GOV.UK blogs

A new direction for digital: looking back on the first year of CDDO

Megan Lee, Chief Executive, reflects on the first year of CDDO. Here, she outlines the crucial importance of communities and collaboration to deliver digital transformation at scale across government. Central to this transformation is the desire to achieve better outcomes for all.

An autumn of digital learning brings development opportunities for civil servants

CDDO’s Head of Digital Learning and Frameworks outlines an incredible lineup of upskilling events for the Autumn of Digital Learning, which ranges from an Innovation Masterclass to a series of live webinars in which all things digital, data and technology are workshopped.

What’s next for the Central Digital and Data Office?

Mike Potter, newly appointed Chief Digital Officer, shares his enthusiasm for working in digital, data and technology in government. Mike reiterates his admiration for the profession, and pride at working on front line digital services that have the potential to improve outcomes for all UK citizens.

How we’re making teacher training better and more accessible

Children learn best with brilliant teachers at the front of the classroom. That’s why teacher training is so important. We’re creating an excellent teacher development system and transforming the support teachers receive at every stage of their career – all …

Making it easier for schools to choose supply teachers

We want to make choosing a supply teacher easier for schools so we held a design sprint, produced a prototype and then tested it with school staff. Courtney Brtightwell tells us how it went.

Our ‘effective delivery’ principle in action: Updating a scientific e-licensing service

How our technical teams are taking a service design approach to ‘effective delivery’.

What I’ve learned as a user researcher in BEIS

If you're new to user research in government, find out what helped our user researchers get started.

UK NSC recommends introduction of targeted lung cancer screening

The UK NSC has recommended that the 4 UK nations should move towards implementing a targeted national lung cancer screening programme, integrated with smoking cessation services.

How Crimestoppers works with the Environment Agency to fight waste crime

Crimestoppers is an independent charity that gives people the power to speak up to stop crime, 100% anonymously. Anyone can contact us 24/7, 365 days a year, online and by phone.

Return to university – what you should know this autumn term

The new university term started for most students this month. Whether you are a fresher or a returning student, we have pulled together answers to some of the important topics that you might have wondered about as you head into …

How has COVID affected Trade Remedies?

Two years since the onset of COVID-19 (COVID), we are starting to understand the impact it has had on the world economy. But what about its impact on the world of trade remedies?  The arrival of COVID in 2020 upended …

Digital by default 

Automation is at the heart of our plans to develop efficient and resilient land registry services. By 30 November 2022, all applications coming to HM Land Registry, other than first registrations, can be lodged digitally. HM Land Registry will be ‘digital by default’.  

Preparing our courts to support Deaf jurors

British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters can now support deaf jurors in our deliberation rooms. Find out how we prepared for it.

Introducing the planning data platform

Data is at the heart of the DLUHC Digital Planning team’s mission to modernise England's planning system. The team’s planning data platform has moved into the beta phase, and is now available on planning.data.gov.uk.

Websites need to be accessible to be inclusive

Making inclusion happen by helping the public sector identify and fix accessibility issues.

Organ donation is the best gift of life

To mark NHS Organ Donation Week (26 September to 2 October), civil servant Alex Taylor shares his journey and the challenges as he awaits a kidney transplant. Living through a global pandemic has brought home how fragile and important our …

What can innovation bring to place-based policymaking?

Over the summer we visited Imagination Lancaster for a Design in Place Based Policy Workshop with inspiring colleagues from government and academia. We looked at what is meant by place-based policy, the types of tools and methods that could be used in designing policies for different places and the potential to work in partnership to innovate in place-based policymaking.

DVSA rider policy specialist talks about the Enhanced Rider Scheme

DVSA's rider policy team are continuously improving the Enhanced Rider Scheme (ERS) to make it even more customisable for riders.

In this blog post, Jody Whitfield, Rider Policy Specialist, tells you more about the success we've had in Wales with new modules and getting more people through ERS.

New law change allows more flexibility for healthcare professionals completing DVLA medical questionnaires

Dr Nick Jenkins, Senior DVLA Doctor outlines the benefits for healthcare professionals being allowed to fill in DVLA medical questionnaires.

Harry's story: How Autsome ideas are bettering our world

Harry is an Autsome Advocate. The advocates are a great bunch of neurodiverse children and young people based in North East Essex who give their views on health, education and social issues which affect their daily lives of autistic children …

Nearly 10 million people tuned into a map of a queue!

As Head of Digital Communications at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Andrew Simpson’s team came up with the livestream funeral queue tracker that drew almost 10 million views on YouTube. Interview: Lorraine McBride In a world …

Regulatory Policy Committee issues 2022 Corporate Report

Stephen Gibson, RPC Chair, highlights key points from the analysis of RPC opinions set out in our 2022 Corporate Report.

What inspires you? How to encourage your creative spark

With the pandemic changing the way we work, we asked everyone at Design102 about creativity – what motivates us, how we stay creative and where we look for inspiration. Learn our tips and tricks for keeping that creative spark alive.

Our commitment to environmental protections

Following recent media speculation on the future of farming policy in England, we know that you may have some questions about our work. We’ve published a post on Defra's media blog which sets out our response and position.

National Inclusion Week – how we’re making Sellafield Ltd more inclusive

Employees who feel able to bring their whole selves to work, better business decisions thanks to diversity of thinking, and a business better able to attract and retain talent for the long term… just some of the benefits of a more inclusive workplace.

As we celebrate the start of National Inclusion Week, here are some of the ways that we’re working to make Sellafield Ltd more inclusive and some of the people who are driving the change.

Global Data Landscape - Sharing insights with New Zealand

As data architects across government, you are interested in both enterprise and technical principles and particularly continuous improvement, so as Chief Data Officer for the Office For National Statistics (ONS), I wanted to share some, hopefully relevant and useful, insights …

Thank you, Ma’am: DIO’s behind-the-scenes contributions to HM The Queen’s funeral

After the sad news of the death of HM The Queen, the eyes of the nation and the world turned to the ceremonial elements that follow the death of a monarch, culminating in a state funeral. The Armed Forces were …

Same difference: the two sides of the same internship coin

In National Inclusion Week, two young professionals, Zach Shiels and Elora Parocki, who recently spent time in Defra  through different internship schemes, reflect on their experiences and the things they learned.

A new and improved framework for hiring supply teachers and other temporary staff

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has launched a new and improved version of its agency supply framework. Tom Harper is the Supply Teachers Category Manager at CCS. In this blog post, Tom will highlight the improvements to the framework and how you can access it.

Applying for a new CPH number

At the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) we know how busy farmers and rural businesses are, and we are always looking for ways to improve access to our services to fit in with their demanding lifestyles. We have now launched a …

The National Reference Test in 2023

This week, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) will begin contacting the schools that have been selected to take part in the 2023 National Reference Test (NRT). What is the NRT and what should selected schools expect? The NRT …

Update on childcare reforms

The Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, has confirmed today that helping people access affordable childcare continues to be one of the government’s top priorities.

The Accessibility in government blog returns

The Accessibility in government blog is back and ready to introduce its two new owners. Find out more about who we are and what we plan to post about.

Splink: Fast, accurate and scalable record linkage

  A common data quality problem is to have multiple different records that refer to the same entity but no unique identifier that ties these entities together.  For example, customer data may have been entered multiple times by accident, or …

Piloting Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) in social care

Yvette Stanley, our National Director for Regulation and Social Care, discusses plans to pilot the use of serving social care practitioners as Ofsted Inspectors (OIs). As an inspectorate and a regulator, we always want to learn from and draw on …

Leader’s blog: Colin Banno-Thornton on the future of digital delivery in Defra

Colin Banno-Thornton, Director of Major Projects and Digital Delivery, explains how we made some organisational changes in our Digital data and technology organisation earlier in the year to bring together our projects and digital delivery teams into a single, digital delivery portfolio.

Funding innovative, local partnerships to tackle reoffending, through the Local Leadership and Integration Fund

As round two of the Local Leadership and Integration Fund goes live, here‘s a glimpse at the four new partnerships we are funding and the impact one of our partnerships is already having on individuals.

Senior Analyst

This is a key role within the Strategy and Analysis Team. We are seeking an enthusiastic and passionate Senior Data Analyst to lead and develop systems for monitoring and analysing data to identify areas of concern around compliance or the …

Graduates, join our Tax Specialists Programme: Hear Jonny’s story

Applications for our graduate Tax Specialist Programme (TSP) are now open! You have until 26 October to apply. Get inspired by reading our blog from one of the TSP’s newest intakes, Jonny Brown, as he shares his story about what …

HEO Electrical Engineer

The Role: We require an Electrical Engineer to lead on product testing in our new electrical laboratories, collaborating with other technical specialists and ensuring OPSS continues to deliver high-quality technical services. You will apply your technical expertise to undertake and …