We posted in October listing some of the services we were expecting to start using GOV.UK Verify between October 2014 and March 2015. This post provides an update on our plans.
Four out of the 6 services we listed as starting to use GOV.UK Verify by December 2014 are now connected to the hub. Three of these are publicly available for people to use:
- PAYE Change or Update Your Company Car Tax (beta)
- HMRC Self-assessment (trial as part of the live service)
- Rural payments (beta)
Later this month, people will start being able to access the redundancy payments service in beta using GOV.UK Verify.
DWP is continuing to develop its change of address service, including using GOV.UK Verify to allow people to access the service. This is not likely to become a public-facing service in its own right; it will be part of a range of other digital services.
DVLA is now expecting to connect its View Driving Licence service to the hub in January 2015 and we expect that people will be able to access the service through GOV.UK Verify from March 2015.
Table: updated list of services we expect to start using GOV.UK Verify by March 2015
| Department | Service | Status | Total users / year | Users in first 6 months |
| Defra | Rural Payments | Connected July 2014; in beta | 100k-300k | 100k |
| HMRC | PAYE (Change Company Car Details) | Connected February 2014; in beta | 70k | 20k |
| HMRC | Self-assessment (trial) | Connected December 2014, in trial (limited numbers of people can choose to use GOV.UK Verify to access the self assessment service) | 3m | 50k |
| BIS / Insolvency Service | Redundancy Payments | Connected December 2014- private beta use of GOV.UK Verify to start in January 2015 | 100k | 15k |
| DWP | Change of address | Due to connect in January 2015 | tbc | <1k |
| HMRC | Claim an over payment of tax (iforms trial) | Due to connect in January 2015 | 95k | 30k |
| HMRC | Tax credit renewals | Due to connect by Mar 2015 | 2m | 300k+ |
| DWP | Universal Credit | Due to connect by Mar 2015 | 10m | <1k |
| HMRC | PAYE self-service | Due to connect by Mar 2015 | 2m | 80k |
| HMRC | Transferable tax allowance | Due to connect by Mar 2015 | 3m | 50k |
| DfT / DVLA | View Driving Licence | Due to connect in January for public use by Mar 2015 | 500k | 50k |
10 comments
Comment by simonfj posted on
Hi Janet,
Happy New Year. I do hope that this year won't be as difficult as it seems at the moment. Identity Assurance was always going to be the hardest nut to crack, especially as it appears to be thought that it can be implemented by a National Government design team, in isolation.
This para illustrates the difficulty which, using the present design philosophy, has led to the UK GDS IDA team painting itself into a corner, and working directly against the way the Scots see IDA being implemented. "DWP is continuing to develop its change of address service, including using GOV.UK Verify to allow people to access the service. This is not likely to become a public-facing service in its own right; it will be part of a range of other digital services".
One only needs to ask "which way do 'the other services' face?" (if they aren't public) to see that each account holder must take some responsibility for the attributes on their own personal account. The 'change of address' is simply the one attribute (service) around which most others rotate, and that must be devolved to the institution.gov(uk) which knows where a citizen calls Home (. i.e. LGAs.)
I thought the penny would drop when Martyn did these diagrams. https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/2014/07/10/under-the-hood-of-ier/ (Diagram 3)
But no, the National perspective is always seen as the center of the universe rather than a hierarchy imposing their view on a lower level of governance.
Let's remain philosophic, as this IS a change in (network) design philosophies. And interposing a private company between citizens' governing themselves is fraught with distrust. You may like this word as it illustrates that some things don't change, regardless of time and technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeat
Eventually, we will see the utility of devolving the IDA to the institution responsible for issuing an exeat (to a recognize other). That, in itself, will be the greatest act of co-creation and transformation. Its beauty is that it will enable the beginnings of building global social institutions; ones that can replace the anachronisms we have inherited from a National "client/server" generation. Cheers!
Comment by Janet Hughes posted on
Hi Simon,
I'm sorry I didn't express that paragraph as clearly as I might have liked - I meant to explain that the change of circumstances product that DWP is working on is likely to become an integral part of other digital services run by DWP, rather than becoming a standalone service in its own right. (I'd need to refer you to DWP if you wanted to find out more about their plans for their services but I thought it would be useful to clarify that here - hope that helps.)
We are, separately, working on pilot projects led by local authorities through our work with the Open Identity Exchange (oixuk.org) to explore how GOV.UK Verify might work for local services. We're not proposing to impose anything in the way you've described, but the published standards for GOV.UK Verify have been designed to be applicable to local services as well, and this is what the pilots are exploring. This includes looking at attribute exchange, which as you've pointed out is likely to be an important part of the picture.
Thanks again for commenting and happy new year - we're looking forward to carrying on the conversation throughout 2015!
Comment by Philip Woodrow posted on
Hi Janet,
I think you've said in a previous blog post that Local Government services aren't currently part of the immediate plan. We think we need to have at least a vision of how Identity Assurance done via one or multiple agencies is going to interface with Local Government systems and services. There are plenty of people trying to work out how to do "Digital Transformation" of Local Government services (something that has in fact been going on for some time of course). Who, what and where, for example, is the assured link between an identity and a case in the back office for council tax, benefits, education, rates, social care, planning etc going to be done? Perhaps we could have a discusson about this?
Comment by Janet Hughes posted on
Hello Philip, thanks for your comment.
Yes, you're right, we're prioritising central government services at the moment. We need to put the right commercial, legal and operational arrangements in place to allow local services to re-use GOV.UK Verify. To understand how these arrangements need to work, and to understand how it might work for users if they are able to access local services through GOV.UK Verify, we're working on a number of research and pilot projects through the Open Identity Exchange (OIX). See oixuk.org for some of the published reports and other information about those projects.
Comment by Allan Walker posted on
Do I have to register?
Comment by Rebecca Hales posted on
Hi Allan, thanks for your comment.
Whether you have to sign in using GOV.UK Verify depends on which of the services it is that you're trying to access, and whether you're a returning user or coming to to the service for the first time.
Comment by Gill Cooper posted on
What is the relationship between Gov.uk Verify and existing Government Gateway accounts?
Comment by Rebecca Hales posted on
Hi Gill, thanks for your comment.
GOV.UK Verify and Government Gateway are separate. GOV.UK Verify allows people to verify their identity entirely digitally to a higher level of assurance, to access an increasing range of government services.
Government Gateway fulfils a range of functions in addition to managing access to services through its enrolment and authentication services. GOV.UK Verify is not designed to replace all of Government Gateway's functions. Instead, it offers a service that provides identity proofing, verification and authentication services to enable individuals to access digital government services in a way that is faster and more secure.
Comment by Mike posted on
Will HMRC form R40 (Claim an over payment of tax) be included in iForms by 6th April 2015?
Comment by Rebecca Hales posted on
Hi Mike
Thanks for your comment and apologies for the slight delay in getting back to you.
The R40 was out of scope for transition to an iForm and so won't be available in that format by 6th April. However, it remains in pdf format in GOV.UK to be read by an optical character reader.