Interoperability

When the Enterprise is the size of a Western Nation Or Delivering a pan- government IT solution to benefit the whole of the UK Andy James: CTO Solidsoft Charles Young: Principal Consultant Solidsoft

When our critical life circumstances change, we may have to contact government many times, often to give the same information. An estimate of 35 types of changes of circumstance have been found and these give an average of 4.5 contacts per event. Birth, bereavement and change of address are not typical as they have an above average impact, but are exemplary nevertheless. For birth the number of contacts was found to be 15, affecting 11M people per year; for bereavement: 12 contacts, affecting 7M; and change of address: 9 contacts affecting 16M. Introduction

In November 2006, the Government published Transformational Government – Enabled by Technology This set out an agenda of three key transformations: – services enabled by information technology must be designed around the citizen and business – there must be an increased culture of shared services to release efficiencies – there must be a broadening and deepening of government’s information technology professionalism In the report Sir David Varney recommended an approach to put a citizen centric view on government services and simplify them for the citizen. Varney Report

To meet the aspirations of the Varney Report the Tell Us Once Programme was born By it’s very title the nature of the programme was for the Citizen to only have to tell government once for the whole of government to know The focus became Change of Circumstance Events In particular: Birth, Death and Change of Address Tell Us Once

Tell Us Once Pilot IT project is live in 15 councils about to be extended to 60 Tell Us Once National System is in development Today we are here to talk about the challenges of delivering an enterprise solution on this scale Today

Security, security, security! Stakeholder Agreement! Scalability The timelines Meeting the diverse requirements of over 400 councils Providing a lasting architecture Continue to deliver more services The Challenges

The Aspiration Great citizen experience Re-use key Government resources Use industry standard products and protocols Provide a framework for future services Rules driven approach to meet the ever changing landscape of government Applicable across the whole of the UK

The Principles The starting point is a face-to-face registration process Citizen given option to provide further information Citizen provides necessary information only once Government departments and agencies ‘subscribe’ to the information they require Finally information only retained for a short period

Service Provider – this is a local or central government endpoint that provides a service to the citizen. For example: DWP and Pensions Citizen – the customer Change of Circumstance – a major life change that requires a citizen to inform government about a change Informer – the citizen who is providing the information A few terms we may use

DWP – both birth and death HMRC – both birth and death Identity and Passport Service – death DVLA – death UK Councils – death and birth Stakeholders

For death councils can receive information on over 10 different services Large councils segment data across services Small councils consolidate all services together Some government departments want manual access some want integrated, pushed data Stakeholder Issues

‘Organic’ approach focused on the citizen A limited prototype deployed across 15 councils A number of additional ‘paper driven’ initiatives Develop the National System based on the experience of the prototype Controlled take-on of councils 3 channels The Approach - IT

Only delivering bereavement Limited exposure Prototyping approach and architectural concepts ‘Live’ delivering real value Life became far longer than expected The Prototype

25 different benefits / services supported Including: – Pension – Attendance allowance – Housing benefit – Council Tax – Library services Service Provider breakdown for death: – Councils – 10 services – DWP – 10 services – HMRC – 3 services – Passport Service – 1 service – DVLA - 1 service Services Supported

Need for 3 channel approach Process ideally breaks into two: – Capture Process – Distribution Process Rules drive everything – UI – Capture – Distribution Security concerns – Access – username password not enough – Data build up leading to IL4 The Results

Capture Data in as painless way for the citizen as possible, providing multi-channel, channel hopping and the Tell Us Once paradigm Take data – tell citizen who we are going to pass it too Process data and distribute in the service provider requested manner Architectural Drive

The Capture Process Registered Data Registered Data Registered Data TUO (Capture) TUO (Capture)

The Distribution Process TUO (Distribution) TUO (Distribution) Data Store Data Store Rules Distribution Process Management Process Management Submission Event

The High Level Architecture

SOA based Microsoft stack BizTalk powered ESB at the heart Rules based UI Rules based data capture Rules based data distribution

This is one of the key features of the system 3 methods of data distribution: – Web Portal – ‘Push’ distribution via government gateway infrastructure – ‘Pull’ from TUO secure web service Distribution granular to the level of service Distribution

Abstracted from application Supported by portal framework Same style UI used for all channels UI rules assist in collecting the data only once: – If informer lived with deceased then no need to take second address Rules used to dynamically generate the page contents: – If deceased below pensionable age, for example, don’t ask if they had a pension! Branded as DirectGov Presentation UI

Presentation Layer

Tell Us Once Because your time matters

The Application

Data Store IL4IL3 TUO configuration BTS configuration BTS rules TUO service directory TUO MI Data TUO Data Store BTS Message Box TUO Archive TUO Audit Registered Data Cache Reference Data QAS

Event-Driven Not real-time! Low throughput – Value is in distribution Rules for an EDA

System composes a large number of policies – 400+ councils – avg. of 10 services – 150+ additional service providers Policies

Flow Rules Enabling – Authorisation – Service Bus routing governance – Intrusion detection Data Distribution Rule Categories

Capturing Decision Requirements

Common rule patterns across multiple event types Versioned and audited policies Traceability Security Automated composition and translation Dynamic deployment Policy Management Framework

Approached on many levels: – Data collected is only stored for a limited period: Registered data for 28 days Submitted data for 35 days – archived after that – Only the data a department is entitled to is provided – Personal data held at IL4 Security

Approached on many levels: – Main system accessed over GSI – Government Users require two factor authentication – Application has security built at its core Security

Designed to scale from inception Built using products designed for the enterprise Partnering with infrastructure/hosting partner with track record of supporting this level of solution – ATOS Origin Architecture segmented to deliver best performance to meet the differing requirements Using existing scalable building blocks such as Government Gateway Scalability

Delivery of first National Release Oct 2010 Full integrated release April 2011 Next Change of Circumstance – Address Change System to be the basis for future cross government citizen projects The future

A different approach to delivering a national IT system Focus has been primarily on the citizen Pilot has had a huge success and great feedback from the users National roll-out builds on that approach Realistic vision, although timescales still tight No attempt was made ‘To boil the ocean’ Summary

Who are we… Microsoft’s No 1 Integration, SOA and BPM Gold Partner 17 th year of trading Services – Solution development – Consultancy – Support

Andy James – CTO Solidsoft Charles Young – Principal Consultant Solidsoft Blogs: