The announcement came in December, a month after the Cabinet Office published its Digital Strategy. The seven departments are HM Revenue and Customs; the Department for Transport; the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); the Ministry of Justice; the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS); the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra); and the Home Office.
The services prioritised for digitisation or online redesign include Defra’s common agricultural policy delivery programme, handling payments to farmers; the DVLA’s vehicles online service, which will allow users to update V5 logbooks online rather than by post; HMRC’s PAYE online; Home Office visitor visa applications; BIS’s national apprenticeship service; and the DWP’s new Personal Independence Payment benefit.
The Digital Strategy sets out 14 actions that will enable services to become ‘digital by default’. These include each departmental and transactional agency board appointing an “active digital leader”; redesigning all services that handle 100,000 transactions per year; and removing legislative barriers which “unnecessarily prevent the development of straightforward and convenient digital services”.
Julian David, the director general of IT industry group Intellect, said: “The strategy sets out a number of proposals that will help drive change across Whitehall. The challenge now, of course, is ensuring they are implemented.” He added that digital capabilities within departments must be improved, and warned of the need to cater for those without internet access. The “assisted digital programme is a critical ingredient of the digital strategy,” he said.