List of projects
1. Prisoner Money
- Send money to a prisoner service
- Digital disbursements
- Prisoner Money Intelligence
- Over the counter post office service
2. Cells Bells
3. Claim for Crown Court Defence (CCCD)
4. Moving People Safely
5. Tax Tribunals
1. Prisoner Money
The prisoner money team was set up initially to deliver the Send money to a prisoner service. Once we passed the Live GDS Assessment the team were tasked to develop ways to remove cash from prisons altogether.
1.1. Send Money To Someone In Prison Service – Passed Live GDS Assessment 27th September 2017
The Send money to someone in prison service transformed prisons across England and Wales by allowing friends and family of prisoners to send money to them by bank transfer or debit card using the online service.
Previously they could only send money in by cheque, cash, postal order or by bringing it to the prison. The whole process would take just over 2 weeks to arrive with the prisoner. Any delay in prisoners getting funds would case stress, anxiety and at possible risk of bullying.
Approach
Visited over 30 prisons conducting contextual interviews with staff and several usability lab session sessions each with 6 members of the public who had previously sent money into a friend or relative in prison.
Prison visits consisted of:
- Interviewing business hub staff who process money into the prison testing the staff facing side of the service
- Intelligence security staff who monitors security around payments
- Prisoners and their experience of receiving money before the service was launched in their prison and then their experience of it after friends or relatives had used the service
- Interviewing members of the public who may or may not have used the service at visitors centres across in the prison
Research was also conducted by monitoring the customer queries that came in after the service went national.
Outcomes
The outcomes of the research led to iterations in the design and implementation of the service. The most important elements that were changed were in preparation for GDS Service Assessment to adhere to government standards. This was mostly centred around contextual help on the public facing tool.
Once we passed live assessment we made further improvements to the service
Assisted Digital
We explored several different options to see what would provide an assisted digital service.
- I produced a questionnaire that was send to 4 four prisons which received around 500 responses. This provided an insight into the issues why people couldn’t use the digital service.
- This was in conjunction with speaking to members of the general public at visitors centres at prisons and gathered over 50 response from people.
- Trialed a telephone walk through service
- Explored a payment over the phone telephone service
- Interviewed charities to understand how they worked and what assistance they could offer
- Explored the possible use of citizens advice bureaux and libraries
- Explored the use of providing a money card or post office card
- Explored the use of Paypoint facility at local shops
Accessibility
The service went through accessibility assessments through the Digital Accessibility Centre. I was the main point of contact for this providing them with relevant access and assistance through the review, then going the the findings and action points with the team.
I also recruited people with access needs during the usability sessions to gain first-hand feedback.
1.2 Prisoner Money Intelligence
This was the intelligence side of the money service. Further details upon request.
1.3. Digital Disbursements
Disbursements is the name of the process where a prisoner can send money out of prison. Prisoners would send money out to pay bills to companies and solicitors, pay for education and send money to their families. They would normally do this by sending cash in the post, sending a cheque and pay for postage or by sending a postal order. Postal orders would involve staff having to physically visit a post office. This project was to develop a service where disbursements could be processed by bank transfer or a free cheque both processed through the governments payment handling centre.
Approach
I visited over 20 different prisons of various types consisting of male and female estates, Categories A through to C, different locations of the country from North, South, East and West of England. To gain an understanding of the different approaches.
Most prisons are run as their own entities with the governors given power to make decisions that best suit their prison. Because of this there were differences across the prison estate so we knew the solution needed to be flexible enough to incorporate the different processes.
Working with service designers we managed to outline the process and produce prototypes that we tested in prisons. We spent a lot of time integrating the process to ensure the various steps where clear for staff who process the payments, wing officers, security teams and prisoners. During the whole process we had constant meetings with stakeholders to inform them of progress and also were able to gain clarity over procedures that are currently put in place across the whole prison service.
Outcomes
After a rigorous discovery and prototype testing period the service was built and as now being trialed in 22 prisons. Myself and the team have been monitoring the process of this pilot and addressing issues as they arose. The service is due to be launched nationally later 2019.
1.4. Over the counter post office service
The post office over the counter solution was one area that was investigated to cater for users without bank accounts. However due to high costs and systems intergration this part of the project was discontinued.
2. Cells Bells Project – Discovery
Overview
The aim of this project was to understand the issue of cell bell/call systems response times in prisons. There was evidence that cell bells/call systems were being used by prisoners for a much wider range of reasons than was originally intended, including a large number of non-emergency requests to prison staff – and anecdotally this may have undermined their impact and response times more generally. The levels and types of assurance and testing that currently happen across the estate appear to be inconsistent, so there is also a clear need to identify ways to improve this. This project was to understand if this was the case and what solutions could be introduced.
Approach
The project involved several researchers at MOJ with each researcher given a prison to conduct research in. Research was conducted in prisons and with prison staff to gain a clear picture of how the system worked and how it was used. Prisoners were also interviewed to understand how they viewed the system and how they used it. All findings and potential solutions were fed back individually and then collated into a single document and then analysed during a group meeting with stakeholders.
Outcomes
The outcome from this discovery piece was significant insight into how the cell bell system is used and how it differs across the prison estate. Recommendations were made to senior stakeholders of the prison service and that although the research underlined that issued existed there were several ways in which improvements could be made.
Example page from report on Cell Bells Project
3. Claim for Crown Court Defence (CCCD) – Beta through to Live
Passed Live GDS Assessment 29th September 2016
Overview
CCCD is a gateway to transmit an average of 270,000 crown court bills per year.
CCCD enables legal aid advocates and litigators to submit bills under the Advocates’ and Litigators’ Graduated Fee Schemes (AGFS & LGFS). CCCD has been rolled out nationally and was mandated on 31 October 2017. Current usage is at 98%.
CCCD also provides case management staff with reduced admin and correspondence from using the service.
I joined the project during beta phase and was tasked with conducting further research to provide the team with research to enable the product to pass the Live GDS assessment.
Approach
Since the product was already in beta phase there was a product that could be put in front of users.
Conducted 30 plus interviews with litigators and advocates across the country and working for various sized organisations from one man business, medium sized businesses with several people employed there and also with larger organisations. I also interviewed cross-draftsmen who would submit claims on behalf of several organisations.
Interviews consisted of gaining an understanding of how they currently work, observing how well they completed the process of submitting their legal aid claim and gathering feedback about how well the service would align with their current business process.
Caseworkers based in Nottingham were also interviewed to see how they used the current service in beta and understand its limitations.
The process of recruiting participants was a highly challenging since we weren’t authorised offer incentives and had to rely on their good will but also convince them of the benefits of taking part in the research.
Approach – Assisted digital
Investigations into assisted digital by providing a telephone service proved that our initial assumptions were correct. That litigators and advocates would be highly digitally literate because they use computers in their daily work.
Approach – Accessibility
People with access needs were difficult to source from litigators and advocates however the way in which CCCD was built meant that the public service mirrored the case workers service so effectively what the case workers could see. Because of this we were able to recruit caseworkers who had access needs from.
Outcomes
The outcomes from the research showed that several elements of the service needed to be improved. After each research visit the severity of the issues were discussed and whether iteration of the service should take place. For other issues, if there appeared to be a recurring theme that these would be problematic to the service them these would also be addressed.
4. Moving People Safely – Beta Phase
A service that captures vital health and risk information when prisoners are moved between police, courts, prisons and hospitals
I was brought in to cover the previous researcher with the specific task of understanding how the service could be use with police.
Challenges
When a prisoner is moved between police, courts, prisons and possibly hospitals much of the information pertaining to their health and level of risk (violence) and any property they have is captured on a paper forms that get passed and updated between the establishments.
This presents the issue of data quality and even lost of data with all the potential risks that this comes with.
My team had already developed a solution where prisoner details could collated digitally from prisons and viewed and updated at courts however the journey often begins with the police and the information they gather. My task was to first understand how the police work then work with the team to develop ideas about how it would work with the current solution.
Approach
Visits to three police station custody suites Luton, Guilford and Maidendhead and a Magistrates court to see how paper-based information is received and processed.
Observing and gathering research on the process and information collected when a person is arrested. Understand the systems used, staff roles and tasks they perform. Understand the interaction between police staff and 3rd party transport companies such as Serco.
Outcome
The police visits provided a comprehensive insight into the processes and information collected when a person enters custody, how their property is logged and how the information is passed on to 3rd party transportation companies and eventually courts.
It also provided information about how information is collected and processed by courts.
The results of gaining this insight was to enable the team to think of ways in which to integrate the police process into the existing courts and prisons process, ultimately creating the first joined up service between police, courts and prisons.
Further interviews were conducted with the police service to understand the systems used across the different regions and how this integration would work across the service.
5. Tax Tribunals – Beta Phase
An online service where businesses and self-employed people can appeal to the first-tier tribunal if they want to challenge decisions by HMRC.
I was brought onto the project to cover the previous researcher so had to understand the objectives and work on a plan within a short space of time to keep the project on track.
Objective
- To user test a prototype of the proposed solution
- Observe and understand if users can succeed and complete the application journey unaided
- Observe and understand if users can succeed and complete payment unaided
Approach
- Two rounds of user testing each with 6 participants who had disputes with HMRC and wished to appeal.
- Writing a screener document for the recruitment agency and handling queuries
- Organising budget and incentives for recruitment as well as booking the research lab
- Organising sessions in line with project scedule allowing time to analyase findings and iteration of the prototype
- Writing the script and questionnaire that would be used during the lab sessions
Outcome
Outcomes from the user testing sessions were noted down and logged in a table and ranked by their level of severity.
Identified several issues that needed to addressed such as:
- More clarity is needed around the appeal and review process
- More clarity around fees
- Explain the tax tribunal process and that HMRC is a different department
- Explain what the tiers are
- That tribunal is independent
- What the tribunal does and how it works
- Explain the timescale and how long actions will take
These and other changes were implemented for the next round of research whee we tested how well the changes performed.