UK government service standards
I’ve been a fan of the UK government service standard from outside the civil service for quite a while. In fact, working in a team that has to deliver to the service standard was one of the reasons I joined the civil service.
I know that makes me a geek, but the world needs standards — that’s how we know we’re doing things right.
From the outside I’d seen those 18 service standards drop to be 14 standards we use today. But I had no idea what it actually means to design with them.
My first service assessment
When I joined my service it wasn’t far away from a service assessment. It was a concept I hadn’t heard of. I don’t know why my brain hadn’t gone as far as thinking, well if there are standards how do you check they’re being met? But I joined the rollercoaster that was a team prepping for a service assessment, so I was about to find out exactly what it was all about.
I really enjoyed the process. The opportunity to get external feedback on what the team had done, spot gaps and celebrate successes felt like a good opportunity to me. But more importantly the opportunity to say whether putting the service through to the next phase was the right thing to do or not.
It was intense, but we got through it. I was so impressed by the assessors, their ability to understand a new service, ask the important questions about how we’d worked and what we’d done. They were positive and constructive at the same time.
Becoming a service assessor
It did plant the seed that I’d like to be an assessor one day, but I didn’t feel ready. A few months later I did the brave thing and reached out for the training.
The training at DfE to be an internal assessor was great, I heard from others who were assessors and came away understanding what my role would be.
Then the fun started. I’m a generally curious (nosey) person. So being able to sit in on two assessments as an observer was fantastic. Seeing what they were doing, how they were doing it, what new stuff I could borrow for my service, I learned so much. But my confidence also grew. I was able to follow the story the service team told us, I was able to spot gaps in how they’d solved the problem, I even contributed some thoughts and notes to the assessment.
We are quite short on design assessors, so it wasn’t long before I found myself as the design assessor on a service. It’s been fascinating. I’ve loved seeing what teams have done, and challenged myself to say if I think they’ve met those standards or not. There are teams out there doing amazing work and it’s a pleasure to get a peek into their world.
The conversation with other experienced assessors has been so interesting too. Seeing what they’re looking for, what you need to do to meet a standard with confidence, and what means you’ve not met it. Thank you to them for taking time to explain things to me.
What I’ve learned
The things I’ve learned from being an assessor are:
1. The great work that other people are doing, and different ways to solve problems inspire me
2. A deeper understanding of the standard and how to meet it, hopefully something that’ll stand me in good stead next time my service is assessed
3. I can actually do it, it’s not as scary as I thought it would be
You can do it too
There are 4 types of assessors:
- Product (Lead)
- Design
- User research
- Technical
DfE are always looking for more internal assessors, I’d encourage you to sign up for the training and work out if it’s for you. If you’ve got any questions about it please feel free to ask in the comments or my DMs are open on twitter @judewebby
If you’re outside of the government and want to know how they work I’m happy to chat, but having only done a few I’m no expert.
To sign up for training just have a word with your manager and email ServiceAssessment.PLUS@education.gov.uk to find out the next training date. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have, and do let me know.
