Digital Services

We built and supported a schools funding portal, a solution that used open source, open standard and cloud technologies. The client Department for Education we’s role Agile Engineering Architecture Cloud services Support The brief The Department for Education (DfE) is a ministerial department comprising three executive agencies – Education Funding Agency, Standards and Testing Agency and National College for Teaching and Leadership. The Customer Exchange (CEx) was a critical part of the Government’s education strategy to expand the number of free school academies across England and Wales. Through it, around £54 billion of funding was allocated to 152 authorities and over 4,000 voluntary aided schools to educate 9.6 million children. We had to revamp a manual process that was time-intensive, resource-heavy and inefficient. For example, financial performance documents were submitted via spreadsheets, subject to error and submission to the wrong place Unstandardised formats led to inefficiencies. It made budgets and funding allocation hard to understand and that led to delays The delivery We built the solution on open source, open standard and cloud technologies. The 152 authorities and 4,000+ academies were able to access the information they needed in one standardised online digital format It allowed 35,000 users to log into the portal to: file reports, understand when their financial reporting is due, monitor their funding and payment status access the knowledge centre, calendar and digital forms. The outcome The project was predicted to take 18 months but we delivered it in six months. It increased governance, accurate accounting and full audited treasury reporting; all without increasing staff headcount. DfE now has one foot in the cloud and has big plans to unleash the power of data in order to maximise workflows across the department. Other case studies Global award-winning customs innovation —Border Force Case Study Our impact on digital government services in 2024 Case Study Helping local councils revamp taxi licensing to boost efficiencies and reduce costs Case Study Wrap-up: Our impact on digital government services in 2023 Case Study Thanks for joining us! We’ll keep you informed with regular updates. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, including updates about our content and events First name (Required) Last name (Required) Email (Required) Organisation (Required) Job title (Required) Consent (Required) I agree to the privacy policy. You can unsubscribe any time. we will never share your data with third parties. CAPTCHA Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website. You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings . Accept Reject Settings Close GDPR Cookie Settings Privacy Overview Strictly Necessary Cookies 3rd Party Cookies Privacy Overview You can read our privacy policy on our privacy page . Strictly Necessary Cookies Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. Enable or Disable Cookies If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. 3rd Party Cookies This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages. Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website. Enable or Disable Cookies Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences! Enable All Save Changes