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Use open standards and common government platforms where available.
How point 16 improves the service
Using open standards and common government platforms means they:
- save time and money by reusing things that are already available
- can move between different technologies when they need to and don’t get locked into contracts which are difficult to end
- can quickly and easily change their service when they need to
- can give their users a more consistent experience of using government services online - this builds trust
How they’ll be assessed
Their assessment and the questions the assessors ask them will vary depending on their service and what it does.
In the discovery assessment
To pass, the service team usually need to:
- show that they’re planning to use open standards
- show they have considered common platforms the service could use and identified needs in common, if any, with any other government services
In the alpha assessment
To pass, the service team usually need to:
- explain how they’re using open standards and common platforms to avoid getting locked into contracts
- explain the common platforms they’ve identified which their intended system could use
- explain any user needs they’ve identified that are common to other services and how they’re going to meet them in a way that’s consistent with the rest of government
In the beta assessment
To pass, the service team usually need to:
- explain how they’re using open standards and common platforms to avoid getting locked in to contracts
- explain what the service outputs to users and in what format
- explain the common data they hold and their commitment to publishing it
- explain how they’re using common government platforms
- explain how they’re integrating with any external or legacy systems
- explain any common user needs their service meets and what they’re reusing from across government to help meet that user need