MHCLG Digital is planning an expansion of its Common Tools as a Service (CTaaS) operation, saying it plans to develop a number of products and services over the next three years.
Senior product manager Elisha Khan said the team – which works on digital projects in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – has been working on the initiative for the past 18 months, looking at how digital tools can be built at pace and scale, particularly in emergency scenarios.
It has now completed discovery and alpha phases and aims to step up its activity to produce readily available, standardised tools, improve collaboration and knowledge sharing across teams, reduce duplication of effort and improve the overall quality and consistency of digital products.
“By providing a foundation of common tools and services, CTaaS will enable MHCLG Digital to respond more effectively to both routine and emergency scenarios,” Khan said in a blogpost.
“This initiative represents a significant step forward in our commitment to digital transformation and efficient service delivery.”
Threefold vision
The programme has been based on a threefold vision, the first element being to consolidate and expand MHCLG Digital’s existing capabilities to provide a common set of services to be used as building blocks for delivery.
The others are to provide a reliable and reusable set of tools, and to standardise the ministry’s work, culture and technology stack.
Khan added that a number of principles have been developed to guide the work, covering usability, security, support and maintenance, integration and compatibility, flexibility, cost-effectiveness and scalability.
In addition, there is a strong emphasis on user support under which CTaaS will likely consist of product teams that build tools and incorporate a service delivery model with comprehensive support for users.
