Local authority reuse of GOV.UK Verify Discovery findings on the benefits of transforming parking permits services August 2016 1. Executive summary 1. Representatives from 15 local authorities attended our two discovery events in July 2016 and collaborated in designing a common service process for parking permits. 2. We make the case that running a collaborative project that designs a common end-to-end digital service process and a common approach to GOV.UK Verify integration is essential for ensuring the widest reach of these products, ensuring good end-to-end digitial services, and enabling better systems integration in the future, which in turn leads to more successful and sustainable channel shift. 3. We also make the case for this collaborative pilot project to be developed in an agile, iterative, integration-driven way, both to ensure that the sector at large can follow progress closely and prepare to integrate future services with GOV.UK Verify, while our team keeps making progress and focusing on delivery. 4. We estimate the average ongoing business process cost per transaction for issuing parking permits1 using the current manual process for identity and 1
Cost per transaction estimates average for offline, post and online channels and based on data supplied by participating local authorities during our discovery events
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vehicle registration checking, and rekeying information into disconnected parts of the service software to be £10.10 (including an average of 3 telephone enquiries per transaction). We estimate the average cost of manual identity and eligibility checks to be £2.242. Councils believe that millions could be made in savings by verifying user’s identity and eligibility for the service online using GOV.UK Verify and DVLA vehicle registration data3 . Digital identity and eligibility checks enable savings from automating offline processes and reducing the number of phone enquiries and complaints. 5. Additional savings would be enabled by end-to-end service transformation and reductions in: ● avoidable contact ● staff training costs ● data storage and protection costs ● manual data entry and postage ● supporting offline payment systems ● printing and handling paper permits ● system costs These costs are not included in the £10.10 business process cost estimate above and would be additional to this. 6. We will be keen to work with local authorities on their individual business cases to find out how Verify and data query to DVLA can deliver value to them, should we run a pilot project in this service area.
2. Context 2.1 Issuing onstreet residential parking permit at the moment At the moment, most authorities we have worked with run the end-to-end service in-house. They use a range of different software that does not join up automatically (i.e. re-keying of data or staff intervention of some kind is required). Every council had staff visually review and key in information on ID and eligibility, which costs councils in staff time, in the secure storage of personal documents, and in re-familiarising themselves with cases that are half complete when additional data gets submitted. 2
Based on information provided by 7 local authorities who attended the 2 Discovery events in July. According to 2016 DCLG discovery work, savings from the use of DVLA data could save £8.7 million per annum across all parking permit services. 3
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2.2 Why we’re looking at this service We sent out a broad call for proposed uses of GOV.UK Verify to all local authorities through the Local Digital Coalition and parking permits featured as a common priority for transformation. 2.3 Methodology (how we’ve gathered data and from whom) This led us to run two discovery events at which we asked the 15 local authorities that issued parking permits to map out each step of their service using this template. Having identified parts of the process that could be improved, groups of local authorities agreed on common, improved service processes. Our projected discovery savings are based on these proposed improvements. We also gathered demographic data on the current users of the service to ascertain that they are likely to be able to verify their identity using the GOV.UK Verify service, and to understand how many of them are likely to be able to use online services.
3. Savings & benefits for councils This first iteration business case has been developed in a bottom-up, collaborative way. Based on publically available data and 2 discovery events, we have built an end-to-end view of the processes and costs around issuing residential parking permits. Should we run a pilot project in this service area, we aim to develop this case further. 3.1 Our assumptions ● English and Welsh councils deliver this service to an estimated 1.86 million service users annually4 ● We’re assuming that the vast majority of councils have labour-intensive process for issuing parking permits, like those outlined at our discovery events ● Based on GDS research and ONS data, we assume that: ○ GOV.UK Verify current coverage of UK residents who own a car is 87%, increasing to 94% by December 2016 and 97% by April 2017 ○ 84% of UK residents aged 18 to 70 have used the internet in the last three months
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This was estimated based on council data supplied by participating local authorities for the total number of new and renewal applications for England and Wales
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3.2 Demographic coverage There were estimated 800,000 new resident parking permit applications in England and Wales in 2014/15. Based on the above internet usage and verification success rate: ● 696,000 of them would have had the chance of successful verification with GOV.UK Verify ● 672,000 of them would have been able to access the service online ● 565,000 of them would have been able to complete the transaction online5 (successful verification and online access), this accounts for 71% of all applications.
3.3 Annual savings identified GOV.UK Verify enables a transformed digital service by allowing the service to know someone is who they say they are online. Without trusted identity verification, the automation of eligibility checks would not be safe and secure. The table shows possible savings that could have been made across England and Wales if applicants’ ID and address had been verified using GOV.UK Verify, and if eligibility was checked using DVLA data.6 Common costly pain point
Total savings possible per 565,000 online applications7
Transformed digital service: Overall and per transaction business £6.80 saving per current transaction process cost including: verifying applicant’s identity and checking £3.8 million eligibility; rekeying information into disconnected parts of the service software, etc. Reduced enquiries and complaints: The cost and time taken to answer phone enquiries and complaints
£3.3 saving per current transaction £1.9 million
3.4 Unquantified benefits to council ● reduced operational costs ● reduced fraud 5
Note: this assumes the 87% of people who can Verify use the internet with the same frequency as the general population (84%). 6 Note: The cost of using GOV.UK Verify and DVLA data is not accounted for in this calculation as a commercial model for local authorities will be an output of pilots. 7 Estimated number of users who would have had the capacity to successfully complete the transaction online using GOV.UK Verify.
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● reduced data collection and manual processing ● supports LA digital shift & efficiencies ● improved business process. 3.5 Wider benefits to end user ● faster application processing
● available 24/7 online ● better and more convenient user experience from removed need to provide document copies.
4. Next steps and our approach Should this service be our highest priority after discovery work is completed, we aim to put together a pilot project to demonstrate how the service could be improved and delivered more consistently by the many local authorities that administer it. In so doing, we aim to add as much value as possible by: ● demonstrating some of the latest techniques used in service design ● bringing together the local public sector as a whole to collaborate on developing, testing and making the case for end-to-end digital service transformation. 4.1 Enabling crosssector collaboration Given their success at GDS and on the Local Waste Service Standards Project in the past, we propose using the following agile and service design approaches: ● start with the outcomes we want to achieve and then work out how to iterate towards them ● develop a roadmap that works through discovery, Alpha and Beta stages and agree the milestones that would mark the end of each phase ● invest in a series of discovery workshops to understand and map user needs, leading to the identification and prioritisation of “Epic” needs that would be taken into alpha development ● practise ‘learning through doing’ and ‘working out loud’ via workshops, showcases, blogs and videos enabling us to communicate learnings and decisions openly and accessibly to help bring stakeholders with us ● develop all products iteratively - both the more technical products like matching guidelines but also products like this business case ● working via sprints, with regular sprint review and planning calls.
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5. Projected participation in pilot Based on the 62 local authorities that submitted information to support the selection of services to test GOV.UK Verify in local authorities, and based on the 41 councils that attended our discovery events, we know that: ● this is a statutory service available to all eligible residents of the UK ● 19 of these councils have expressed an interest in being involved in a pilot project of some kind. We plan to ‘Work out loud’, collaborative and iteratively to raise interest in transforming local services using GOV.UK Verify, following the precedent set by the Local Waste Service Standards Project. This is to combat the common problem of digital products failing to be scaled across multiple local authorities.
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