
to develop a contact tracing app highlight thelimitations of government in this space. This
report assesses the factors that contributed tothe successes and failures of digital government
during the crisis.
@instituteforgov
Find out more
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk

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DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Contents
List of figures

4

Summary

5

Introduction

8

1. Digital services

9

2. Information supply and demand25

3. Remote working and business continuity

33

4. The building blocks of digital government

42

Conclusion

48

Appendix

52

References

55

About the authors

62

CONTENTS

3

List of figures
Figure 1 New digital services built as part of the government’s 		
coronavirus response
10
Figure 2 Universal Credit, daily claimants, January to July 2020

16

Figure 3 Percentage of Universal Credit payments made on time 		and in full to all claimants and new claimants, 		January 2017 to April 2020
17
Figure 4 Unique users visiting GOV.UK per week, January 2013 		
to October 2020
26
Figure 5 GOV.UK unique departmental pageviews, 		January 2020 to October 2020
27
Figure 6 How users access GOV.UK, January 2014 to October 2020

28

Figure 7 Percentage of civil servants working from home 		by government department, May 2020
33
Figure 8 Average GovWifi weekly users, May 2019 to October 2020

34

Figure 9 VCT, document-sharing and instant messaging platforms used 		by government organisations during lockdown (indicative survey) 36
Figure 10 Interoperability of video conferencing tools used by government		organisations, 1 May and 15 July 2020
37
Figure 11 Number of new users registering with GOV.UK Verify per week, 		January 2018 to October 2020
42
Figure 12 Number of government services adopting GOV.UK Notify, 		May 2016 to May 2020
44
Figure 13 GOV.UK Notify service notifications by type (rolling average), 		
January 2018 to May 2020
45

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DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Summary
Responding to coronavirus is the largest single challenge that the
government has faced in decades. Digital government – the ongoinguse of digital technology and techniques to transform how
government delivers public services, provides information andfunctions as an organisation – has played a key part in the response,
ensuring the continuity of existing services and the creation of newones, enabling civil servants to work from home, and supporting
government communications.
This report considers how the crisis has accelerated digitaltransformation, how well existing processes and products have heldup, and what lessons we can learn from both the successes and thefailures of digital government during the crisis.
Crises can catalyse innovation and the coronavirus crisis has been no different –new services and new ways of working have been rolled out rapidly and largely
successfully. HMRC built three new services in a matter of weeks that did the oppositeof what the department normally does – paying out money, rather than taking it in.
The Government Digital Service (GDS) built services to help vulnerable people anda central hub of coronavirus information on GOV.UK, and along with departments
used data generated by citizens as they accessed information and services to better
understand the needs of different groups, and to tailor the experience to individuals.
Departments across government had to rapidly adapt to remote working enabled bydigital technology. Initiatives like Project Unblock tackled a long-standing problem
where some departments blocked certain digital platforms used by others, often for
security reasons, making collaboration far more difficult. Departments also adapted
quickly as existing services met huge increases in demand, such as Universal Creditat the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). And organisations across the public
sector used existing tools, like GDS’s Notify, to send more messages to citizens thanever before.
This response to the crisis has been made possible by sustained investment indeveloping digital capability in government departments and public bodies,particularly over the last decade. Expert digital teams have developed a wide range ofpractices, processes and digital products that supported the government’s responseto the crisis. These include standard designs and components built by GDS – likemessaging services and payment platforms – that helped departments build newservices more quickly, as well as ways of working that enable the rapid design anddevelopment of new systems. This meant empowering teams to build, iterate and

SUMMARY

5

adapt quickly, and modifying long-standing assessment processes accordingly tolaunch urgently needed services, helped by clear political direction and support fromthe top of government. Good relationships with third-party suppliers, and adept useof the technology and services they offer, have also been critical. Overnight successes
have been built on a decade of hard work.
But there have been some high-profile failures. The contact tracing app, which took
months to launch, shows that technology alone is no substitute for a well-designed
service with a clear purpose – and with existing expertise behind it. Digital contact
tracing using apps in particular is both a novel problem and an incredibly complex one– it is not clear that any country has yet solved it, although some, including South Korea
and Taiwan, have used technology to good effect in their efforts to fight coronavirus.
The associated debates over ‘centralised’ systems (where information is held on acentral health authority server) and ‘decentralised’ ones (where information remains
on mobile phones) highlight privacy concerns and questions about the responsibilitiesof large tech companies and the role they play in our lives. Both make clear the needfor government to be transparent and earn the public’s trust when it comes to using
new technology, otherwise the possibilities of better services may be lost.
The pandemic has also confirmed that Verify, the government’s favoured system toverify citizens’ identities, is not the long-term solution that the government needs.
Some departments have resorted to older solutions or built new ones of their own to
avoid using Verify, which had been due to lose its government funding in March 2020.1
The government’s response to its recent consultation on digital identity contained
little detail about what it plans to do next – it needs to set a much clearer direction
for the future.
Civil service reform and how government works is currently at the forefront of thegovernment’s agenda, from minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove’s speech to
the Ditchley Foundation, to the civil service’s Shaping our Future Together consultation
through summer 2020. The prime minister’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings,
had long written about the need for better use of data and technology in governmentand before his exit in November had established a data science unit in Downing
Street.2 The government is currently recruiting a chief digital officer, a chief data officer
and a new chief executive of GDS, which should bring much-needed clarity to theleadership of digital government. The National Data Strategy is open for consultation
until early December 2020, and a new consultation is expected on digital identity. Allof these present opportunities for government to work differently, especially when it
comes to using digital technology and data.
The government’s digital crisis response could represent a ‘new normal’ for ways ofworking and delivering services. It is therefore vital that the government learns lessons
quickly, understanding what worked and what didn’t. Innovations that have proved
successful should be continued; those that have not can be adapted. It should also
consider how to make any changes sustainable.

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DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

As it appoints people to new senior positions the government has an opportunity toclarify its vision for digital government. It must learn from the successes, in particular,
at HMRC, DWP and GDS during the pandemic. The government must translatethese lessons into a vision for the whole of government, rather than only improving
capability and capacity in pockets of the public sector. It must also get a grip ofdigital identity – how citizens can assure their identity when accessing government
services online – and set out a clear plan for what comes after Verify, which has clearly
failed as a cross-government solution. And, in light of the contact tracing app andalgorithm controversies, it must be open with the public about how it plans to use newtechnology and citizens’ data.
The public are understandably sensitive about how government uses their personal
data. Government needs to be more transparent and talk to citizens in order to earn
their trust if it wants to use their data ethically, equitably and effectively.

SUMMARY

7

Introduction“Coronavirus has fundamentally altered our lives and the role that tech plays within
it… it’s turbocharged the digital transformation of almost every part of our days – ofour workplaces, our businesses, the way we shop and stay in touch with family, andthe way we use public services.”
Oliver Dowden, secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport,
23 June 2020.3
Even for a society living in the information age and citizens inhabiting an evermore digital world, the coronavirus crisis has rapidly changed our relationship withtechnology. Large parts of the population are living most of their lives throughscreens and working remotely, many for the first time. Our interactions with eachother, businesses and government have, in many cases, shifted entirely online. Someof these changes may be profound and lasting; others may not survive a return tosomething approaching normal. Some could change our lives for the better; others
may widen a ‘digital divide’ between those with access to the right technology andskills, and those without.
Departments, services and processes have had to adjust with alacrity to continue toserve citizens. This report considers three broad questions: where has the coronavirus
crisis accelerated digital transformation; how have existing services held up; and what
can be learned from both successes and failures?
We examine:• New digital services: including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS),
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), theVulnerable People Service, and the NHSX contact tracing app – all of which aremanaged almost entirely online – and existing ones, including Universal Credit• How the government has provided information to citizens during the crisis,
primarily through the main government website, GOV.UK• The various ’building blocks’ of digital government – components that can be built
once and reused across different services – particularly Verify (which allows users
to confirm their identity) and Notify (which allows departments to send messages
to citizens)• The move to remote working by the civil service.
The report focuses on central government departments rather than public services
more widely, though we do include analysis of the NHSX contact tracing app.4
The Institute for Government’s Performance Tracker 2020 looks at the impact
of technology on public services, including GP surgeries and the court system,in more detail.

INTRODUCTION

8

1. Digital services
From the onset of the Covid crisis in March 2020, government
departments designed and implemented a range of new services ina matter of weeks, all while many of the government’s 423,000 civil
servants adjusted to working from home.5
Notable successes include the novel suite of services built by HMRC, which included
the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). This was the key channel providing
economic support to furloughed workers. It was designed, built and launched in lessthan five weeks and as of 18 October had paid out over £41.4 billion, covering 9.6
million furloughed jobs.6 It reports high user satisfaction scores, with nearly nine inten employers recording a positive experience (six in ten saying it was ‘very good’).7
Similarly, existing services were adapted to cope with much greater demand. For
example, Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance services at the Department forWork and Pensions (DWP). These had a surge of applicants – DWP phone lines fieldedover 2.2 million calls in a single day early on in the crisis – but the systems held up.8
Departments were able to make good use of existing tools and capabilities to deliver
these changes at speed. Over the last decade, government has invested in its digital
capability – for example, the creation of the Government Digital Service (GDS) in 2011
helped catalyse digital transformation in government and attract developers andtechnologists to the public sector. Similarly, the government’s digital function anddigital, data and technology profession (DDaT) have helped to further develop skills
and career paths across government.9 The crisis has accelerated the developmentof new ways of working and collaboration. The tools departments have built to do
this, the experience they have gained, and the relationships that have been built andrenewed should help improve future digital transformation efforts.
However, there have also been notable failures, foremost among them the attempt tobuild a digital contact tracing app. The government’s travails highlight problems withdigital delivery and point to future challenges, including misplaced hopes that newtechnology (and, as seen in the A-level fiasco, statistical techniques) can by themselves
solve difficult problems.10

The Government Digital Service

The government had to develop many new digital services quickly in responseto the pandemic
According to GDS, a service is “something that helps [a user] to do something, suchas learn to drive, buy a house, or become a childminder”.11 By the end of May,
government departments had delivered 69 new digital services, with a further
46 services in the pipeline.12

DIGITAL SERVICES

9

A separate list provided by GDS to the Institute for Government* gives a sense of therange of different ‘services’, ranging from those provided to the public (everythingfrom claiming benefits to asking a question at a coronavirus press conference) andbusiness (like the CJRS), to new websites (as diverse as the coronavirus landing page
and a social care recruitment platform), to new forms (for example to register as an‘extremely vulnerable person’, to reporting workplace safety concerns, to businesses
volunteering to help with ventilators), to new notification services (such as text
messages to people about Covid test results).
Figure 1 New digital services built as part of the government’s coronavirus response
NHSX
GDS
BSA
NHS
DHSC
PHE
HMRC
DWP
NHSE
DVSA
BEIS
CQC
HSE
RVS
FCO
CO
CMA
0

1

2

3

Service

Website

4

Form

5

6

Notiﬁcations

7

Dashboard

8

9

10

App

Cross-hatching indicates services run jointly by departments
BSA

NHS Business Services Authority

CQC

Care Quality Commission

Source: List
digitalby theDigital Service.
PHE of new
PublicHealthservices
England provided to the Institute for Government
HSE HealthandGovernment
Safety Executive
Key: NHSX= NHS
digitalinnovation unit; GDS = Government Digital Service;
BSAVoluntary= NHS BusinessNHSE
NHSEnglandRVS Royal
Service Services Authority;
DVSA DriverandVehicle Standards
AgencyCMA
and HealthMarkets England;
Authority HMRC =NHS = National
HealthService;
DHSC = Department
of Health & Social
Care;Competition
PHE = Public
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs; DWP = Department for Work & Pensions; NHSE = NHS England; DVSA = Driver& Vehicle Standards Agency; BEIS = Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy; CQC = Care Quality
Commission; HSE = Health & Safety Executive; RVS = Royal Voluntary Service; FCO = Foreign & Commonwealth
Office; CO = Cabinet Office; CMA = Competition & Markets Authority.

Many of these new services were developed by health-related public bodies – suchas NHSX or the NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) – others by GDS itself. Butother government bodies were also busy building new services, for example from the
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (information for business)
to licensing agencies like the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (emergency driving
test booking).

GDS supported the development of new services by changing its approach toassessing them
Digital services are normally required to undergo a service assessment by GDS prior
to launch. This ensures that services meet the ‘service standard’ – a set of 14 quality
criteria that aim to ensure services are accessible, easy to use, reliable, and meet userneeds.13,14 At an early stage during the crisis, GDS took the view that the full service
assessment process was a luxury that the government could no longer afford.

*

10

See Appendix, p. 52

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

GDS suspended normal service assessments in favour of quicker ‘peer reviews’, twohour long remote meetings focusing on security, resilience, accessibility and the ability
to iterate after launch. Any pressing concerns would be discussed the same day as thereview, with a report (consisting of a red-amber-green rating, and recommendations
on key areas which could be implemented after launch) issued the following day.
Departments are still required to do a full assessment in time. But in the meantime,peer reviews offered a pragmatic way to balance the need for services to be assured
with the need for them to be up and operating quickly.15

GDS built a new vulnerable people service using existing digital tools and witha focus on accessibility
GDS has led the development of several new services within the Cabinet Office.
Perhaps the most high profile of these was the Shielded Vulnerable People Service(titled ‘Get coronavirus support as a clinically extremely vulnerable person’).16 This
service was set up within a week and launched on 23 March, the day the UK went into
lockdown.17 It allowed people on the NHS’s Shielded Patients List – those who had
been advised that they may be at higher risk from coronavirus – to register their details
and ask for help in getting care needs, priority in supermarket delivery, or boxes ofbasic supplies to be delivered.
Officials from GDS say that, as of 2 June, 1.2 million people had registered for theservice, using either the online form or the telephone version of the service. There wasa conscious decision by the organisation to allow these registrations over the phone;while services may be digital by design, there are some users (particularly older anddisabled people) who will need to use other channels. For GDS, ensuring that theservice was as accessible as possible was a priority.
Support for vulnerable people went beyond this specific service – for example,
providing guidance for vulnerable people on GOV.UK, which used existing knowledge
and capabilities within government and was built on products and processes that had
already been developed and tested. The ‘triage’ user journey – which aims to discoveruser needs and how to help – was a familiar tool for GDS. Similarly, the architectureof GOV.UK and GDS’s own design system were key components that helped theteam to develop these new support mechanisms at high speed. Civil servants at GDS
have described using these existing tools to build new services as standing on the“shoulders of giants”.18
GDS continues to improve these services using insights from users, and throughworking with other departments to ensure users could access all the support thatmight be available.

Departments rapidly agreed on the data sharing agreements underpinning
the service
The information needed to identify people as vulnerable was held by several different
parts of government. To make the service work, this information needed to be sharedwithin government and with external organisations – specifically supermarkets – toensure vulnerable people were given priority for deliveries.

DIGITAL SERVICES

11

Successive governments have long struggled to get departments and other partsof the public sector to effectively share data. The National Audit Office (NAO) has
highlighted that while legislation now exists to allow this across government, it
can be difficult and expensive, and that departments lack the confidence to do so.19,20
Data sharing would allow government to provide better, more tailored public services,and give government a better understanding of the country it runs and the impact
of its policies.
The urgent need to get the vulnerable people service up and running was helped by
a common sense of purpose from different departments and this overcame the usual
barriers. According to GDS, the necessary data sharing agreements for the vulnerable
people service were in place within the week it took to set it up, with GDS and NHS
Digital acting as independent data controllers (responsible for decision making aroundprocessing the data), working closely with the Information Commissioner’s Officethroughout. A clear articulation of the desired outcomes from the policy, clear legal
gateways, a common understanding of the risks and ethical considerations that using
sensitive data involved, and building the service with data protection in mind from thestart (‘privacy by design’) by sharing only the minimum data required also helped.
The vulnerable people service demonstrates the value of sharing data acrossgovernment. However, we still know far too little about the basics of data sharing ingovernment – which departments are sharing what data, and how – let alone whichorganisations (and services) are doing it well and how to embed these practices acrossgovernment. The lessons learned from the vulnerable people service should therefore
be more widely publicised, and key documents – for example, the data sharing
agreements behind the service – should be published.

HMRC
Technology and existing expertise helped HMRC rapidly deliver vital new services.
As the UK faced the greatest economic crisis in more than a generation HMRC took ona leading role.21 As a department it rose to the challenge of the moment and became
the key delivery body for much of the government’s economic response. Three ofthe most high-profile new digital services across all of government were designed,
developed and launched by HMRC in the early stages of the crisis:• The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) which allows organisations to claim
a percentage of wages, and any National Insurance and pension contributions, forfurloughed workers.22,23 Even before the chancellor announced an extension to thisscheme on 5 November, up to 18 October it had paid out over £41.4 billion to cover
more than 9.6 million furloughed workers.24• The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), which allows anyone selfemployed that has been adversely affected by coronavirus to check if they areentitled to a grant and claim it.25 Up to October 18 it paid out over £13.7 billion.26

12

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

• The Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme (SSP), which allows employers to check
whether they can claim back employees’ coronavirus-related sick pay.27 This service
paid out £7.6 billion to 2.6 million people in the first round of SEISS grants (up to
31 July), as of 30 September a further £5.7 billion has been paid out to 2.3 million
claimants in the second round of grants.28,29
Digital technology made it possible for HMRC to radically change the nature of
the services it provided for the public. HMRC’s efforts have been a great success,particularly given the speed with which the new services were stood up. The CJRS was
built within three weeks, then ‘beta’ tested* with some customers, and went live inits fourth week. The other two were built within five weeks and launched in the sixth
week. Users scored the new services extremely highly – according to HMRC, customer
satisfaction scores would normally be in the region of 65% to 70% for digital
government services: for the new services they were in the nineties (92% for CJRS,
97% for SEISS, and 94% for SSP).
HMRC was able to build new services using existing expertise and techniques evenwhile doing much that was new. These projects were enabled by existing digitalplatforms and technology – some developed in-house, but much of it provided by theprivate sector. Indeed, one interviewee emphasised how services such as the CJRS
simply couldn’t have been offered a decade ago: “This wouldn’t have worked any otherway but digitally.”

Clear political direction gave HMRC the permission to rapidly and radicallytransform its operations
While digital technology allowed HMRC to do what it needed to do, the clarity of that
direction from the chancellor was also vital. At his direction HMRC went from being anorganisation that collects revenue to one that distributes it in a matter of weeks. As
other Institute for Government research has found, decisions on the economic support
package were taken quickly and objectives and priorities were clear from the start,
with close working between the Treasury and HMRC and with business groups andunions helping with public reception and with delivery.30

HMRC found success through empowering its teams and building on
existing assets
As with other new services, the team at HMRC was able to successfully build things
quickly thanks to work that had gone before. It already had many of the tools andstaff that it needed – HMRC has grown its pool of in-house digital talent over recent
years and now has one of the largest groups of digital professionals anywhere ingovernment (more than 1,600 people in 2020).31 These officials had the skills theyneeded and experience of working together and were able to start work building the
new services straight away.
Developers at HMRC used standards and principles developed by GDS as guides fortheir work, including ‘design patterns’ – processes and ways of building a service that*

The ‘beta’ phase of a project involves building a service for real, having gone through an ‘alpha’ phase (testing
solutions to the problems you found during an initial ‘discovery’ phase). A ‘private’ beta involves testing with alimited number of users; a ‘public’ beta making it available to all.

DIGITAL SERVICES

13

have been used and tested elsewhere in government – and the service standard. HMRC
was able to get the most out of these resources by relaxing processes and trusting its
professionals through using ‘agile’ methods – getting your service in front of real users
as soon as possible, then iterating the service based on what you’ve learned.
The overall development process for each service was based on an initial outlineof what it needed to do that the developers worked on an iterative way. HMRC
described this process to us as ‘agile on steroids’. The development teams went
through dynamic cycles of testing and building, rather than having to submit extensive
plans and milestones upfront (the waterfall project management method) and getting
tied up in bureaucracy.
These empowered, agile, digital teams happily worked ‘brutal’ hours – “it’s what youlive for, the chance to do something incredibly meaningful” – with remote working
an enabler, not an impediment, with decisions taken by the right people in the same,
virtual room at the right time in real time. But as HMRC’s (then) chief digital information
officer, Mark Denney, recently told New Statesman, that pace of working cannot besustained indefinitely: “You can ask miracles of people and turn the whole place on its
head for a period of time, but it’s not something you can do for ever.”32

Good relationships with commercial partners helped HMRC to increase
capacity quickly
It wasn’t enough to just build these services: HMRC also needed to ensure that it
could withstand the huge demand it would face. With nowhere near enough server
capacity to do this in-house, HMRC turned to its existing relationships withcorporate partners.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provided HMRC with a cloud-based, intelligent front-end
platform to host services that could be ‘scaled up’ extremely quickly to meet demand.
One interviewee described this as “opening the garage and finding a Ferrari sitting
there”. They were able to shift most of the complex processing demands to AWS.
This allowed them to instantly scale up their computing power to be able to handle
150,000 logons per second, without overtaxing HMRC’s existing back-end IT systems.
A similar relationship with the software company SAP helped HMRC find the capacity
it needed to process millions of transactions. SAP provided its platform for accounting,payment generation capability and payment file production.

Previous investment in user research and data science helped HMRC develop
more accessible services
HMRC benefited from its existing in-house capability in user research and data
science. It had user-research scientists on hand, and a range of rich demographic data
about its users. This made it easier for HMRC to test its new services with real users,
then iterate and refine these services around specific user needs.33 User design andservice design has become more prominent in government in general in recent years –a more user-centred approach to public services was one of GDS’s successes, and the

14

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Service Design in Government conference celebrated its seventh year in 2020. HMRC
has had a particular focus, having long invested in digital design skills in its offices
across the country.34
This aspect of service design was coupled to a rich pipeline of analytical tools which
helped to rapidly and accurately determine the eligibility of applicants. Ensuring the
integrity of these systems was a key part of providing assurance to users, which in turnhelped to make the service more accessible – “given the anxieties and fears of thoserequiring support, providing certainty and accuracy was key”.35
Having access to this expertise made it easier for HMRC to build accessible services
from the start. Based on demographic data, HMRC expected that users of the SEISS
were likely to be more digitally challenged (with a lower reading age) and more likely
to access the service via mobile and so it tailored the service accordingly.
Ultimately 80% of SEISS’s users would end up making a claim via mobile. All theservices were designed with mobile users in mind, and with a ‘ruthless simplicity’to allow users of all digital skill levels to access what they needed. Although 98%
of users have come through the digital service, there is also a telephone service toensure no citizens are disadvantaged.

HMRC joined with others across government to create new and flexible ways
to access its services
HMRC opted to use its existing Government Gateway system to verify users’ identities.
But it predicted that a minimum of 1.4 million SEISS users would never have registered
before. To help these users it opened up new ways for them to verify their identity
when registering with the service. Several of these required new or expanded data
sharing agreements with other departments.36 These included passport information,
Pay As You Earn (PAYE) payroll data, tax credit data, and driving licence information.
In the case of the latter, the DVLA was able to build the connection to the HMRC
system within three weeks.37
As a result, 650,000 people were able to use their driving licence to verify theiridentity in the first week of SEISS. Diversifying these sources allowed users to sign up
more easily for the service. HMRC’s analytics and user research showed how different
parts of society favoured different methods – farmers, for example, notably favoured
driving licences to prove their identity. This flexible approach also helped to spreadthe load across different routes so that none became overburdened.
The digital team at HMRC made a conscious choice to avoid GOV.UK Verify, thedigital identity verification system built by GDS. HMRC has, in fact, long avoided
Verify, previously arguing that it was too slow and had not been built to meet the
department’s needs.38 Verify has historically been dogged by missed targets and otherproblems, and the HMRC team found it too ‘clunky’ and with too high a drop-off rate(users not completing sign up to the service).39

DIGITAL SERVICES

15

The Department for Work and Pensions

DWP redeployed staff to create capacity as existing services saw a huge surge
in demand
The coronavirus crisis not only prompted the creation of new services, it also put
pressure on existing ones. In particular, the economic impact of coronavirus forced
many people to use DWP’s benefits system for the first time. There was unprecedented
demand for Universal Credit as people rushed to register and submit claims. Fromlaunch through to the end of 2019 the most claims the system had ever received ina single day was 13,588. On 27 March, four days after the stay at home order cameinto force, the system registered more than 135,902 claims, more than ten times theprevious maximum amount.
Figure 2 Universal Credit, daily claimants, January to July 2020
140,000

23 March – National stay at home order

120,000

100,000

80,00060,00040,00020,000

0
Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Source: Institute for Government analysis of Department for Work & Pensions, ‘Claims made to Universal Credit’,
Stat-Xplore.

Universal Credit (UC) is a big service that was already handling millions of users. There
were 2.5 million households on UC in February 2020: this number surged to 4.2 million
in May.40 Similarly, the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) had a caseload ofaround 1.9 million individuals prior to the crisis.41 Other services – including the digital
Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) service, which had only launched in March, were used to a
relatively small number of claims. In August 2019, only 182,000 people were claiming
JSA through any means. Much like UC, these services suddenly found themselvesfacing a sudden spike in demand.
The whole of DWP – a department of around 70,000 people42 – reoriented itself
around the coronavirus response; thousands of staff were redeployed on tocoronavirus priorities. In particular, officials working on fraud, error and debt, or incorporate functions where work had effectively dried up overnight, were moved on
to UC and trained up.43 HMRC and Home Office also loaned staff to DWP, being drawn
from areas of work that had similarly ground to a halt, such as passports and visas.

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DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

To manage demand for its services, DWP pushed users to access them digitally where
they could, in the first instance. At the same time the department opened up as
many other channels as possible (particularly phones) to increase capacity and avoid
excluding anyone. Officials set out new policies which prioritised people claiming
means-tested benefits for the first time and anyone in a vulnerable group.
While those who could claim online were able to, telephone lines were rapidly
overwhelmed by calls – on one day alone DWP received 2.2 million calls.44 To manage
this the department worked with Vodafone to expand its own network and with othergovernment departments and contractors to find spare call centre capacity. While thedepartment was boosting its telephone capacity it adjusted its policies, introducing a‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ approach, calling claimants back where necessary.

DWP was willing to rethink rules and redesign Universal Credit to meetthe moment
Universal Credit has long had a poor reputation. Cross-party support was squanderedby the government setting impossible timetables, trying to reform a social security
system that wasn’t in a steady state (largely due to austerity) and IT problems. All of
this led to real hardship for claimants. In January 2017 less then three quarters of all
claims to Universal Credit were paid in full and on time, and nearly 15% of claimants
didn’t receive anything. The situation was even worse for new claimants, with only justover half receiving their full benefit on time, and nearly 30% not receiving anything.
But in recent years, some of those problems have been solved, in particular IT issues,
thanks to stable project leadership.45 A growing share of payments were being madein full and on time. By the start of 2020, 95.3% of all claimants and 88.2% of newclaimants were receiving their full benefits in a timely fashion.
Figure 3 Percentage of Universal Credit payments made on time and in full to all claimants
and new claimants, January 2017 to April 2020
100%
90%
All claims
80%
70%
60%
50%

New claims

40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Jan 2017

Jul 2017

Jan 2018

Jul 2018

Jan 2019

Jul 2019

Jan 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of Department for Work & Pensions, ‘Households on Universal Credit:
Payment Timeliness’, Stat-Xplore.

DIGITAL SERVICES

17

The pandemic meant that UC had to be ‘turned on its head’ overnight. Ministers set out
new priorities for how the system should operate. Working with officials they agreed
a series of policy ‘easements’ that would relax some controls to ensure that people
got paid first and made fraud a secondary concern. This was a major, conscious tradeoff that benefited from a willingness on the part of both ministers and officials to takemeasured risks in order to ensure that benefits were paid out on time. As a result, theUC team had to rapidly redesign parts of the service.
Checks to effectively combat fraud are often non-digital and DWP employs a large
number of people in clerical roles to do much of this work. As of November 2019 it
had just shy of 5,500 staff working on ‘counter fraud and compliance’. However, thesechecks can slow down payments.
To mitigate this the department automated as much data checking as it could, drawing
information about applicants from elsewhere in government wherever possible –although it is unclear exactly what information this is and how aware citizens areabout how their data is being used, potentially storing up problems for the future.
DWP facilitated this process further by relaxing its rules which had previously required
physical signatures on these documents.
There were clear positive outcomes here. Not only did the service cope with thesudden surge in demand, the share of new claimants receiving their benefits in fulland on time shot up from 88% in March to just shy of 96% in April. This willingness torelax controls helped to ensure that the money flowed to those who needed it.

Improved data sharing within DWP expanded service capacity within thedepartment and across government
DWP had an existing ‘silent army’ of APIs (application programming interfaces) whichallow computer programs to talk to one another and share data.46 This meant civil
servants inside DWP could easily share and process data within the department, andincreasingly with other departments.47 This information flow was a vital part of what
kept many of DWP’s services running during the crisis. These APIs were a key tool thatmade it easier for other parts of government to share the information relevant to fraud
checks with DWP. But they also enabled DWP to support other parts of government bymaking it quicker and easier to share its own data externally.
An example of this was seen in pandemic response logistics. As demand for HGVdrivers spiked early on in the crisis, owing to the need to keep supermarkets stocked
and ensure that NHS supplies reached hospitals, the DVLA used one of DWP’s APIs
to double the number of citizen validation checks it was doing.48 This increased its
capacity to issue or renew licences, getting more drivers on the road sooner. Similar
surges in demand for NHS prescription charge exemptions and free school meals weremanaged using the capacity provided by DWP’s APIs.
Another data-sharing service provided by DWP is ‘Tell Us Once’ – a service whichallows bereaved families to make a single notification about the death of an individual
which is then shared across the whole of government. This existed before the18

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

pandemic but, as deaths from Covid grew, developers at DWP adapted the service
to make the digital version more accessible and the default means for sharing thisinformation with government. Having a single point of contact benefits users by
reducing the amount of administrative work required of them at a difficult time. It also
benefits the government, saving around £20m per year by making it easier to stop or
suspend services faster.49

Agile governance and open working supported a successful, iterative approachto service design‘Agile’ project management means taking an approach where prototypes are built,
tested and iterated to fully understand what problem needs to be solved, what people
want and what works best in solving the problem, rather than locking down all therequirements and funding upfront (‘waterfall’). This has long been used in digitalprojects. But this has sometimes posed problems for digital projects in government,
where processes – such as Treasury approval of business cases for projects – tend to
demand a high degree of certainty upfront.50
During the pandemic, DWP worked closely with Cabinet Office, GDS and the Treasury
to work quickly and not have to justify every pound in advance. This governanceapproach allowed DWP to work quickly and test and iterate as it redesigned aspectsof Universal Credit. One interviewee described this as a “more commercial” approach,getting parts of the service out in public quickly and testing and iterating while
it was live, when they would normally test things more thoroughly before launch.
GDS’s attitude, including its willingness to allow greater flexibility around service
assessments, also helped.

Existing expertise and relationships helped DWP rapidly deliver and upscale
the Jobseeker’s Allowance service
DWP had already taken the decision to fast track its New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance
service prior to the crisis so that an improved service would be available to users
earlier. In February the service was in restricted testing with some users (private beta),
dealing with 10% of new claims. The department took the service fully live from
13 March when it became available for all users and was taking 100% of new claims.51
For the first two weeks after going live, the service was successfully dealing with
300 claims per day. However as the coronavirus crisis started to unfold claims shot
up to over 15,000 a day. In the first eight weeks the service would handle more than
230,000 new claims.52 Rapidly developing and upscaling the JSA service was madepossible by well-established expertise within DWP’s Universal Credit team.
DWP, like HMRC, has made a long-term investment in its digital capacity. It had 2,820
staff in the digital, data and technology profession in 2017 (the last year for which
it provided data) and set up its Digital Academy (now run by GDS) in 2014.53 DWP’s
ability to adapt its existing services at a time of crisis owed much to this capability.
As one interviewee told us: “The ability to respond quickly is a function of thecapability and expertise you have as an organisation.” Building this capacity tooktime, and the successes found during the crisis came on the back of years of hard work.
DWP has not only invested in digital expertise it has also fostered strong relationships

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19

with external suppliers and has built a good network of private firms who can help
deliver additional capacity and solutions as needed (in particular digital infrastructuresuch as cloud hosting).
As a department it has also worked hard to build digital teams that work together
effectively. It was conscious that as a large department, it was in a position to makethose investments and grow that expertise – something that is more of a challenge forsmaller organisations across government.
Because the JSA service was hosted on cloud technology it was easy for the
department to scale it up when traffic was much higher than expected. Rather thanrelying on fixed physical infrastructure, cloud services offer an effectively unlimited
amount of virtual capacity, which can grow or shrink as needed.

The Department of Health and Social Care

The government struggled to build an effective digital contact tracing system
However, these successful examples of building new services and supporting existingones stand in marked contrast to one of the other high-profile technology initiatives
pursued by government during the pandemic: the contact tracing app.54 This was firstannounced by the secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock, at the
government’s daily coronavirus press conference on 12 April 2020.55
Initial debates about contact tracing apps globally focused on the merits of‘decentralised’ approaches, where all the processing of data and calculating of which
other phones a user had been close to was done on individuals’ phones, versus‘centralised’ ones, where data collected on individuals’ phones would be sent to acentral, government-controlled server. Most countries, and Apple and Google (whose
phone software would ultimately be running the apps), favoured a decentralised
approach. NHSX – the joint digital transformation unit of NHS England, NHS
Improvement and DHSC – initially developed a ‘centralised’ contact tracing app, withsome other countries – including France – also pursuing a centralised model.56
The initial NHSX app was trialled on the Isle of Wight in early May 2020.57 By early Julyover 50,000 people had downloaded it, around 42% of the adult population of theisland.58,* Despite the government’s initial optimism, by the end of May its rhetoric had
shifted to downplaying the app, saying that it would “come later in support” of a wider
track and trace system.59 On 3 June, Baroness Harding, the government’s test and trace‘tsar’, described the app “more as the cherry on the cake” and an end-to-end test andtrace service as the “bedrock”.60 On 18 June, the government announced that its work
would shift away from the initial, centralised NHSX app and towards working with thedecentralised Google and Apple approach, having identified a number of ‘technicalchallenges’ including problems with the reliability of detecting contacts.61*

20

The Office for National Statistics estimates that in mid-2019 there were 117,003 people living on the Isle ofWight aged 18 or over. See: Park N, ‘Analysis of population estimates tool’, Office for National Statistics, 24 June
2020, retrieved 14 August 2020, www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/
populationestimates/datasets/analysisofpopulationestimatestool

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

The government lost time building a centralised app, but had clear reasons fordoing so – and there are reasons to be wary of the Google/Apple solution
Much of the debate has focused on the UK’s decision to develop a centralised app.
Most other countries have built decentralised apps – Germany, for example, made adecision to move from centralised to decentralised very early on in its development,
causing Ireland and Italy to follow suit. But the government had a clear rationale forpursuing a centralised approach: it argued that a central server was necessary to give
health authorities data on how the disease was spreading and would allow false alarms
to be more easily reversed. It also involved the National Cyber Security Centre inprotecting users’ data, attempting to allay fears that decentralised apps were better forprotecting users’ personal details.62
But at some point, a centralised app was likely to encounter technical problems
running on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems. The tech giants
had opted to develop their own decentralised protocols and had put limits on what
governments were able to develop. The government thought that NHSX developers
could find workarounds so the app would work with Google and Apple systems.63
But the “technical challenges” revealed on the Isle of Wight – specifically “thereliability of detecting contacts” using Bluetooth on some of those operating systems– could not be resolved within the centralised NHS app.64 Ultimately, the government
never explained how it would get around any compatibility problems with Apple andAndroid phones.
It would be easy to blame the government for wasting time pursuing a centralised
app, when most other governments were pursuing decentralised apps that could becompatible with Apple and Android phones. It had a clear rationale for pursuing acentralised solution. But given time was limited and most international efforts werefocused on the decentralised approach, pursuing a centralised app was more difficult.
Eventually, the UK had to switch to a decentralised app anyway – although, as weoutline below, it is too early to know whether any of these apps will ultimately work.
The French government also took a centralised approach. While the government says
the app largely works, it admits that it does not work so well on Apple devices, as
Bluetooth cannot run in the background – similar to the technical problems the UK
encountered – and is not compatible with other European contact tracing apps. Only
68 people had used it to register a positive test in its first three weeks, and many
French citizens have uninstalled the app.65
France opted for a centralised app partly for public health reasons (being able to
track outbreaks more easily).66 But the French government also raised a different
challenge, arguing that embracing the Apple/Google model raised serious questionsof accountability and power, with tech giants essentially dictating terms to democratic
governments.67 France’s digital minister argued that their government has a “sovereign
prerogative” to make choices about protecting the health of its people, and that “ourcountry must have to have the choice and not to be constrained by the choices of alarge company, however innovative and efficient it may be”.68

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With an increasing reliance on digital infrastructure maintained by tech giants, andwith the greater involvement of tech companies in providing government’s digital
infrastructure, decisions about standards and protocols made by these companies
could diminish government control over its own digital services and data. This is nota conundrum with an easy solution, and the interplay between governments, techcompanies and individual citizens is likely to be subject to serious debate over the
next few years.

It’s not yet clear how effective any digital contact tracing apps have been
At the start of the pandemic, the Ada Lovelace Institute – an independent research
institute dedicated to ensuring data and artificial intelligence works for society –wrote that there was “an absence of evidence to support the immediate national
deployment” of various technological solutions, including contact tracing apps.69 Even
though 10 million people in the UK downloaded the app in four days, and take-up was
similarly enthusiastic in France and Germany, it still remains to be seen whether any
country has rolled out an effective contact tracing app.70 Using Bluetooth technology
for contact tracing on this scale is a novel and untested solution to the problem. Somecountries, including South Korea, have deployed more intense, digital surveillancemethods – such as using bank details and CCTV footage – but these are unlikely to bedeemed politically acceptable in the UK.
In trying to build a digital contact tracing app utilising Bluetooth technology, thegovernment was trying to do something novel and complex. It was able to draw
on digital development expertise from across government and bring in otherorganisations such as the National Cyber Security Centre. NHSX in general has tried tobuild on existing work, using open standards – technical protocols widely adopted andcompatible internationally – but in the case of contact tracing, there were no existing
standards.71 Successful new digital services were able to build on standards, practices
and components in a way that was simply impossible for those developing the app.

Good service design will always beat ‘tech solutionism’
The untested nature of the technology also prompts questions as to why the UK
government – whatever it now says about the app being “the cherry on the cake” –had originally made the app, promised to be “world-beating”, the centrepiece of its
strategy. This set unreasonable expectations for the technology that were unlikely toever be met.
The successful digital coronavirus services – particularly HMRC’s trio – started witha clear sense of what the overall objectives for the service were and the needs ofusers, and then considered how technology could be used to build them. With contact
tracing, political rhetoric and actions seemed to do the opposite. The government
abandoned community testing in March 2020 and then focused on the app rather thanan end-to-end test and trace system.

22

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

A long-standing concern about government digital transformation is that leaders can
get tempted by shiny technology and ‘tech solutionism’ at the expense of service
design and getting the basics of data and digital infrastructure right.72 This is a concern
borne out by all the fanfare about the contact tracing app – an untested and unproventechnological solution – at the expense of a functioning wider system of test and trace.
Most of the debates focused on how an app would be built. Given the lack of evidence
for how effective they could be, they should have focused on whether an app should
be built.

Government needs to earn the public’s trust in the use of personal
data and new technology and be more transparent
The debates about the contact tracing app highlight the sensitivity around the use of
new technology and citizens’ data by government. The same is true of the algorithm
used to allocate grades to students in place of exams in August 2020, where theuse of results data from previous years disadvantaged thousands of students (anddisproportionately affected high-performing students in under-performing schools,
and students in fast-improving schools).73 Government could realise a great deal ofpotential through the better use of data and technology – algorithms could be used
to make more accurate decisions, more quickly, and make sense of huge datasets (forexample, to help HMRC spot tax evasion), and the better use of citizens’ data could
lead to better, more tailored public services (see the GOV.UK example, below) as wellas providing evidence for more effective policy making.
The public aren’t opposed to this: government polling suggests 80% of the publicwould be comfortable if artificial intelligence (which relies heavily on data andalgorithms) were used to help a doctor in their work. This falls to just 19% if usedinstead of a doctor, reiterating the need to see technology as a tool that is part of,rather than a substitute for, a well-designed service.74
Polling, research and past experience also suggests that building public trust is vitalin this area.75 The care.data programme – a coalition government initiative (announced
in 2013) to bring together data from GPs’ surgeries – never really recovered from thelack of information given to patients and a lack of clarity about how to opt out. The
public are much more likely to trust government if it is transparent about what it isdoing and explains how it is using personal data and technology: recent polling by
the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport found that 62% of respondents
would trust an organisation managing their data more if they were clear about how
they would use their data.
Although NHSX was open about various ways it intended to use personal data (morewidely than just the contact tracing app) at the start of the coronavirus crisis,76 DHSC
has since confirmed that it had not obtained a (legally necessary) data protection
impact assessment before launching its test and trace service.77,78 The need for speed
should not come at the cost of important protections, or the law.

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High-profile failures could set efforts to make better use of new technology andpersonal data back, especially where government is moving at speed (as during
the current crisis). The app and A level episodes also underline that we have relatively
little visibility of where government uses algorithms to make decisions – thegovernment rejected select committee recommendations to publish a list of decision
making algorithms and offer the public a ’right to explanation’ on how decisions
were made in 201879 – and how government currently uses its citizens’ data. Whatis it being used to inform, and how? Where are the main flows of such data between
organisations? Which departments are doing it effectively and securely? Moretransparency and public debate is needed if government is to make the most of thetechnological opportunities.80

24

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

2. Information supply
and demand
The pandemic created many new demands for information.
Individual citizens needed to know about lockdown rules, healthand safety advice, the new and existing services that could help,
and how to access them. Digital technology made managing
the supply and demand of this information easier than at any
time in history.
As with its services, the government was able to build on existing
tools and experience to rapidly develop new ways to get
information out, and gain insights about the situation across the UK.
The public face of this was a new, dedicated coronavirus hub pageon GOV.UK. Beneath the surface there were rapid developments
in analytics and data sharing within government, allowing
government to understand what people were interested in, andhow public needs were evolving during the crisis. Crucially, theGOV.UK team also helped to personalise the service users received,so that they could access everything they needed from government
as easily as possible.
The Government Digital Service (GDS) was able to build on what
had already been developed as part of GOV.UK, rather than having
to build much that was entirely new.
The story of how the coronavirus crisis unfolded in the UK can be told through how
the British public used GOV.UK, which GDS describes as the “canonical source of truth
for government information”.81 A couple of weeks before the UK went into lockdown
on 23 March, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) saw visits to its services
and information on GOV.UK peak, as Britons sought travel advice as other European
countries began to lock down. Next came the Department for Education (DfE), as
schools closed on 18 March, and then the Department of Health and Social Care(DHSC) and Public Health England (PHE) as people sought advice on social distancing
and the spread of the virus. PHE’s coronavirus tracker dashboard was one of the pages
with the most traffic.

INFORMATION SUPPLY AND DEMAND

25

Next came the Cabinet Office, as people looked for clarity on the rules (guidancefor households with possible coronavirus cases, and on shielding for the extremely
vulnerable, were among the most viewed pages), and the Department for Workand Pensions (DWP), as applications for Universal Credit soared. As the months
went on, visits to HMRC’s website increased as people sought information on its
coronavirus services. No.10 logged record views in late June, as announcements
were made about easing lockdown. Early July saw visitors to the FCO close to theprevious peak – presumably as Britons sought travel advice amid press reports of air
bridges and quarantine measures.
Many other departments had record numbers of visitors during the crisis, despitechanges in how visitors were counted introduced in December 2019 that brought
numbers down.* The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy(BEIS), Cabinet Office, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS),
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), DfE, Department forTransport (DfT), DHSC, DWP, FCO, HMRC, the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Scotland
and Wales Offices and No.10 have all had record numbers of weekly pageviews during
the pandemic. Perhaps most striking was PHE, which went from an average of 340,000
weekly pageviews in 2019 to more than 23 million the week before lockdown.

Previous investment in GOV.UK paid off as public demand for
information surged
GOV.UK’s ability to respond to the surge of public interest in government information
during coronavirus was based on previous work on the website since GOV.UK was
launched in 2012. Its response also involved the acceleration of planned work to makethe site even better for users.

*

26

From 1 January 2020, GOV.UK changed the way that users give consent to tracking through cookies on thewebsite, from automatically opting in to cookie consent to automatically opting out. Users now have to
manually choose to give consent to tracking through cookies, which is what allows GDS to count visitors to thesite. This has led to a decrease in users that GDS can count visiting the site, as fewer users actively choose toconsent to cookies.

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Figure 4 Unique users visiting GOV.UK per week, January 2013 to October 2020

30m

25m

20m

15m

10m
From 1 Jan 2020, numbers only include
users who have consented to tracking,real numbers will be much higher

5m

0m
Jan 2013

Jan 2014

Jan 2015

Jan 2016

Jan 2017

Jan 2018

Jan 2019

Jan 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of https://gov.uk/performance/site-activity/site-traffic, January 2013 to
October 2020. The methodology changed on 1 January 2020 to include only users who have consented to analytics
tracking – the real number is likely to be significantly higher.

GOV.UK has seen a steady increase in users over the last few years, with a drastic
increase during the coronavirus crisis. In 2019, an average of around 16 million uniqueusers accessed GOV.UK each week. The week before the lockdown announcement (w/c
22 March 2020) saw just over 21 million unique users visit the site, while the following
week saw over 29 million, almost doubling the 2019 weekly average.
Pageviews (any instance of a webpage being loaded in a web browser) show a similar
pattern – a record 132 million* in one week during the pandemic, compared to aprevious high of around 60 million in February 2019, as the March Brexit deadline
approached and parliamentary drama reached a climax.82 The number of users has
steadily decreased over the course of the lockdown, but spikes continue to occur
around major government announcements, and the average is consistently higher thanit was in 2019.

*

User and pageview numbers in 2020 are underestimates, since they only include users who consented toanalytics.

INFORMATION SUPPLY AND DEMAND

27

Figure 5 GOV.UK unique departmental pageviews, January 2020 to October 2020
FCO views peaked two weeks before the UK lockdown, as other countries introduced lockdowns and people sought travel guidance.

30m

Lockdown

20m
FCO

10m

0m

Jan 2020

Feb 2020

Mar 2020

Apr 2020

May 2020

Jun 2020

Jul 2020

Aug 2020

Sep 2020

Oct 2020

DfE views increased the week before lockdown, as the government announced school closures. Views peaked in mid-May as re-openings
were announced.

30m

Lockdown

20m

10m
DfE

0m
Jan 2020

Feb 2020

Mar 2020

Apr 2020

May 2020

Jun 2020

Jul 2020

Aug 2020

Sep 2020

Oct 2020

PHE and DHSC views peaked the week before lockdown, as people sought information on the spread of coronavirus and advice onsocial distancing.

30m

Lockdown
PHE

20m
DHSC

10m

0m

Jan 2020

Feb 2020

Mar 2020

Apr 2020

May 2020

Jun 2020

Jul 2020

Aug 2020

Sep 2020

Oct 2020

DWP and CO views peaked in the week of the lockdown announcement, as the public made a record number of Universal Credit claims
and sought clariﬁcation on quarantine rules, who was deemed extremely vulnerable, and how to stay safe.

30m

Lockdown
DWP

20m

CO

10m

0m

Jan 2020

Feb 2020

Mar 2020

Apr 2020

May 2020

Jun 2020

Jul 2020

Aug 2020

Sep 2020

Oct 2020

HMRC views steadily increased in the weeks after the lockdown announcement, as people sought information on ﬁnancial support,
the furlough scheme and support for the self-employed.

30m

Lockdown

HMRC

20m

10m

0m

Jan 2020

Feb 2020

Mar 2020

Apr 2020

May 2020

Jun 2020

Jul 2020

Aug 2020

Sep 2020

Oct 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of GOV.UK, Performance Platform data on departmental pageviews,
January 2020 to October 2020

28

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

As lockdown began, users overwhelmingly shifted to mobile devices to access
GOV.UK
Figure 6 How users access GOV.UK, January 2014 to October 2020

80%
70%

Mobile

60%
50%
40%
30%

Desktop20%
Tablet10%0%
Jan 2014

Jan 2015

Jan 2016

Jan 2017

Jan 2018

Jan 2019

Jan 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of GOV.UK, access device data, January 2014 to May 2020. The
methodology for counting visitors to GOV.UK changed on 1 January 2020 to include only users who have consented
to analytics tracking - this may have some effect on the balance of visitors between devices.

As well as a steady increase in traffic over the last few years, the other notable trend
has been how people access GOV.UK. Until early 2019, most visitors used their desktop
computers to access the site, except at Christmas; since early 2019, mobile users haveaccounted for most visits to GOV.UK. This has been especially pronounced during
the pandemic – in the week beginning 22 March 2020, during which the UK lockdown
was announced, a record high of 74.4% of GOV.UK users accessed the site via theirmobile devices, partly (as at Christmas) as more people were at home and so not using
work computers.
The civil service has been able to react quickly to provide citizens with the information
it needs during the crisis – but much of this has again been due to work that has been
going on for years, and through the acceleration of planned work. As Jen Allum, head of
GOV.UK, has put it:“It wouldn’t have been possible for GOV.UK to work in this way without the work
we’ve done in the past – building the tools, platforms and working practices that haveenabled our response. And without excellent collaboration with colleagues fromacross government, of course.”83

The existing architecture of GOV.UK made it easy to build an accessible hub forcoronavirus information
The GOV.UK coronavirus landing page, launched on 20 March, was the first GOV.UK
product to be designed primarily for mobile, rather than desktop use.84,85 ,86 This site
clocked 750,000 views in its first 24 hours and 18 million in its first week. It received

INFORMATION SUPPLY AND DEMAND

29

9.2 million views on 24 March alone – as the first of many lockdown measures were
implemented.* More than 90% of visitors in the early days of the page came via
mobile, vindicating the design choices.
GDS worked with DHSC and PHE to pull all the relevant coronavirus information
across government together. This included details of coronavirus symptoms, links togovernment guidance and regulations, advice for individuals and businesses including
what schemes were available to help and how they could access them, statistics about
the spread of the disease across the UK, and links to other relevant news, such asvideos of the daily press conferences.
The team at GDS built the page in four and a half days, all while working remotely.
They were able to do so by using existing government tools, including GOV.UK
design patterns for pages and features and the NHS design system, and a suite ofother software to design, build and iterate quickly. These included Google Hangouts(now Meet), Slack, Figma (a collaborative interface design tool) and drawing ‘content
sketches’ on Google Docs.**
The preference for mobile use affected design choices. Because mobile screens offer
less space, content within the page needed strict prioritisation; this forced the GDS
developers to make some early decisions about the hierarchy of information. For
example, as of early November the relevant section on guidance and support has six
major subsections which users can expand, including: “National restrictions: what
you can and cannot do”, “Self-isolating and testing for coronavirus” and “Work andfinancial support”.87 Previous user research had shown that an ‘accordion’ design
pattern – letting users expand and reduce particular sections – worked well forcontent-heavy pages, and so this was incorporated into the design.
GDS has also said that the experience of Brexit helped, with GOV.UK already having
experience of pulling together content from across government and helping users
navigate a set of complex topics (as well as an increase in traffic).88 The coronavirus
page needed to get users to the information they needed urgently while ensuring it
was recognisably part of both the wider coronavirus information campaign and GOV.UK– something analytics, existing design patterns and user research, previous experienceand being able to iterate allowed them to do.
Despite building the landing page, there have been valid criticisms that the
information it presents is not complete – for example, a tool that would help people
easily find their local lockdown rules by entering their postcode. Some technologists
outside government have been able to build such a service using information from***

These numbers only include users who consented to analytics. Actual numbers likely to be significantly higher.
‘Content sketches’ are “a single column table in a Google Doc, split into rows where each row represents
different content. This lets content designers make decisions on the priority order and importance of various
elements. This sketch then informs the page design, rather than content designers having to fit their words
to available design components.” https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2020/06/08/designing-the-gov-ukcoronavirus-page

30

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

GOV.UK, although here too there has been criticism that departments changing how
they publish data has made this more difficult.*

Technology helped the government to learn about public demand in real time
As people interact with the information and services on GOV.UK they produce aninformation trail that can be analysed. These analytics are a key part of how GDS
supported the government response to the coronavirus crisis and what it intends to
do next with the government website. GDS used insights gleaned from traffic data tounderstand what people were interested in.
This data about what people were searching for on GOV.UK helped government
departments to anticipate when and where spikes in public demand might come.
This included information on funerals, hairdressers and VE Day. As well as using dailysnapshots and weekly reflections on traffic data themselves, GDS shared its insights
with others across government – including policy and communications teams andsenior responsible owners of digital public services. The new GOV.UK Data Lab has
built a GOV.UK Intent and Feedback Explorer Tool (GIFT) to combine user analytics
with comments left on GOV.UK (including subjects like food deliveries and furlough
schemes) to provide teams across government with further information about theirusers, informing design choices and even potential policy changes.89

GDS has used the pandemic to press on with plans to ‘personalise’
GOV.UK for users
According to GDS, both the GOV.UK ‘Brexit checker’ and the coronavirus landing page
have shown the value of ‘personalisation’ for individual users. The Brexit checker
site allows users to understand what actions they need to take to prepare for the
UK’s exit from the EU, partly by answering a series of questions so the content can be
tailored to their needs.90 The coronavirus landing page is a similar hub of informationand services, one of which is to “find out what support you can get if you’re affectedby coronavirus”, which asks users a series of questions. The landing page itself isconstantly improved by user research and – where users have given permission –tracking where people have clicked on the page, to see if anything is being overlooked
and needs to be moved.91 Both sites serve a wide range of people with different needs,
and personalisation helps users to navigate these sites more effectively. GDS was able
to use the experience gained from developing the Brexit checker site to develop thecoronavirus landing page.
GDS had already been planning to join up and improve its use of analytics across
GOV.UK to improve public services. GOV.UK may look like one website, but inreality it is a linked collection of pages and services from hundreds of governmentorganisations and GDS does not always have access to data on how users areinteracting with different parts of the website.92 In particular, information about
how individuals use services is held by the organisation that provides the service,rather than GDS.

*

For example, Public Health England changed the way it published its data dashboard on 16 May 2020 –see Institute for Government’s collaborative timeline on data and the pandemic, https://docs.google.com/
spreadsheets/d/1V9NF0cauGDmzqoJRFqTL0UuSmX5e1IWDXMlXw6J744g/edit#gid=0

INFORMATION SUPPLY AND DEMAND

31

Personalisation would aim to present citizens with the most relevant information by
better understanding them and how they use GOV.UK. Ultimately, citizens could enter
data once and have that data used across many digital services, rather than having to
input it separately every time. Users who did not want their data to be used in this way
would still be able to use the website as normal.93 The aim of most web developmenttasks based on analytics is to keep users on the site for as long as possible; GDS’s
aim is to help users find what they want more quickly.94 In late September,
GOV.UK announced it would begin a series of trials around ‘Accounts’, a single accountfor citizens on the website, to work towards offering users a more proactive andpersonalised experience of GOV.UK.95
The openness with which GDS is pursuing this work – blogging about the future
direction for GOV.UK and talking about the plans at events including the Institute forGovernment’s Data Bites series – contrasts with the last time these efforts were in the
public eye. In September 2019, there was some controversy as the prime minister andhis then chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, pursued plans to aggregate anonymised
analytics data through confidential cabinet committee correspondence.96 Given theimportance of earning public trust in using personal information in government, themore recent, open approach is welcome – government is likely to be able to provide
more tailored information and digital services to citizens as a result, but it has to havethe discussions about how it will use that data in public, with the public.

Government adapted its social media strategy to share information andrespond to requests
The government operates hundreds of social media accounts across a wide rangeof platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and Snapchat.97 Thesechannels were a key part of the government’s communications strategy aroundcoronavirus – servicing a different need to GOV.UK. GOV.UK is the canonical source ofgovernment advice and the access point for all the government’s services, and while
it does invite feedback from users, it is not designed to accept queries from users andinteract in quite the same way as social media channels.
The public turned to the government’s official social media accounts for advice. In
the early stages of the crisis, engagement with the main @GOVUK Twitter accountgrew by over 12,500%.98 Many people were coming to the government’s social media
accounts with questions about the virus and the government’s lockdown rules. In
order to meet the demand, GDS adapted and built upon its existing social media‘community management techniques’ to meet the demand. It already had standard
sets of responses – for example, to enquiries about passport renewal or applications to
the Fast Stream. For coronavirus, it analysed the nature of the queries it was receiving,
putting these into seven categories (including ‘protecting yourself and others’,‘employment and financial support’ and ‘scams and hoaxes’), and worked with the
Cabinet Office’s central coronavirus communication response team and others acrossgovernment to agree more than 70 standard responses. As with other elements of thegovernment’s digital response, the revised social media guidance shows government
responding to user needs by adapting existing processes and working acrossdepartments to meet those needs.

32

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

3. Remote working andbusiness continuity
As the coronavirus surged within the UK the government faced twin
challenges. The first was managing the effects of the crisis acrossthe country; the second was doing so while having to shift, almost
overnight, to new ways of working, with hundreds of thousands ofcivil servants having to adapt to remote working.
The civil service has traditionally struggled with some key aspects of remote working,such as video conferencing. Departments use different software platforms, which has
made basic collaborative tasks like sharing documents more difficult than it ought
to be. But the pandemic has forced it to overcome some of these problems, withgovernment organisations quickly providing their staff with the hardware, softwareand other support necessary to allow working from home and starting to solve
long-standing issues. This allowed the business of government to continue throughthe crisis. In time, as officials return to offices, the need for hybrid models of working
will create further challenges. It remains to be seen whether some of the successes
during the crisis – such as virtually bringing teams spread across different locations
together – will last.

Before the crisis, remote working was low down the civil service agenda
When the whole of government had to shift to home working some individualorganisations were better prepared than others – GDS, for example, had previously
encouraged its staff to work from home.99 However, at a whole civil service level,
reports and strategies for reform over the last decade hardly mention remote working.
The 2018 Government Estate Strategy has one page titled ‘Smarter Working’, which
mentions the importance of using technology to provide “cutting-edge collaboration,
document sharing and communication tools, with full mobility and rapid access todata and information, anywhere, anytime”.100 Perhaps understandably, the biggest
initiatives of late have concentrated on moving civil servants out of London into
regional hubs, rather than out of offices into their homes.101
One exception was Operation StepChange, an initiative during the 2012 London
Olympics that encouraged London-based officials to work from home to reducedemand on public transport.102,103 There is also some reference to working from homeas part of attempts by Civil Service HR to promote flexible working.104,105,106

REMOTE WORKING AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY

33

The crisis accelerated a shift to home working; as offices emptied, technology
filled the gap
Figure 7 Percentage of civil servants working from home by government department,
May 2020
2.6% of public servants
worked from home fulltime in 201929.4% of public servants
worked from home someof the time in 2019

DCMS
Scot
DfE
CO
DIT
BEIS
HMT
DfID
DfT
DHSC
HMRC
DWP
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Source: Institute for Government analysis of ministerial answers to parliamentary questions posed by Margaret
Ferrier MP and Dan Carden MP on the rate of home working among civil servants in each department, May 2020.
2019 rates of home working taken from ONS, ‘Technology intensity and home working in the UK’, May 2020.

Coronavirus has changed everything. In answers given to parliamentary questionsin May, all but one of the departments that responded said at least nine out of ten of
their staff were working from home. This included 98% of staff in the Department forInternational Development, 99% of staff in the Treasury, Cabinet Office, Department
for International Trade and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy,
and a full 100% of staff at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport andthe Scotland Office.107
The outlier was the Department for Work and Pensions, where only 20% of staff weresaid to be logging in remotely – understandable, given DWP is a large operational
department with thousands of staff working in job centres.108 This figure is now likely
to have risen, with one interviewee telling us that around half of DWP staff were
working remotely in early summer.109 Comparisons from before the crisis are difficult tocome by, but statistics suggest that only 29.4% of UK workers in ‘public administrationand defence’ had ever worked from home, with just 2.6% doing so full-time.110

34

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Figure 8 Average GovWifi weekly users, May 2019 to October 2020

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

Lockdown

0
May 2019

Jul 2019

Sep 2019

Nov 2019

Jan 2020

Mar 2020

May 2020

Jul 2020

Sep 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of GOV.UK, Performance Platform data on volume of weekly GovWifi users,
May 2019 to October 2020.

The emptying of offices is also seen in the sudden drop in people using GovWifi.* In theweek before lockdown, 167,160 users connected to the network. This dropped by 66%
to 56,795 in the week when lockdown was announced.

Departments moved quickly to get their staff the hardware and infrastructure
they needed
The first challenge for departments was providing staff with hardware (computing
equipment) and ensuring the right infrastructure (such as network access) was
available. Again, long-term investments in equipment and experienced staff paid off,with some organisations able to adapt faster than others. An institutional willingness
to be flexible about processes also helped organisations to quickly build their capacity
for remote working.
HMRC, an organisation of more than 55,000 civil servants, was among the better
prepared having made a conscious decision to move all its staff onto laptops andtablets years ago.111 This made the transition to home working easier; every employee
within the organisation already had a standard Microsoft Surface Pro to work on.112
Other departments were not so well positioned. Most staff at DWP did not havetheir own laptops before the crisis. As offices closed the department had to go from
deploying around 150 laptops a week to hundreds each day.
The infrastructure to support home working was less well developed. Whiledepartments such as HMRC had invested in hardware on the basis that some of theiremployees might work remotely on any given day, nobody ever expected that theentire organisation would shift at once. Before the pandemic, HMRC had capacity for*

GovWifi is the official government wifi network operating in many government properties across the country,
which allows ‘public sector staff and visitors to sign up once and use the same username and password toautomatically connect to a single wifi service across multiple public sector locations’. Government Digital
Service, ‘What is GovWifi?’, GOV.UK, retrieved 14 August 2020, www.wifi.service.gov.uk/about-govwifi

REMOTE WORKING AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY

35

up to 9,000 people to work from home. Using similar approaches to the ones that
helped it develop its new services so quickly, HMRC condensed what would havebeen a six-week programme to expand support for remote working into four days.
The department built new networks, including those which allowed some 30,000
call centre staff to manage calls and other communications (including webchat). They
were able to make use of third-party infrastructure to give themselves more flexibility
and capacity on the network. This enabled all 55,000 of its staff to work from home.
Any difficulties in the first couple of days gave way to business as usual very quickly.
Without this aggressive approach none of HMRC’s other digital developments, such asbuilding new public-facing services, would have been possible.
GDS has long encouraged its staff to work from home one day a week and “has always
designed and built its services on the internet”. This means that many of the tools staff
use – such as emails, calendars and document sharing – were already easily accessible
from outside the office. By “build[ing] on these principles” GDS was able to “adapt
to the lockdown situation”.113 Nonetheless, some services could only be accessed
remotely via its Virtual Private Network (VPN, which provides a secure connection
to a private network over the internet). GDS was concerned that its VPN would nothave enough capacity to support the sudden surge in demand for these services. To
manage this it used its monitoring system to track demand and send alerts when it wasapproaching capacity. At the same time it started adding additional capacity to its VPN.
The GDS Service Desk, which provides IT support to everyone at GDS, also had
to adapt the way it works. It established processes to set up MacBooks for new
starters remotely and switched to using remote tools like Google Meet and Slackto provide support.114

Departments quickly rolled out software that enabled collaboration
Civil servants have always needed to collaborate across teams within their department
and across government departments. This has been especially important during
the pandemic, with critical services spanning different departments’ areas of
responsibility. Many civil servants have complained for years that, for all the grandvisions about digital transformation and future technology, they still couldn’t
hold a decent conference call with departmental colleagues. Things became evenmore complicated when trying to work with other departments – for example,
some departments using the Google suite of collaborative documents that somedepartments couldn’t access. The coronavirus crisis exposed these issues like neverbefore, and forced changes allowing civil servants to embrace a range of tools,
including video conferencing tools (VCT), file sharing, document collaborationand calendars.

36

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

OtherJabber

Slack

Skype

MS
Teams

Instant messaging platform
GSuite

Other

MS
Teams

Google
Docs

Skype

Zoom

Document sharing

Webex

VCT for inter-organisational meetings
MS
Teams

Skype

Zoom

Webex

MS
Teams

Organisation

GoogleMeet

VCT within organisation

GoogleMeet

Figure 9 VCT, document-sharing and instant messaging platforms used by governmentorganisations during lockdown (indicative survey)

BEIS
CO
DCMS
DfID
DHSC
DIT
Defra
DfE
DfT
DWP
FCO
GDS (CO)
HMRC
HMT
HO
MHCLG
MoJ
NICS
Parliament Digital
Scot Gov
Wal Gov
Percentage of respondents
saying they had used software

0%
1%–20%
20%–40%40%–60%60%–80%80%–100%
Source: Institute for Government analysis of a survey of 134 civil servants from across government organisations.
Departments with very few respondents excluded. Survey open 28 May to 19 July 2020, and can be found atwww.surveymonkey.com/r/8J7G9LT

A survey conducted by the Institute for Government gives an impression of theinternal challenge within departments: while one video conferencing service orsuite of collaborative documents might be used most often by a number of different
civil servants, a wide variety of tools were in use, with implications for knowledge
management (files saved in different locations), usability (having to learn how to use
many different tools) and security. The proliferation of tools could also suggest, on thepositive side, that civil servants were innovating quickly to find tools that worked fortheir teams, but, on the less positive side, something of a scramble as remote working
began, and the lack of a coherent approach to using these tools.
Many departments took advantage of lockdown to accelerate existing plans tomigrate staff on to certain software, such as Microsoft Teams. Some have taken theapproach of having a ‘central backbone’ built around software like Teams or Google’s
G Suite. However there are teams within every organisation that need a wider range ofcollaborative tools – particularly teams which previously relied on physical tools suchas whiteboards and sticky notes to do design work. Some departments have therefore
allowed staff to safely and securely test other tools beyond that ‘central backbone’,relaxing the rules on the tools that can be used while stressing the need for civil
servants to be careful about what they’re sharing.
Officials are still adapting to the new way of working and how best to use the tools attheir disposal to replicate or rethink what they would normally do. For example, theHome Office DesignOps team – which increases collaboration between teams building
digital services, to share lessons and reduce inefficiency – adapted their design
critique (or ‘crit’). This is a session where designers share their work in progress for
feedback. Switching to online working meant preparing more materials in advance tosave time during the session, shortening session times and using tools like Slack, Trelloand video breakout rooms.115,116

REMOTE WORKING AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY

37

Project Unblock has helped civil servants work acrossdepartmental boundaries
Interoperability is the principle that different systems which serve the same end
should all be able to work together and speak to each other without issue. Thishas predominantly been a technology issue, although recently there is a growing
recognition that government departments need interoperable processes, culture anda common language to talk about their ways of working with each other.
Departments need interoperable technology to work well with each other. But at thestart of the crisis there was a distinct lack of interoperability between systems usedby different organisations across government. This made communicating, sharing andworking with colleagues much more difficult than it needed to be. Departments wereusing a variety of platforms and tools which were blocked by other departments,
making collaboration much more difficult. Civil servants have long complained about
these problems, but they had been easy to overlook until the crisis forced so many
officials to use these tools all at once.117
Figure 10 Interoperability of video conferencing tools used by government organisations,
1 May and 15 July 2020
1 May
Organisation

Default

BEIS

MS Teams

CO

Google Meet

DCMS

Google Meet

DfID

MS Teams

DHSC

Skype

DIT

MS Teams

Defra

MS Teams

DfE

MS Teams

DfT

MS Teams

DWP

Skype

FCO

MS Teams

GDS (CO)

Google Meet

GSS (CO)

Google MeetHMRC

MS Teams

HMT

MS Teams

HO

Skype

MHCLG

MS Teams

MoD

Skype

MoJ

MS Teams

No 10

MS Teams

NICS

Cisco Webex

Google

MS

Cisco

Meet

Teams

Webex

15 July
Zoom

Skype

Default

GoogleMS

Cisco(where new)

Meet

Teams

Webex

Zoom

Skype

BlueJeans

MS Teams

Skype

MS Teams

ONS
Parliament Digital

BlueJeans

Google Meet
MS Teams

PHE

Skype

Scot Gov

VsceneWal Gov

MS Teams

Can useRestricted

Cannot use

Unknown

Source: Institute for Government analysis of Government Digital Service, ‘Project Unblock data on videoconferencing tool interoperability’, bit.ly/2ZwCJeU

This mix is a result of there being no mandated suite of tools that all civil servants
should use. This is something the centre of government has deliberately avoided, since
it would bring its own set of problems that the last decade of digital transformationin government has tried to solve – such as reliance on (and being tied into big contracts

38

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

with) single, big suppliers. But devolving decisions to departments means little
consideration has been given to how officials communicate and collaborate
between departments.
During the pandemic, GDS established Project Unblock (of which there is only one
mention on GOV.UK) to understand and unblock compatibility issues between
departments, starting with video conferencing. Between May and July 2020 many
departments ‘unblocked’ access to various video conferencing tools. By July, only
a few major departments (including HMRC and the Ministry of Defence) were still
blocking some software, and even these had made more tools accessible. Microsoft
Teams has been unblocked across all major departments, while Google Meet has gonefrom being unavailable or restricted in 11 departments to four, and Skype from being
blocked in five departments to two. Even where departments have mandated the useof a particular tool internally, they have also authorised the use of other platforms forteams to be able to talk to other departments.
All of these efforts will have made it easier for teams across government to work with
one another – one civil servant told us that, at one point, “Whitehall divided between
those who can use Google [Suite]* and those who can’t”. All of the case studies inour digital services chapter were able to achieve the fast roll-out of new services
and the adaptation of existing services – inside their own departments and withother departments – as a result of these efforts. Indeed, some of those departments
had found additional advantages to new ways of working. HMRC noted how digitalplatforms were a “huge enabler” of its work to design and develop digital services likeCJRS and SEISS. These tools opened up access to meetings and tools to staff spread
across locations, and at all levels of seniority. This led to fewer people being excluded,
which might have happened if a system was being developed in one location orbusiness area rather than being rolled out to everyone. Meetings could be set up
quickly (‘on the spot’) with the right people and in real time.
Departments we spoke to were pleased with how quickly they and their staff had
adapted. This has obviously been about more than technology – Government Shared
Services has been shortlisted for a civil service award for prioritising staff wellbeing
and communicating quickly and honestly with them – but speedy efforts to roll out
new tools and determined work to unblock compatibility issues between departments
has helped.

Digital technology made it easier to scale up and automate a wide range ofback office functions
There were other ‘back end’ considerations for departments too, as resource
planning, HR, finance and other corporate services had to be adapted to remote
working. Staff absences and swathes of civil servants working from home meant
departments needed to collect new types of management information, on a bigger
scale – including details of what technical kit they had and needed, wellbeing, andabsences due to coronavirus.

*

Google Suite, or G Suite – whose tools include word processing (Docs), spreadsheets (Sheets) and videoconferencing (Meet) – was renamed Google Workplace in October 2020.

REMOTE WORKING AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY

39

Government Shared Services, recently renamed Government Automation and Business
Services, is the Cabinet Office unit that helps departments transform some of theircorporate services. It took the opportunity to ‘get to the future just a bit quicker’ andovercome the ‘inertia in the system’, accelerating some already-planned automationof back-office services. Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL), a joint venture between
Cabinet Office and digital transformation consultancy Sopra Steria, set up a joint teamwith Fujitsu to change the way it recorded absence data across government (to record
coronavirus-related absences). It did so in record time, implementing changes acrosshalf of all departments in two days.
These changes made it possible to share data about 300,000 public sector workers
with COBR, one of the government’s main emergency committees involved in
the pandemic response.118 Automating the collection and sharing of some of thismanagement information helped some departments see the value of easily generating
key information from their corporate systems, rather than the usual cultural defaultof collecting information by cascading requests to populate spreadsheets, saving
time and improving accuracy as they tried to understand key issues including
workforce absences.
As well as already having developed plans and good relationships with private
sector suppliers, interviewees also said that changes to corporate services would
simply not have been possible without five years of the “functional agenda” pursued
by civil service leaders, which has focused on strengthening professional skills ofcivil servants in “functions” including HR, finance, commercial and digital, data andtechnology across government. Brexit ‘dry runs’, especially when it came to theredeployment of staff, had also been valuable.

The civil service needs to continue successful remote working practices
At the end of the summer, the government called for civil servants to start returning totheir offices. A letter sent by the departing cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, and thecivil service chief operating officer, Alex Chisholm, in early September told permanent
secretaries they should enable “80% of staff to attend their usual workplace each
week, for example 20% for five days, 30% for three days and 30% for two days,
with the balance attending only occasionally for now”.119 Unions challenged theseobjectives given the reduced capacity of government buildings owing to coronavirus
measures. Hybrid working, with some civil servants physically in the office and others
still working from home, would have brought its own challenges, including the risk thatthose not in the office could be excluded.
But the return to remote working as coronavirus cases rise means the civil service
needs to ensure it learns from its – largely successful – remote working experiment.
Further unblocking of systems across departments, and embracing of new tools andautomation of key HR information, will help.

40

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

But many of the challenges will not be technological. As noted in a previous chapter,
HMRC’s chief digital information officer said that the pace of work necessary to build
three new services in a matter of weeks is not one that can be sustained indefinitely.
One senior official told a Civil Service World roundtable that the pandemic work ethic
was “completely unsustainable… And yet there are still days where there’s a massivecrisis spike and we have to respond. There’s burnout we need to watch for.”120
Remote working on the scale of the last six months is not something most employers,
especially in government, have ever done before. They will need to learn as many
lessons as they can as quickly as they can.

REMOTE WORKING AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY

41

4. The building blocks ofdigital government‘Government as a Platform’ (GaaP) is a key concept long promoted
by GDS. In its definition it has largely meant creating technological“components that can be used across the public sector”.121 Simply
put, these are building blocks which make it quicker and easier tobuild new digital services and may be common to lots of different
services. The building blocks developed by GDS over the past
decade include digital identity verification (Verify), messaging(Notify), payment (Pay), service design (GDS Design System) andhosting and other infrastructure – all of which can be easily slotted
into services developed by organisations across government andthe wider public sector.122
These existing components have been important during the crisis. Just as HMRC wasable to turn to AWS to find the infrastructure capacity it needed, developers acrosscentral and local government were able to use these building blocks to launch newservices quicker and widen access to existing services. According to GDS, “using
GaaP products [during the Covid-19 crisis] has made it quicker, easier and cheaper tocreate the essential services the public need”.123 Other similar concepts have recently
surfaced in government: DWP has talked about ‘white-label’ services – a concept
where organisations can put their name on something built by somebody else – thatcan be quickly replicated and rolled out.124
As discussed elsewhere in this report, the ability to develop and launch new services
was made easier thanks to years of groundwork, and this includes the development of
the components of ‘Government as a Platform’. The availability of these components
has been vital in government responding effectively at pace to the pandemic –although the success of individual components has varied.

DIGITAL BUILDING BLOCKS

42

Verify registrations surged as layoffs forced people on to Universal Credit –but its future is in doubt
Figure 11 Number of new users registering with GOV.UK Verify per week, January 2018
to October 2020

160,000

120,000

80,00040,0000
Jan 2018

Apr 2018

Jul 2018

Oct 2018

Jan 2019

Apr 2019

Jul 2019

Oct 2019

Jan 2020

Apr 2020

Jul 2020

Oct 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of GOV.UK, ‘Performance Platform data on the volume of new users to
Verify’, January 2018 to October 2020.

Verify, the digital identity system for citizens to prove who they are online,
experienced a rapid increase in the number of new users during the pandemic.
Throughout 2019 only around 40,000 individuals were signing up to Verify each week.
In the week before the March 2020 lockdown, 118,416 people signed up to Verify; thefollowing week, a record 164,672 more followed suit. Most of these new users wereusing Verify to access Universal Credit, which has required users to login via Verify
since September 2015, and which saw a huge increase in claims.
GDS worked to scale up Verify during the crisis to improve access to Universal Credit.
It worked closely with identity providers to handle more claims, introduced online
queues to stagger services, expanded the infrastructure needed to run the service
smoothly, and even introduced a new verification method (scanning passport chips)
earlier than planned. These changes helped increase the number of people that could
be accepted from 25 per minute to 400 per minute during the month of April.125
The surge of thousands of people suddenly applying for Universal Credit in March
resulted in online queues as Verify initially struggled to manage the load.126 These
delays led DWP to announce that Government Gateway, an alternative method,
could also be used to sign into the service, speeding up claims.127 DWP accelerated
development of its own, new online verification system called Confirm Your Identity,
originally planned for September, based on Government Gateway.128 However, GDS
was able to deploy some quick fixes to boost capacity and the delays that users faced
soon vanished. Ultimately, Verify reduced some of the administrative burden that DWP
faced, enabling it to focus more on how to get claims paid quicker.

43

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Verify has not been seen as the long-term solution for digital identity for a while.129
The benefits it offered during the early stages of the crisis have not done enoughto change this view. Historically, the service has been dogged by controversy andconsistently failed to meet key targets. Only 22 services currently use it, compared
to a target of 46 set in 2016, and it had some 14 million fewer users than expected
at the end of 2019.130
However, there is a good case that these targets were always going to be unrealistic
in the absence of any mandates that drove a wide group of users to register withthe service. Despite this, Verify still suffers from some user design problems thatmake initial sign-ups more cumbersome than they need be. And while the surgeof registrations in 2020 brings its user numbers closer in line with older targets, it
shouldn’t have needed a crisis of this scale to drive its growth as a service.
The reliance of some critical services (like Universal Credit) on Verify have given it astay of execution during the pandemic: plans to end government funding for Verify inMarch 2020 were postponed for 18 months.131,132,133,134 The government clearly needs
a single cross-government solution for identity verification. But the fact that DWP was
already building its own system, and then had to turn to another to cope with demandduring the crisis, shows that this is unlikely to be Verify in the long term.
Digital identity in general, and replacing Verify specifically, will be a key challenge
for government over the next few years, as ever more services inside (and outside)
government move online and citizens need to be able to identify themselves inorder to use them. GDS is now developing a new system, the Identity and Attributes
Exchange (IAX), which will meet some of these needs.135 This is not a direct
replacement for Verify, nor a competitor for Government Gateway or Confirm Your
Identity. Rather, it is part of a future solution that aims to allow interoperability
between different sources of identity assurance and the services that rely on them.
There will be even more difficult questions around identity verification to come,for example HM Land Registry has recently written about the possible need for“cryptographic and biometric checking of identity” in the conveyancing sector.136
The government finally published the long-awaited response to its digital identity
consultation in September 2020, but this gave little detail on the direction government
intends to pursue. Its main focus was on the economic opportunities of the digital
identity market, rather than replacing Verify.137 Government urgently needs to set
a direction to avoid a further identity crisis. The long-overdue appointment of agovernment chief digital officer (GCDO) would undoubtedly help with this and othercrucial digital issues across government.138

Notify helped large and small government organisations send out a surgeof targeted information
Notify allows organisations in central and local government and the wider public
sector to send automated emails, text messages and letters to users of their services.
These include appointment reminders from GP surgeries, notifications from local
libraries and the NHS Test and Trace service. The number of government services

DIGITAL BUILDING BLOCKS

44

using Notify has also rapidly increased. An average of around 100 new services joined
up to Notify each month in 2019; this rose to a record 334 in April 2020, taking thetotal number of government services using Notify to more than 2,500. By the end of
October there were 3,429 services using Notify, and much of this growth is due to a
proliferation of services created as a response to the pandemic. As of mid-November
at least 155 of the services using Notify were related to coronavirus, including
notifications about test results and contact tracing, and services supporting people
who are vulnerable or shielding.
Figure 12 Number of government services adopting GOV.UK Notify, May 2016 to May 2020
3,500

400
Total Services
350

3,000
New Services (Monthly)

300

2,500

250
2,000
200
1,500
150
1,000

100

500

50

0

0
Jul 2017

Jan 2017

Jul 2017

Jan 2018

Jul 2018

Jan 2019

Jul 2018

Jan 2020

Jul 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of GOV.UK Notify service data

Notify’s use has increased considerably during the coronavirus crisis. Before March
2020, the number of emails being sent out by Notify had never surpassed 3 million ina single day, and the number of text messages had never exceeded a million, andonly exceeded 500,000 on a few occasions. Since then, usage has greatly exceeded
this: every week has seen a daily average of between 3 million and 7 million emails
sent, and 1.8 million text messages were sent using Notify on 24 March 2020. Notify asa service sent a record number of messages on Sunday 27 September, with 8.5 million
emails and nearly 10 million text messages (and just under a thousand letters) – manyof these were likely encouraging citizens to download the new contact tracing app,launched a few days before.
The services using Notify to add functionality include some of the most high-profile
new central government services (SEISS and the Contact Tracing and Advisory Service);while other services have been using Notify for years (Universal Credit). But – as
the Institute for Government has previously examined – Notify has been a successbeyond central government, being used across the wider public sector.139 This has also
been true during the pandemic, with everything from the City of York’s ‘Coronavirus
Updates’ service to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust’s ‘GSTT COVID
ALERTING’ service using Notify. Of the 2,535 government services which use Notify,

45

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

969 are run by local councils, and 257 are NHS services. Indeed, 36% of the 601
services signing up to Notify in March and April 2020 were from local authorities.*
Figure 13 GOV.UK Notify service notifications by type (rolling average), January 2018
to May 2020
7m
6m

Email
5m
4m
3m

SMS

2m
1m
0m
Jan 2018

LetterApr 2018

Jul 2018

Oct 2018

Jan 2019

Apr 2019

Jul 2019

Oct 2019

Jan 2020

Apr 2020

Jul 2020

Oct 2020

Source: Institute for Government analysis of GOV.UK, Performance Platform data on volume of Notify notifications bytype, January 2018 to October 2020.

Why did Notify succeed while Verify failed? For one, sending messages is less complex
and politically fraught than the debates about digital identity. But Notify also veryclearly meets the needs of organisations across the public sector. Many have used itin the past. During the pandemic, Notify made it straightforward for the government
to get messages out on subjects including the progress and outcomes of coronavirus
tests for individuals, telling vulnerable individuals to shield, public sector business
continuity messages, and travel alerts for those overseas. The ease of integrating
Notify into new services and its scalability meant that officials could have confidence
that the messages they were crafting were getting out to the people who needed tohear them. However, this has not stopped HMRC announcing it will spend nearly £10m
to streamline its notifications, showing that departments still sometimes want to build
or buy their own tools.140

Other building blocks have also been useful
Although Verify’s continued troubles and Notify’s growth may be the most eyecatching stories, other components have been helpful to departments. GOV.UK Pay– as the name suggests, an online payment service – has recently added its 300th
service.141 It filled a gap as call centres and offices closed, supporting services thatwould normally rely on cheques or call centres. The Home Office has added Pay links
to invoices that would normally be taken over the phone or via handheld terminals,
reducing the need for staff to have to travel to the office and improving the customer
experience, while local authorities have used Pay to take payment for crisis funds
and food banks.142 As mentioned above, many new services have made use of
GOV.UK’s Design System to rapidly build new products and services, while Platform*

The next largest group, accounting for 24% of new services, were those run by the Ministry of Justice, withindividual courts and prisons integrating Notify in large numbers – a reminder of the vast numbers of existing
services that have continued through the crisis.

DIGITAL BUILDING BLOCKS

46

as a Service (PaaS) has allowed teams to host those new services (including theShielded Vulnerable People service) and scale them up quickly.
The government should consider what building blocks could be helpful in the
future, based on the lessons of the crisis response. Given the speed with which data
sharing agreements have had to be agreed, there could yet be something in the data
infrastructure and privacy space. GDS has already published guidance on chatbots –applications which can conduct (usually text-based) conversation – and webchat thatorganisations like the DVLA, MoJ and Government Automation and Business Services(among others) have already been using.143
The government should also consider who would build any new components. Theremay be government organisations other than GDS involved, for example. Many
new digital services during the pandemic were essentially online forms, including
the vulnerable person service and reporting coronavirus workplace safetyconcerns service – MoJ has developed a Form Builder using Design System principles(a previous GDS initiative, Submit, was paused in February 2018).144,145 And
one strategy would be to allow non-government organisations to be involved:
HMRC’s success in launching its coronavirus-related services owed much to using
infrastructure from Amazon Web Services.

47

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Conclusion
The coronavirus crisis has accelerated digital transformation acrossgovernment. There have been successes in building new services
quickly, in tackling some long-standing challenges and in moving
rapidly to remote working. But there have been failures too, such as
the contact tracing app and A level algorithm, and confirmation that
Verify is not a sustainable solution for digital identity.
We should remember we may still be at an early stage in this crisis, and the next stages
will bring new challenges – moves to hybrid working, sustaining the extraordinary
effort without burning people out – with as yet unknown new services being required.
Yet there are some key lessons from the government’s digital response to thepandemic so far that will be useful for the future:

Technology is not a panacea
The contact tracing app shows that ‘tech solutionism’ and blind trust in newtechnology will cause more problems than it solves. Government needs to firstunderstand which problems it is trying to solve and the services it needs to deliver
to do so. Then government should seek to understand where technology can support
those aims, rather than starting with the technology itself.

Clear political direction can drive success, but ministerial enthusiasm
is not enough
HMRC was able to use technology to radically transform its operations because it
received clear direction and support from the chancellor from the outset. DWP madesome clear political trade-offs – Universal Credit prioritised making payments topeople, even with a greater risk of fraud and error. By contrast, rhetorical enthusiasm
for the contact tracing app and a lack of clarity of how it fitted into a wider test andtrace system overstated the potential benefits of the technology and understatedthe difficulties. Enthusiasm for a technological solution alone was never going to beenough to drive success.

Success was built on previous investments in people, tools and relationships
Nearly every success story built on what was already there. The digital expertise
brought into government, and the strengthening of corporate functions acrossgovernment over the past few years, meant that government had staff with the rightexpertise and experience. Particular building blocks – such as the Notify messaging
service, and GDS’s design patterns – allowed new services to be launched quickly.
Agile ways of working, with empowered teams building, iterating and adapting quickly,
were vital.

CONCLUSION

48

Relaxing controls and governance only works when you have an establishedmodel to follow
A willingness to take risks, relax controls and fast-track governance processes
worked well in some instances. For example, the decision by GDS to suspend service
assessments for new digital services – such as the vulnerable people service – helped
get vital new services up and running more quickly. They were able to do this because
they had a well-trodden path to follow, the likely failure points and inherent designrisks were largely well understood, and they were able to substitute an alternative
system of peer review to provide a reasonable level of assurance.

Private partners can do heavy lifting that government doesn’t want to or
cannot do – but there are limits
Partnerships with firms such as AWS, Oracle and SAP helped the government to findthe capacity it needed as and when it needed it. They also helped government to avoid
reinventing the wheel. HMRC’s experience suggests the next stage of ‘Government as a
Platform’ – technological building blocks that many different government services canbe built on or around – could see a greater role for the private sector. During the crisis
HMRC utilised the capacity offered by Amazon Web Services to run its new services– such as the CJRS – without any concern that they would buckle under the demand.
But the greater involvement of technology companies also brings big questions andserious risks. The contact tracing app experience, with Google and Apple setting theparameters for democratically elected governments, may point the way towards future
debates and dilemmas. How will government, and how will the public, feel if tech
giants are setting the rules through platform ownership?

Working across organisational boundaries is vital‘Project Unblock’ took the opportunity to break down technical barriers between
departments, allowing them to collaborate more easily. This was important as thedevelopment of many new and vital services spanned existing departmental silos.
The strengthening in recent years of government functions and professions,
including data, digital and technology, has helped to build requisite expertise acrossgovernment. There are some success stories where departments have used and shareddata more effectively, such as the development of the vulnerable people service,
which used driving licence data to access HMRC services, DWP’s use of data, and theongoing work of GOV.UK. However, government needs to be more transparent about
how such data is being used and shared.

Digital identity verification is essential and the current system is holding
government backThe crisis has underlined both the importance of digital identity verification, and that
Verify is not the solution, as departments used other systems to meet demand. Many
departments are exploring their own solutions, including Government Gateway andConfirm Your Identity, risking duplication of work, expense and different systems nottalking to one another. While GDS’s Identity and Attributes Exchange (IAX) may help
bridge some of these gaps, there are a lot of open questions about the future. And thegovernment’s recent response to its digital identity consultation provides little clarity
on what comes next.

49

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Recommendations
Building on the lessons outlined in this report, we recommend that government:
1. Sets a clear vision for the future for the whole of government, building on
the experience of HMRC and DWP in particular, and clarifies the leadershipof digital government
The government is currently hiring a new chief digital officer, new chief data officer
and new chief executive of GDS. It needs to clarify exactly what the roles andresponsibilities of these posts are: this moment provides the perfect opportunity
to set out what vision of digital government these leaders are expected to deliver.
HMRC and DWP, as well as GDS, have learned valuable lessons during the crisis – on
everything from the use of private providers to data sharing across government. With
civil service reform and changing how government works high on the agenda, thegovernment needs to set the course for the next few years of digital development. It isvital that the government learns the lessons about transformation from the pandemic.
In particular it needs to continue to foster collaboration and ensure co-ordination,
avoiding duplication and discord. This vision of the future needs to work for all ofgovernment. There is no point building deep expertise in isolated pockets (such as,
for example, the Downing Street data science unit) without also supporting broader
improvements in capability and practice across the whole of government.
2. Outlines its plans for digital identity
The government recently published a response to its consultation on digital identity,
but it said little about what it actually planned to do. The pandemic has confirmed that
Verify is not fit for purpose. There are risks that work will be duplicated, money will be
wasted and systems will not work correctly if different parts of government scramble
to build their own identity assurance solutions. With many initiatives in train acrossgovernment, and more and more services moving online, government needs to clarify
its plans for digital identity.
3. Be more open about its use of personal data and new technology
Failures around the contact tracing app and the exam grades algorithm have led to
public concern about the use of data and technology by government. We know thatdepartments have been sharing and accessing data at an accelerated pace, and that
No.10 is extremely interested in using data.146 What we don’t know exactly is what
data is being used where, or how. Government could squander the opportunities
offered by the better use of data and technology if things go wrong or are simply kept
secret, leading to a loss of public trust. It needs to be more open about how it currently
uses citizens’ data and any future plans. This should include publishing much more
information about data sharing agreements and how our information flows acrossgovernment, and revisiting select committee recommendations about publishing alist of decision-making algorithms in government and offering a ’right to explanation’as to how algorithmic decisions are made. Greater openness would also help different
departments learn from one another.

CONCLUSION

50

But openness is not enough: the government also needs to have the debates about
how it uses data and technology in public and with the public, in particular theacceptable uses of personal data.
Coronavirus has fundamentally altered our lives and changed the way government
relates to the public’s use of digital technology. There are many good examplesof where that has benefited the public, through new services, better information
and remote working allowing the functions of government to continue. But
government needs to learn the lessons of what has worked and what hasn’t quickly.
And while the use of the citizens’ personal data has helped deliver new services
during the pandemic, the government must be more open and talk to the public
and what it has done and what it is planning to do if it is to use their data equitably,
ethically and effectively.

51

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

Appendix

List of new services created to help manage and deliver the government’s
response to Covid-19
ServicenameLeadorganisation

IfG
classification

Campaign Resource Centre

PHE

WebsiteApply for an emergency driving test

DVSA

Service

Apply for an emergency theory test

DVSA

Service

Apply for an urgent loan for overseas living costs

FCDO

Service

Apply for new style Employment and Support Allowance

DWP

Service

Apply for Pension Credits

DWP

Service

Ask a question at the next coronavirus press conference (GOV.UK Ask) GDS

ServiceBook a coronavirus drive through test (key worker)

NHS

ServiceBook employees for coronavirus tests

NHS/DHSC

ServiceBusiness hub

GDS

WebsiteBuy PPE as a social care organisation

NHSBSA/CQC

Service

Care home coronavirus testing

DHSC

Service

Citizen testing service

NHSX

Service

Claim back Statutory Sick Pay paid to employees due to coronavirus

HMRC

Service

COVID-19 supply complete test

DHSC

Service

CV19 communications dashboard(inc. comms metrics and polling figures)CO

Dashboard

Find coronavirus financial support for your business(Business Funding Checker Business Support Tool)

BEIS

Service

Find coronavirus support

GDS

WebsiteFree school meal voucher scheme

DfE

Non-digital

Get contact details for extremely vulnerable people

GDS

ServiceGet coronavirus support as an extremely vulnerable person

GDS

Form

Guidance for clinicians and NHS managers

NHSE

WebsiteHMRC tax app

HMRC

App

Isolation note service

NHS

Service

Job Retention Scheme

HMRC

ServiceKey worker coronavirus home testing

NHSX

ServiceLanding page

GDS

WebsiteMental health – Every Mind Matters

PHE

WebsiteAPPENDIX

52

ServicenameLeadorganisation

IfG
classification

Messaging bot – WhatsApp

PHE

Notifications

NHS 111 Online Coronavirus Services

NHS

ServiceNHS Coronavirus Status Checker

NHSX

Service

NHS volunteer sign-up

NHSE

WebsiteOffer coronavirus (COVID-19) support from your business

GDS

Form

Offer to supply ventilation devices

DHSC

Service

Patient Referral Form

RVS

Form

Register a Home Test Kit

NHSX

Service

Report a business behaving unfairly during the Coronavirus(COVID-19) outbreak

CMA

Form

Report coronavirus workplace safety concerns

DWP/HSE

Form

Self Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS)HMRCService

Self isolation data collection form

NHSX/BSA

Form

Social Care Recruitment Platform

NHS/DHSC

WebsiteSubscribe to notifications on updates to the landing page

GDS

Notifications

Text messaging of COVID test results

NHSX/BSA

Notifications

Text messaging to the extremely vulnerable

NHSX

Notifications

Texts to people with symptoms - living with others

NHSX/BSA

Notifications

Texts to people with symptoms - on their own

NHSX/BSA

Notifications

Track coronavirus

NHSX/PHE

Dashboard

Volunteering for ventilators

BEIS

Form

Source: Government Digital Service, data as of 14 May 2020.

53

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS

List of abbreviations
AcronymOrganisation name

BEIS

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

CMA

Competition and Markets Authority

CO

Cabinet Office

CQC

Care Quality Commission

DfE

Department for Education

DHSC

Department of Health and Social Care

DVSA

Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency

DWP

Department for Work and Pensions

FCDO

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

GDS

Government Digital Service

HMRC

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

HSE

Health and Safety Executive

NHS

National Health Service

NHSBSA/BSANHS Business Services Authority

NHSE

NHS England

PHE

Public Health England

RVS

Royal Voluntary Service

APPENDIX

54

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See, for example, GDS Team, ‘Design in Government: HMRC Digital’, blog, 16 January 2018, https://designnotes.
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37

Ibid.

38

Andrews E, Thornton D, Owen J, Bleasdale A, Freeguard G, Stelk I, Making a success of digital government,
Institute for Government, 31 October 2016, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/making-successdigital-government

39

Freeguard G, ‘Verify problems highlight four challenges for digital projects’, blog, Institute for Government, 10
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41

Department for Work & Pensions, ‘Employment and Support Allowance: ESA – Data from May 2018’, Stat-Xplore,
retrieved 30 October 2020, https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk

42

Full-time equivalent. See Guerin B, ‘Civil service staff numbers’, Institute for Government, 22 October 2020,
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43

Timmins N, ‘Credit where it is due: Universal Credit during the coronavirus lockdown’, blog, Institute forGovernment, 4 May 2020, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/universal-credit-dwp-coronavirus

44

Ibid.

45

Timmins N, Universal Credit: Getting it to work better, Institute for Government, 6 March 2020, www.
instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/universal-credit-getting-work-better

46‘Application programming interfaces (APIs)’, GOV.UK, 16 December 2016, www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/application-programming-interfaces-apis

47

Leggetter J, ‘How our silent “API army” has helped DWP’s COVID-19 response’, blog, DWP Digital, 29 June 2020,
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48

Ibid.

49

Deeble M and Nurse R, ‘100% coverage, an increase in online users and award nominations for Tell
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50

Howes S and Kidney Bishop T, The hidden obstacles to government digital transformation, Institute forGovernment, 25 October 2018, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/hidden-obstaclesgovernment-digital-transformation

51

Holdsworth R, ‘5 things we’ve learnt from launching a new service during lockdown’, blog, DWP Digital, 5 June
2020, retrieved 14 August 2020, https://dwpdigital.blog.gov.uk/2020/06/05/5-things-weve-learnt-fromlaunching-a-new-service-during-lockdown

52

Ibid.

53

Office for National Statistics, ‘Civil Service statistics, UK: 2017’, 19 July 2017, www.ons.gov.uk/
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54

Freeguard G, ‘Personal data and coronavirus’, Institute for Government, 18 June 2020, retrieved 11 August
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55

Timeline: UK government, coronavirus and data, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V9NF0cauGDmzqoJ
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For more, see: Freeguard G, ‘Personal data and coronavirus’, Institute for Government, 18 June 2020, retrieved
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57

Isle of Wight NHS Trust, ‘Coronavirus track and trace plan launched on the Isle of Wight’, 5 May 2020, retrieved
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58

Dorries N, Written answer to question 69590, 24 July 2020, HC Deb, 24 July 2020, cW.

59

Lord Bethell, Covid-19: Response, HL Deb, 19 May 2020, vol. 803 cc. 1088–1089.

60

Harding D, ‘Oral evidence: Management of the coronavirus outbreak’, Health and Social Care Committee, HC 36,
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61

Department of Health and Social Care, ‘Next phase of NHS coronavirus (COVID-19) app announced’, press
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62

Levy I, ‘The security behind the NHS contact tracing app’, blog, National Cyber Security Centre, 4 May 2020,www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/security-behind-nhs-contact-tracing-app

63

Ibid.

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Department of Health and Social Care, ‘Next phase of NHS coronavirus (COVID-19) app announced’, press
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Cédric O, ‘StopCovid ou encore?’, 3 May 2020, https://medium.com/@cedric.o/stopcovid-ou-encoreb5794d99bb12

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Freeguard G, ‘The data you need to run a government’, blog, Institute for Government, 24 September 2018,www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/data-you-need-run-government73

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Freeguard G, ‘Personal data and coronavirus’, Institute for Government, 17 September 2020,
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Manthorpe R and Martin A, ‘Coronavirus: Government admits its test and trace programme is unlawful’,
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See: Freeguard G, ‘Joint civil society letter on the National Data Strategy (July 2019), Medium, 7 February 2020,
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Fraser C, ‘Data Bites #11: Getting things done with data in government’, Institute for Government, 3 June 2020,
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85

Government Digital Service, ‘Podcast: GOV.UK’s initial response to coronavirus’, GOV.UK, 28 April 2020,
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87

HM Government, ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19)’, GOV.UK, retrieved 10 November 2020, www.gov.uk/coronavirus

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Senthi G and Gregory M, ‘Introducing the GOV.UK Data Labs’, blog, GDS, GOV.UK, 11 June 2020, https://gds.blog.
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HM Government, ‘Brexit transition: time is running out’, GOV.UK (no date), www.gov.uk/transition

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Ivey-Williams K, Allers M and Dub S, ‘Designing the GOV.UK coronavirus page’, GOV.UK, 8 June 2020,
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Tsang R and Fraser C, Data Bites #11: Getting things done with data in government, Institute for Government,
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94

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Freeguard G, Cheung A, Lilly A, Shepheard M, Lillis J, Campbell L, Haigh J, Taylor J and de Costa A,
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100 Cabinet Office, Government Estate Strategy 2018, GOV.UK, July 2018, retrieved 14 August 2020,
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101 Ibid., p. 31. The government’s Smarter Working guidance, which includes two reports published before 2010,
includes further references to homeworking, www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-way-we-work-tw3best-practice-guidelines-for-smarter-working (see also ‘The Way We Work’, e.g. https://civilservice.blog.gov.
uk/2015/01/22/transforming-the-way-we-work/). There are a few references in the 2012 Civil Service reform
plan, www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-reform-plan, but none in the Civil Service workforce
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103 Wright O, ‘And they’re off! Civil Service told to “work” from home’, The Independent, 26 March 2012, www.
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104 HM Government, ‘Flexible working’, GOV.UK, retrieved 14 August 2020, www.gov.uk/flexible-working/typesof-flexible-working
105 Nickson S, Mullens-Burgess E and Thomas A, Moving Out: Making a success of civil service relocation, Institute forGovernment, 11 November 2019, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/civil-service-relocation
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108 Interview.
109 Ibid.
110 Office for National Statistics, ‘Technology intensity and homeworking in the UK’, 1 May 2020, www.
ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/
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111 Hall K, ‘HMRC to roll out 7,000 mobile devices including iPads’, Computer Weekly, 6 February 2013, retrieved
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112 Microsoft, ‘UK tax authority underpins organizational transformation with modern, mobile technologies’,
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117 See, for example, Stephen J, Myers J, Brown A, Watson D and Magee I, System Error: Fixing the flaws ingovernment IT, Institute for Government, 1 March 2011, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/
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118 Shared Services Connected Ltd, ‘SSCL supports Government reporting during Covid-19’, 8 April 2020,www.sscl.com/news/sscl-supports-government-reporting-during-covid19.aspx. See also: Haddon C, ‘UK
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119 Whiteside P, ‘Coronavirus: Four out of five civil servants told to return to desks by October’, Sky News,
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120 Newbury C and Johnstone R, ‘“There’s burnout we need to watch for”: civil servants reflect on the impact ofcoronavirus and home working’, Civil Service World, 9 October 2020, www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/
article/theres-burnout-we-need-to-watch-for-civil-servants-reflect-on-the-impact-of-coronavirus-and-homeworking
121 See, for example, Pope R, ‘A working definition of Government as a Platform’, Medium, 22 July 2019,https://medium.com/digitalhks/a-working-definition-of-government-as-a-platform-1fa6ff2f8e8d as part ofwww.platformland.org
122 Raines M and Buckley M, ‘How Government as a Platform is meeting challenges posed by coronavirus’, blog,
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123 Ibid.
124 Collier B, ‘The “new normal” in software development could change everything’, blog, BPDTS Our Insights,
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129 Freeguard G, ‘Verify problems highlight four challenges for digital projects’, blog, Institute for Government,
10 May 2019, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/verify-problems-highlight-four-challenges-digitalprojects

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130 Comptroller and Auditor General, Investigation into Verify, Session 2017-19, HC 1926, National Audit Office,2019, www.nao.org.uk/report/investigation-into-verify
131 Freeguard G, Shepheard M, Guerin B, Pope T and Zodgekar K, Whitehall Monitor 2020, Institute for Government,
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132 Glick B, ‘Three more identity providers to withdraw from troubled GOV.UK Verify programme’, Computer Weekly,
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135 Glick B, ‘Meet the Identity and Attributes Exchange – GDS’ future for digital identity after Verify’, Computer
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136 Harlow M, ‘Facing up to the digital identity challenge’, blog, HM Land Registry, 29 May 2020, retrieved 4
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138 Lloyd L, ‘A No.10 data science unit could create more problems than it solves’, blog, Institute for Government,
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139 Freeguard G, Shepheard M, Guerin B, Pope T and Zodgekar K, Whitehall Monitor 2020, Institute for Government,
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142 Buckley M and Raines M, ‘How government as a platform is meeting challenges posed by coronavirus’, blog,
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About the authors
Gavin Freeguard
Gavin is a programme director and head of data
and transparency at the Institute for Government.
He leads the Whitehall Monitor programme and theInstitute’s work on digital government. He has also
worked on preparing politicians for government andgovernment contracting. He was previously politicaladviser on culture, media and sport to Harriet Harman
MP and a senior editor at the Media Standards Trust.
Gavin is a trustee of the Orwell Youth Prize, a memberof the UK Open Government Network steering group,
and a member of the research commissioning boardof the ESRC’s Administrative Data Research (ADR-UK)
project. He represented the Institute on the advisoryboard to the Treasury’s Government Financial
Reporting Review.
Marcus Shepheard
Marcus is a senior researcher at the Institute forGovernment. His research areas include digital
government, net zero and public inquiries, as wellbeing an author on the annual Whitehall Monitor
publication. Marcus has a background in theoreticalbiology and has previously worked on cybersecurity
and computing education at the Royal Society, andforesight at the Parliamentary Office of Science andTechnology.
Oliver Davies
Oliver is a research assistant at the Institute forGovernment. He has worked on several data projects,
including this and the Institute’s annual Whitehall
Monitor report. He graduated from the University
of York with a BA in history in 2019. Since then hehas been working in retail and will be joining thecivil service as a generalist on the Civil Service Fast
Stream at the end of the year.

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Acknowledgements
This report was made possible by the interest andsupport of a wide range of people both inside andoutside government. We are grateful to everyone
who spoke to us, told us their stories and gave
feedback on the draft report. In particular we would
like to thank officials at the Government Digital
Service who provided us with data and helped clarify
our understanding on several key points. We would
also like to thank Emma Norris and Bronwen Maddox
for their advice and ideas throughout the research,and Will Driscoll, David Edwards and Melissa Ittoo forhelp with the publication and launch of the paper.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

63

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