The Department for Education’s Challenge -Nimble Approach

The Department for Education’s Challenge -Nimble Approach

Department for Education had an established service to provide bespoke personal data extracts to a variety of end users.They set out on a mission to make it easier for the department to operate this service, improve security of the personal data and reduce burden on their users.

The National Pupil Database (NPD) was a legacy service that provided extensive data for researchers and government. Researchers faced a cumbersome process via complex forms and Excel workbooks, which was error-prone and slow, leading to a backlog of applications.

Nimble’s Solution

We delivered an improved platform from Alpha to Live that made the application process quicker, more transparent, secure and robust. The improvements reduced the burden on DfE staff for extracting data and approving requests. All while being highly scalable in both data and tech.

We integrated with the DfE team onsite, providing specialists in User-Centred Design, Research and Digital Engineering to ensure we:

  1. Created a self-service system that allows the New Product Development (NPD) team to focus on complex requests, enhancing the dataset’s quality.
  2. Made significant code improvements to make the service faster and more efficient.
  3. Integrated security best practice and upskilled the in-house team.
  4. Utilised the GDS lifecycle to deliver the improved system and service in a short timeframe.
  5. Trained the DfE Product Owner for sustainability and continuous service improvement.

Improving a service using Government Digital Service (GDS) standards, that meets user needs

Nimble immersed with the client team on site throughout. We provided the right specialists at the right time (via our Pop-up squad model) to deliver the service from Alpha through to Live in a short space of time.

Richard Machen, who owned the service at Department for Education, said:

“Nimble, by bringing in a range of talented and personable specialists, helped us deliver our ‘Find & Explore National Pupil Database’ metadata product – overcoming numerous challenges along the way.”

The service delivered has given DfE a platform which benefits from a much more efficient, intuitive user experience, whilst being highly secure and scalable from both a data and tech perspective.

Read the article here