GDS this week: Ministry of Justice transformation update

Last week we paid a visit to the Ministry of Justice to find out more about the innovative work going on there to bring legal services online. Kit Collingwood tells us about how great it feels for the Lasting Power of Attorney team to have been nominated for a Civil Service Award; Daniela Tzvetkova talks about the value of open source and how Court Finder has been picked up and re-used by the European courts; and Eliot Fineberg reports on the latest steps in the Civil Claims exemplar’s development from Alpha towards Beta phase.

Follow Daniela Tzvetkova and Eliot Fineberg on Twitter:

Daniela Tzvetkova (Service Manager, Information Services): @daulfn

Eliot Fineberg (Service Manager, Civil Claims): @eliotfineberg

Learning in public with the LPA beta

On 1st July the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) launched the beta of the Lasting Power of Attorney digital tool. Service manager Kit Collingwood wrote about the release on the MoJ Digital blog, and we asked her to write about what they’ve learned since.

Even though it’s only been six weeks since we’ve launched, we’ve already learned a lot. Overall, our experience of going live has been great and the feedback so far has been brilliant – I’ve got to use my favourite line from a member of the public: ‘Dear Sir: this is the best government website I’ve ever used !’

However, nothing ever goes 100% to plan – that’s where the fun and the challenge lie. We’re really cutting our teeth on the LPA service and, though we’ve got an amazing cross-agency team and had prepared really well for launch, you can’t predict exactly what will happen when you go live. In the event, it has been easier in some ways and harder in other than we’d expected – here are our top lessons: