Transforming how scientists apply for licences in the UK - Live phase

Overhauling a regulator’s digital operations boosted staff efficiency, and took customer satisfaction from 47% to 78%.

Background

In 2018, we replaced a legacy IT system for a body who licenses scientific research in the UK. After making our service live we were engaged again to add additional features.

Brief

Our original service allowed scientists to apply for licences online and the regulator to grant or refuse them. New features requested included:

• digitising licence assessment processes
• digitising compliance processes, such as annual reporting used to produce government statistics
• allowing advanced search of licences to support evidence-based policy-making
• creating a dashboard with performance data for managers

What we did

With the service in live use by the public, it was important we added the new features in ways that weren’t disruptive to users.

While the research and design team explored how to incorporate new features into the working software, any existing bugs were reviewed, prioritised and fixed by the development team.

In total we carried out over 270 research sessions as we designed, tested and iterated the new features before making them live.

Together with the regulator, we agreed a communication strategy to keep licence holders informed of changes to the system. This included weekly emails and presenting at industry conferences.

Exploring ideas for improvements to the existing service

Results

The new features allowed the regulator, among other benefits, to:

• forecast revenues for the coming year
• respond more quickly to critical pandemic-related issues
• support working from home better

A survey of scientific establishments who use the system showed that user satisfaction increased from 47% in 2018 to 78% in 2020. Confidence in the regulator’s ability to provide an effective service also increased from 77% in 2018 to 85% in 2020. This included a rise in those very confident from 15% to 46%

The service is now an exemplar for large-scale digital transformations and features in a blog post for the services in government blog. It also features in Kate Tarling's excellent book The Service Organization.

Feedback

"[The regulator] seems to have focused on customer service a lot more in the last two years, they listen to us and ask our views on things. The online service has been a major shift - the change has been expertly managed with lots of clear communications." Feedback from a research establishment

“For us as a business to be able to carry on [during COVID-19] is just incredible. I'm not comfortable travelling and I would not have been able to do anything without [the new system] at all.” Inspector