Page 73 - Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities - A U4SSC deliverable

A remote learning course to support digital practitioners working with or within government called
“Applying Digital Standards in Government”.

This course merges the key principles of government digital standards including into a series of
bite-size modules, which can be accessed online:

• Technology Code of Practice

• Service Standard

• The Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework
• Government Functional Standard: Digital Data and Technology

• Spend Controls Assessment Pipeline Criteria

The course includes a strong use of audio files and visual files, as well as small bullet-point reading.
This blended learning approach encourages users to access the content in the way which best suits
their learning needs, rather than prescribing a rigid reading guidance technique.

A series of films aimed at non DDaT leadership

The films can be used in any leadership course or shared via any communication channel. The goal
is to reach as many “reluctant” leaders as possible who do not identify that they are responsible
for legacy IT.

A series of podcasts aimed at DDaT and non DDaT leadership

As with the films, the podcastscan be heard in isolation or as part of a wider piece of learning. They
have been particularly well received given that they allow the audience to be away from screens
while accessing the content, and due to the conversational style being an engaging way to hear
about the topic.

The challenges

The Programme Board and the Skills & Capability team faced three key challenges:

1) Working under COVID-19 critical conditions

This meant that stakeholders and, at times, team resources were needed on critical delivery
elsewhere, and there was also a heavy reliance on contractors in the discovery stage.

2) Waterfall reporting on an agile development

At the discovery stage of the programme, where learning products had not been scoped, there
was a challenge from the Programme Board that the Skills & Capability strand would deliver on
time and to budget. There was a further challenge that guidance or policy was not being written.

Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities | May 2023 59