Getting to this point has been both interesting and challenging. We began in May 2012 with initial investigations to find a DWP service that could be redeveloped using techniques true to the original Agile Manifesto. After lots of discussions, telephone calls and meetings, we homed-in on the Carer's Allowance online service.
Carer's Allowance may be paid to people who spend 35 hours per week or more taking care of another person who receives certain disability related benefits. There are, of course, quite a few other conditions that need to be met to qualify. Right now, there are two choices for making a claim, an old online service or a paper form.
We had a long pause at the end of the Alpha - a very quick development of the real service to test the idea - whilst we worked with representatives across DWP to secure funding and agree a way forward. This has meant constructive challenge on a number of fronts– technology, policy, business process and finance - all necessary to meet the Digital Service Standard. We begin hands-on development next week and we hope to make the front-end code publicly available through GitHub. Subscribe to this blog to keep up to date.