To a user, a service is simple. It’s something that helps them to do something – like learn to drive or start a business. But for the government, creating and delivering these services can be much more complex.

Government is a collection of separated, siloed transactions that each deliver a small part of a service like this.

In 2017 I created a new team at GDS to solve the problem – how do you design end to end services in an environment where government its self wasn’t designed to deliver services like this?

Service Communities now works with the government’s top priority policy areas to create a new way of working on end-to-end government services, bringing together networks of people with different skills and from different professions and organizations, who are united by the service areas they work on to gradually change the structure of government to be service orientated over time.

The communities I established have delivered some great work together:

• The Start a Business community published Set up as a sole trader – a step by step service journey – and is developing one more
• Start a Business community members also helped BEIS’s business support helpline team shape its re-procurement process by running a workshop to understand how other government organisations use the helpline
• The Employ Someone community published 2 step by step journeys: Get your business ready to employ staff and Employ someone
• The Import/Export community, Start a Business and Get Health Benefits communities created cross-government service landscapes for their service areas

Credits
To Will Harmer and Tom Wynn Morgan who worked together to set the Service Communities team up