Cabinet Office
Transforming the in-person Civil Service Fast Stream Assessment Centre into an award-winning, inclusive, online service that successfully passed all stages of GDS assessment first time.
The Cabinet Office’s Fast Stream and Early Talent programme identifies leadership potential in Civil Service candidates through its Fast Stream Assessment Centre (FASC). With inclusion and operational efficiency the priority, we transformed the entire end-to-end service experience for both assessors and candidates. Turning a physical, paper-based assessment process in London and Newcastle into a secure, inclusive, fully remote service, with a 100% client satisfaction rating and huge increases in successful assessments for underrepresented communities.
Key stats
120%
increase in successful assessments for BAME candidates
63%
increase in successful assessments for Disabled candidates
94%
of candidates found the platform engaging and enjoyable
What did the Fast Stream need from us?
The Cabinet Office’s Fast Stream and Early Talent (FSET) programme aims to identify talented graduates, career changers, and existing civil service employees and provide them a fast track into leadership, with a particular focus on increasing diversity.
Yet before we started working on the programme, underrepresented candidates, such as disabled, neurodiverse and BAME people, were less likely to succeed in the original iteration of the Fast Stream Assessment Centre (FSAC), an in-person, paper-based, half-day evaluation process of leadership, analysis and group exercises, physically undertaken in London and Newcastle.
Following a competitive tender process, the Cabinet Office chose CACI Digital Experience to Service Design and build an inclusive, intuitive, compliant, highly secure digital platform for FSAC. Originally designed for in-person assessments on iPads, due to the COVID-19 pandemic we needed to devise an entirely new digital operating model to swiftly pivot to a completely remote format, eliminating geographical barriers and broadening access to diverse candidates.
Objectives
- Design an accessible, GDS compliant end-to-end service that reassures and boosts confidence for under-represented candidates.
- Enhance FSAC’s operational efficiency through a highly secure, performant, user-friendly, responsive digital platform.
- Swift, secure Agile implementation which still allowed for continuous improvement and adaptation to user needs over time.
- Ensuring stakeholders have the skills, capabilities and positive inclination for the adoption of the new service model.
Creating a service that works for all stakeholders over time
At the heart of our work, was an Agile, human-centred Service Design approach to the assessment centre transformation to deliver on these objectives, reimagining the entire end-to-end service experience for all stakeholders.
Transforming the service into a completely paperless, digital process with intuitive user journeys both for its internal team and candidates required us to gain a deeper understanding of all FSAC’s diverse users, how they interacted with the service, and so identify the critical 'why' that some candidate groups are more or less likely to succeed.
To deliver on the Cabinet Office and Government Digital Service’s standards around security, technology resilience and scalability, we also needed to maintain the platform's effectiveness and inclusivity in a fully virtual environment.
This meant designing a robust service solution that met the needs of all users regardless of their technical proficiency or background, with strict accessibility requirements beyond WCAG standards. By taking an Agile approach that aligned and upskilled the FSAC team towards continuous improvement, it also meant the service could evolve to meet future user needs.
Empathy Mapping and Ethnographic Research
We captured the “as-is” service experience through in-depth user interviews with diverse candidates to provide valuable insights into the barriers faced by under-represented groups, including those of different socioeconomic groups, ethnicities, and disabilities.
This helped us to understand their need, pain points, and mental models (as in, how their individual worldview and experiences shape their perception, behaviour, and performance within FSAC). We found that candidates from under-represented backgrounds often felt intimidated by the environment and process, which negatively impacted their confidence and ultimately, their performance.
We also conducted workshops with key stakeholders to build Empathy and Journey Maps to understand the challenges faced by different user groups as they navigated the end-to-end experience, and to inform our design decisions for the whole reimagined service.
The engagement with members of the FSAC team also supported alignment with the transformation's aims from the very beginning, as well as ensuring that the changes and new platform supported them in their work.
Creating Service Blueprints
We mapped out the “current-state” physical assessment experience and designed the desired “future-state” of the service; the blueprints highlighting pain points and opportunities for improvement with all stakeholders: candidates, admins, assessors and other internal team members.
In particular, from a Service Design perspective which looks at the ability of the organisation to provide the desired service experience, we identified gaps in tech, processes and skillsets that needed to be addressed to deliver the new operational model.
Prototyping and Usability Testing
From this work, we developed an Alpha prototype for the assessment centre service, followed by usability testing with 70 candidates and internal teams to inform iterative improvements and ensure it was functional, empathetic, robust and intuitive, meeting all user needs. Not only did we chose diverse imagery so candidates could see people who ‘look like them’, we also tested with people with different disabilities including neurodiversity to ensure the new service was as accessible and inclusive as possible.
A critical aspect of this prototyping and usability testing was the need for the highest levels of security and confidentiality in the assessment centre. Originally needing to have the digital platform locked down to assessment centres only, the pivot to a full remote service raised its own challenges. As a result, the work was underpinned by risk matrix exercises to mitigate candidates leaking material on social media and undermining the assessment programme.
Digital Platform Development
We built a highly secure, performant Drupal CMS configured as a learning management system (LMS) platform. The platform was designed to be performant, scalable and – critically – flexible, allowing assessors to dynamically alter content in real-time to adapt the assessment according to candidate needs.
The platform required unique functionality that Drupal's customisable workflows made possible. For example, the FSAC Ops team needed to control each candidates unique experience, secured by a password at each stage necessary due to the strict time restraints for each exercise.
Drupal, famous for its focus on continuous improvement and commitment to accessibility, was also chosen so we could accommodate future enhancements and increased user demand over time.
The platform's frontend was developed using modern standards (based on HTML5 and CSS) and focused on achieving the WCAG AA guidelines. Drupal's efficient customisable data structures and dynamic content capabilities also let us design simulations of real-world scenarios that Fast Stream candidates might find themselves in, for example reviewing dynamic email threads or social media.
Passing GDS service standards through an ISO-Accredited Process
We followed a rigorous ISO-accredited human-centred Service Design process (ISO 9241-910) in line with the 14 required GDS service standards to ensure the highest standards of quality, accessibility and reliability for the entire end-to-end service and digital platform.
We applied Agile methodology throughout, conducting regular show-and-tells and other ceremonies with FSAC and other stakeholders to ensure alignment with project goals.
Outcomes and Results
With improving candidate diversity and inclusion and operational efficiency the Fast Stream objectives, the new FSAC digital service delivered on every front.
We achieved drastic improvements in success rates of all under-represented candidates through addressing specific barriers and providing empathetic, tailored support. This included a:
- 120% increase in the number of successful Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates
- 63% uplift in the number of successful disabled candidates
- 34% rise in successful candidates from lower socio-economic backgrounds
Hugely positive user feedback was received, with 94% of candidates finding the platform engaging and enjoyable to use, with 71% feeling more likely to apply for a Civil Service role due to the digital FSAC experience.
We also achieved 100% client satisfaction from the Cabinet Office team. All testament to the success of our human-centred Service Design approach. User feedback included: “It was very easy to understand and navigate and clearly extremely well organised and thought-through, which I very much appreciated.”
Through careful planning, risk mitigation, change management and service transformation, the new service successfully passed each GDS Service Standard assessment at Alpha, Beta, and Live at first-time of asking.
The FSAC team also benefited from streamlined processes and reduced administrative burdens, allowing them to focus on supporting candidates. As a result, were asked to transform the single service FSAC application to a multi-site application (Final Selection Board) so all FSBs across the Civil Service could benefit from the solution.
The FSAC platform has so far achieved 12 awards; including most notably:
- Winning a Civil Service Award for Advancing Disability Inclusion
- Winning a Target Jobs National Graduate Recruitment Award for "Best Innovation in Student Recruitment
- Shortlisted by the global Service Design Network Awards, recognising the monumental effort in re-imagining the service rapidly during the pandemic
Key stats
120%
increase in successful assessments for BAME candidates
63%
increase in successful assessments for Disabled candidates
94%
of candidates found the platform engaging and enjoyable
Recommended
CACI Digital Experience was instrumental in helping us achieve our project goals on time and within budget. Their attention to detail, problem solving abilities, and proactive approach to addressing challenges were truly impressive. Not only did the CACI team deliver high-quality work, but they also maintained excellent communication throughout the project, seeking feedback to ensure that the project was aligned to our vision
Cabinet Office