Author Archives: Blogging Team

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What we’re doing about content debt

This is a post by Kate Ho, our Head of Product.

Understanding content debt

In software development, there’s a term technical debt: it’s a metaphor used to describe the amount of work required to tidy up a system in order to keep the code clean. Cleaner code means it’s easier to make changes and updates.

Code debt becomes a problem as a system gets bigger and matures. For example, over time you’ll have parts of code which might have been written a long time ago (legacy code), and may not reflect the current requirements of the system.

Why does no one talk about content debt?

Doing a quick search on Google for technical debt throws up a lot of articles, but do the same for content debt, and you’ll see that it’s a hardly-used phrase with nowhere near the same popularity. With a big site like mygov.scot, we’re constantly adding more and more information about how to access information… but one of the biggest issues is how to make sure that we keep our information up to date and relevant.

Content debt can look like:

  • broken links
  • changes in policy, and not reflected in the information
  • changes required as a result of user feedback
  • inconsistent content across multiple pages
  • badly designed/poorly linked content

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Second 100 day drive – what did we achieve?

We’ve been quietly chipping things off our to-do list and today marks the end of our second 100 Day Drive. It’s a time where we reflect on what we have achieved over the period. When the 100 Day Drive kicked off we set ourselves some ambitious goals. We are proud to say that we have met quite a few of these (and more, including a migration to Amazon Web Services).

A core part of this was moving www.mygov.scot from beta to live. This follows the increasing availability of information from across the Justice and Business sectors and the closure of the Scottish Business Portal – in which business support content and tools moved onto the www.mygov.scot site. It also included the development of content aimed at victims and witnesses going through the Scottish justice system – both helping us make the decision to drop the ‘beta’ label.

“There is real momentum building with mygov.scot and hitting these milestones helps us show confidence in our ability to deliver”

Colin Cook – Deputy Director – Digital Public Services and Business Transform, Scottish Government

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June Hackathon

This is a post by Alex Cunningham, our Communications Administrator

Last week, the mygov.scot team embarked on another one of its infamous hackathons. The hugely successful two-day event included a lot of design, development and dedication, and (keeping with tradition) a lot of pizza!

A few days before the hackathon team members started to jot down their ideas. On Thursday morning, like children rummaging through their stockings on Christmas day, we checked the board on the first hackday to find it filled to the brim with awesome ideas.
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100 day drive and progress update!

This is a post by Scott McLear, our Communications Manager

In February, the mygov.scot programme team embarked on the beginning of an ambitious 100 day drive to reinforce and communicate a clear vision of how we want to transform the Scottish public sector. Central to this activity is putting the user at the heart of everything we do and applying digital technology and thinking in a timely and creative way.

The 100 day drive helps us: 

  • deliver with the Justice cluster, using user-centric research methods and beginning to build upon our relationship
  • establish a more radical and dynamic approach to content, surfacing priority services from across the public sector
  • establish partnerships and assessing opportunities for reuse
  • we’re moving towards a Lean Kanban method for managing flow

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Digitising Justice

Transforming how we think; how we engage and how we deliver services to citizens and users – Guest blog from Stuart Duncan, Justice Digital Strategy Programme Director

We live in an increasingly digital world where how we live and how we work is being influenced by technology. Our Justice systems are changing too and we want to be at the forefront of this innovation and use new technologies to shape our systems of the future.

We want to use digital technology wherever possible to broaden access to justice, improve quality of service and safeguard the rights of citizens and users. By digitising our justice systems and operating efficient processes, we can at the same time lower our costs.

publishing-cover (2)In helping us deliver this, the Digital Strategy for Justice in Scotland sets three key objectives:

  1. we want to allow people and businesses to access the right information at the right time;
  2. we want to fully digitise our Justice systems; and
  3. we want to make data work for us.

Developing content on mygov.scot that is based on user needs is central to giving people access to the right information at the right time. From a Justice perspective, providing the right information is about giving people access to data and services which help them address the root cause of the issues they are facing so it does not fester and develop into something more serious and which might mean they need to turn to the courts to resolve.

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Our new stakeholder management function

This is a post by Alexander Holt, Head of Transition, Digital Public Services & Business Transformation division

We’re pleased to announce the arrival of the Stakeholder Manager team to the Digital Public Services and Business Transformation division. Their role is to engage with, and act as a conduit between Scottish public sector organisations and the wider Digital directorate.

Expanding mygov.scot and supporting digital transformation

For the next few months our focus is to communicate the ambitions of mygov.scot and help our public sector partners prepare for what that means for them. Our stakeholder managers will engage first with organisations that have been prioritised for transitioning content. We will guide them through the different phases of discovery, user needs research, content creation, and delivery with close involvement from experts in the mygov.scot team as required.

The Digital Public Services and Business Transformation division is also here to support public organisations achieve our vision for Scotland as set out in the Delivery of Public Services strategy. For that, we need to build a picture of the digital landscape across the public sector. In particular, we need to understand the priorities, ambitions for digital growth and how we can support them.

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Organised for Digital Delivery

This is a post by Scott McLear, Business Communications Manager at mygov.scot

For those that do not already know, Robbie Parish has decided to move on from Scottish Government after two years. During this time he has been instrumental in establishing the mygov.scot programme and managed the transformation of GLOW, the Scottish schools’ intranet.

Today though we are delighted to announce that Colin Cook has taken over as head of the newly formed Digital Public Services and Business Transformation Division in Scottish Government.

Colin Cook will be responsible for enabling transformation activities across the Scottish public sector, promoting digital participation and delivering mygov.scot. Continue reading →