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https://dataingovernment.blog.gov.uk/trade-challenge-partner-accreditation-service-self-certification/

Trade Challenge Partner Accreditation Service - Self Certification

Self Certifications are run internally by each department, organised through their responsible Digital Leader. The Digital Leader will certify the service meets the Digital by Default service standard criteria. The Self Certification process is currently in Alpha, and will continue to be iterated on. Services with over 100,000 transactions a year will continue to be assessed by GDS.


UKTI Trade Challenge Partner Accreditation is a new service to support applications for three separately-funded programmes that Trade Challenge Partners can apply for:

  1. Tradeshow Access Programme (TAP)
  2. Events and Missions
  3. Sector Partnership initiatives

There are two levels of accreditation.

  • Mandatory, first level - all current Trade Challenge Partners must complete this first layer of accreditation to commit to a selection of activities promoting UKTI’s services, the benefits of exporting, and sharing best practice with other Trade Challenge Partners.
  • Optional, second level – only applicable to those who wish to be accredited to participate in the separately-funded programmes. To be successful in this layer of accreditation Partners will need to provide additional information such as financial viability and their capability to deliver to their specific market.

It is anticipated that around 100 Trade Associations will apply for accreditation but the service will be able to support up to 300.

Department / Agency:
BIS

Date of Assessment:
7/11/2014

Assessment Stage:
Beta

Result of Assessment:
Pass

Lead Assessor:
P. Turner

Service Manager:
C. Leaver

Digital Leader:
T. Knighton


Assessment report

This service was originally assessed against the standard on 9 September 2014. At that point the assessment panel were unable to pass the service without further assurance and clarification against a number of the criterion.

UKTI have since provided further information against the outstanding criterion and further iterated the service in order for the service to be reassessed.

Subject to the following conditions, the assessment panel are content that the service sufficiently meets the standard and can be launched in November.

User Needs

  • UKTI have a dedicated person for the Trade Challenge Partnership, tasked with proactively obtaining user feedback. Users will also be able to submit feedback at any time via the ‘feedback’ button on the Beta banner.
  • Feedback will be gathered continuously through all stages of the process and reviewed at regular intervals providing the momentum, where appropriate, to inform the services next iteration (Criterion 20).

The Team

  • UKTI assign a dedicated User Researcher to lead on identifying user need from research and feedback and where appropriate directing that towards an iterative improvement of the service.
  • The development capability within the team is retained in order that the service can be iterated further and promptly as directed by user feedback (Criterion 2).

Security, Privacy, Tools and Standards

  • UKTI ensure that support for the service, i.e. the service tool itself and any issues around functionality failure, is contractually in place (Criterion 5).
  • UKTI ensures that the source codebase is open and available for re-use going forwards (Criterion 15).
  • A test environment is in place which will be developed in parallel during each iteration (Criterion 17).

Assisted Digital (AD)

  • UKTI have identified how they will approach AD and the panel are content to accept this at this stage. However if this activity does highlight a need for greater levels of prolonged AD support then engagement with GDS Assisted Digital team is recommended to understand how the proposals will fit with other developments and whether there are opportunities to learn from this (Criterion 10).

Analysis and Benchmarking

  • UKTI will use Google Analytics to provide the service team with informed performance data (Criterion 18).
  • The panel recommend that in addition to using the feedback button on the Beta banner to capture qualitative user satisfaction data, UKTI capture quantitative data similar to that captured on GOV.UK at the completion of a service (Criterion 21).
  • As a general recommendation for measuring KPI’s, UKTI should consider the value of sharing metrics on the performance platform (Criterion 21-24).

Digital by Default Service Standard criteria

Criteria Passed Criteria Passed
1 Yes 2 Yes
3 Yes 4 Yes
5 Yes 6 Yes
7 Yes 8 Yes
9 Yes 10 Yes
11 N/A 12 Yes
13 Yes 14 Yes
15 Yes 16 Yes
17 Yes 18 Yes
19 Yes 20 Yes
21 Yes 22 Yes
23 Yes 24 Yes
25 Yes 26 N/A