Gov.uk website is amazing

[Togomalone]

I’ve had to use the UK government website a lot recently for various functions and every time it’s been super easy and helpful in guiding me through legislation, applications, eligibility etc. I was dreading doing it all, but it was actually painless due to this website.

Watching the post office drama made me think about all the awful IT systems I’ve had to use and Gov.uk stood out as the best.

This government is crap, but credit where it’s due to the civil service who built this amazing website.

I think we’re really lucky in the U.K. to have a well functioning and customer friendly online service. I wish other online services I need to use were as good as this one.

Unlikely that the civil service did it, more likely an outside contractor.

But yes, what I've used has been easy to navigate.

@RattlewhenIwalk I had assumed a department oversees it in house, but I might be wrong- could be an outside contractor.

I use it a lot, it helped me to get my pension sorted out. I’m one of the women who was shortchanged due to not getting Home Responsibility Credits added to my National Insurance contribution record. I discovered the shortfall when checking my pension forecast.
It’s my go to site for a host of things: Driving, DVLA, Travel abroad, HMRC,
Benefit advice. Etc. ULEZ zones, I put our car reg in and found it was exempt from ULEZ charges.
I use it in my hobby: Genealogy. It has birth and death records from 1837. It’s free to register and search but you pay for the certificate. Far cheaper to order from it than the genealogy sites.
It has a wealth of historical documents and information.

It was built by the Government Digital Service, which is part of the Cabinet Office. I think it even won some design awards at the time?

I agree op it’s really helpful

Never given it a second thought but yes it is transparent and easy to navigate

It really is.

Rare praise - but the HMRC bit of the site makes tax returns super easy.

@Daffodilsandtuplips It's worth checking ULEZ on a regular basis. DP put his number plate in was told it was OK and then 10 weeks later got a fine because apparently the status had changed. He'd kept a screen shot of his original check but when he appealed was told it was his responsibility to check on a regular basis for changes.

I think the work done 25+ years ago by the Plain English Campaign has led to Government speak being made so much more accessible to the general public.

Hate to say it but Fujitsu has the contract for designing many of the sites under the HMRC umbrella 😬

but I agree with the sentiment of this thread and as a civil servant (nothing to do with digital services though), I appreciate it!

I'm not directly involved but I believe you have to do a special course and get a "licence" to be able to publish things on the gov website for your dept/organisation. In mine we have a dedicated publications team and they have to carefully translate anything people want to put up there, whether it be guidance or reports or whatever, it takes quite a while. You can't just put PDFs up these days, for example, everything should be in html first for accessibility. All the links to footnotes or other publications have to be checked, headers and bullets and things need to be properly html formatted, and as mentioned the language needs to be as simple as possible while staying technically accurate. It takes a lot of resources to get right.

Wow @givemushypeasachance that sounds like a lot of work. Just goes to show how difficult it is to achieve simplicity!

@moggle oh dear Fujitsu! But maybe Horizon was crap because it was under funded … who knows 🤷‍♀️ You do get what you pay for.

Really interested to see this post as I worked with someone who was on the task force for this - eight years ago! They really have spent a lot of time and effort on making it comprehensive, easy to follow and so on. I shall pass your praise on to him!

@Ariela yes the information is so easy to understand and digest due to the Plain English used. Bravo to those laying the foundations 25 years ago. I wonder if anyone has ever done impact analysis?

Theres so much to be miserable about public services these days, that I feel it’s important to stop and appreciate the things that are functioning well. So thank you to all the hardworking civil servants who make our government functions work seamlessly.

I take it you haven’t had the misfortune to use the tax free childcare part of the website then 😂. Fucking horrendous.

It's a simple website everything is in plain English. Although I had to renew my driving licence and that takes you through to webpages that look straight out of 1997.

Yes you’re right! It is great. I like the NHS website too, nice concise information.

I did my driving license a year ago, and I agree. It is so odd looking to renew that.

I must admit to not giving it much thought but it is a good simple website. And is clear with what you need before you start any kind of application.

We are lucky, many countries have to go to government offices regularly.

I’ve always found HMRC and DWP staff really good on the ‘phone, too.

I also agree op
Just yesterday I had to use it to order a replacement driving license (which also searched my passport info), tax my current car and also check the MOT status and history on my other car. I found it very easy to use

It was more difficult to organise returns from Xmas on websites I'd ordered from than what I had to do on GOV.uk

This is so amazing, thank you for this I've just looked at my Nan and grandad's wedding in 1946

I used to work in this area (including for a company who do a huge amount of the Government's digital services, alongside their in-house team). It really is a best-in-class website when it comes to digital accessibility. Their design guidelines are exemplary. https://www.gov.uk/service-toolkit

It's a lot better than it was 10 years ago.

Although was rather freaked out recently, when I paid my self employed tax bill. Pressed pay now button and it went straight to my banking app and opened it to log on 😬
Logged on and it paid itself with no setting up of payee!

The app demanded that I provide evidence of identity verification by passport and drivers license last week too! Despite being self employed since 2004. Very odd I thought

I use this (as a normal person paying for childcare, not a provider) and find it fine.

I was so impressed when I applied for a passport recently. Even being able to add a code from the photo booth machine to upload a digital photo, notifications at every step so I knew how my application was going. The processes themselves may be cumbersome at times but the digital access to them is second to none.