Overcoming barriers to good government services

Often, government services aren’t meeting user needs. While many people and organisations around the world are working towards creating joined-up, trusted government services, they face a range of internal and external barriers.

In this extended hands-on session, we explored what good government services look like, what barriers we are facing in creating them, and how to overcome those impediments. Throughout the afternoon, we used a range of exercises and discussion formats to collect and develop approaches that help make government services work better for users – looking for small quick wins and more systemic changes. Afterwards, we shared the findings gathered with everyone else.

The session is facilitated by service designers from the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS). GDS is leading the digital transformation of the UK government and has been sharing its learnings, components, and code widely. Its GOV.UK Design System has inspired other countries to build their own, its Service Manual and Service Standard are read widely and its service components like GOV.UK Notify have been forked by other governments. Public servants working on service transformation across the UK government share their views and experiences on the Service in Government blog.