Goal 3

We are creative and innovative, continuously seeking new opportunities to improve how we meet the needs of our customers.

This strategy embeds robust security principles and standards across all aspects of our digital services. Through innovation and continuous improvement, we will use processes and technology to boost service efficiencies and cost control, improve quality and consistency and build sustainable but adaptable delivery models to respond effectively to our changing landscape.

We will have a clear, thematic digital strategy based on tangible outcomes and a programme of sustainable continuous improvement.

That will mean we can both harness our technology today and embed the systems required, which will allow us to respond to an increasingly changing operating landscape and effectively respond and contribute to wider public sector reform ambitions tomorrow.

Digital strategy

Our digital strategy sets bold ambitions to transform how our customers access services and how we process our tasks and decisions. We have delivered much of this through the development of new customer and operating systems supported by our new digital platform to significant impact. By 2030 we will complete the remaining elements that will ensure we have modern, secure, resilient and agile systems which fully support our operational and safeguarding responsibilities, whilst also enabling future change and improvement.

By meeting our digital goals, we will provide the foundations that enable future change and improvement in a way that allows us to maximise efficiencies, provide an accessible range of customer and partner services, maximise our data and its impact and promote value for money through our digital choices.

We will focus on five main themes to achieve this:

• Digital 1: Fully digital customer journeys.
• Digital 2: Modernised safeguarding and case management.
• Digital 3: Legacy platform fully retired.
• Digital 4: Integrated and enhanced security capabilities.
• Digital 5: Enhanced digital delivery and operation capability.

Digital 1

We will transition remaining paper based services and enhance our online account system, providing accessible digital self-service options for customers across disclosure and barring services.

This will be an important enabler for efficient roll out of the five year PVG membership scheme. In addition, we will develop modern digital document sharing and barring service components to make the process of considerations more streamlined and accessible.

Digital 2

We will enhance safeguarding capabilities, expand automation, and tackle priority areas of legacy complexity and functional improvement.

By delivering services through a single, integrated disclosure, PVG scheme, review and barring system, we can reduce manual tasks, process handoffs and duplications, increase automation and continue to improve value for money.

Digital 3

We now have our new digital platform, one that has a sustainable and robust design capable of hosting, which and managing our services today and can respond to future service improvement. It enables us to be more responsive, efficient and cost effective, critical when operating in a landscape characterised by change. This provides us with the enabling digital foundation we need to achieve our goals.

By 2030 we will complete full-service migration to this new platform and decommission remaining legacy components, including upgrading our primary search engine.

Digital 4

We will integrate enhanced security capabilities across our technology. Through our security strategy we will continue to implement and modernise our network scanning approaches, governed by industry standards and independently audited for robustness.

Digital 5

We will strengthen delivery practices, team effectiveness and operational consistency.

Continuous improvement strategy

Our programme delivery model will be revised to meet our new operating environment. We will implement a revised change delivery model centred on the principles of innovation, collaboration, insights and continuous improvement. This will provide us with the best possible service outcomes.

Through improving our standardised change model based on industry standards of practice we can hasten progress, whilst retaining the required levels of governance, management, delivery and benefits realisation standards.

By 2030 we will have delivered a structured, end-to-end service improvement approach that aligns operational insight, digital capability and strategic decision-making. This approach will ensure that technology, processes and people are fully aligned. We need to understand and clearly define the problems we are trying to solve, or the opportunities we are trying to gain and then deliver the right solution. This could be a technical solution, or it could just be process improvement.

We will focus on four main themes to achieve this:

• Continuous improvement 1: Simplified and streamlined processes.
• Continuous improvement 2: Harnessing technology more effectively.
• Continuous improvement 3: Embedding change and realising benefits.
• Continuous improvement 4: Building a sustainable and adaptable delivery model.

Continuous improvement 1

We will analyse and redesign our end-to-end processes using continuous improvement and Lean principles to remove waste, reduce manual workarounds, and standardise delivery.

Continuous improvement 2

While significant digital capability exists, we will focus on how systems are used in practice and support processes with additional functionality where required. This will include aligning systems and processes, standardising operating processes and reducing reliance on manual tasks.

Continuous improvement 3

A major shift is ensuring change is fully embedded and adopted, not just delivered.

To do this, we will improve robust post-implementation analysis and benefits realisation, ensuring that systems and processes are adopted as designed and that training and guidance are aligned with the new ways of working.

Continuous improvement 4

We recognise our operating landscape is evolving, operating costs are increasing and service expectations are higher. To prepare for and manage such challenges requires agility and flexibility. It also requires change capabilities and capacity to be embedded in how we operate and evolve daily.

Therefore, by 2030 we want to have created routine expectation and capacity for change management, underpinned by modern, secure, resilient and cost-effective digital tools.