The Government Digital Service (GDS) was formed to support digital transformation across the UK government. In the past, GDS focused on helping departments build digital skills, and built some platforms that saved money and improved services. GDS saw opportunities to drive greater efficiency by developing shared design patterns, code, platforms, data, hosting and skills - an approach called "Government as a Platform". This involves building cross-government platforms and common tools for departments to use, like GOV.UK Pay and a Platform as a Service, to make developing digital services quicker, cheaper and simpler. GDS believes this approach can benefit the wider public sector as well.
10. These elements help assemble
services and are parts of it
They make is quicker, cheaper, and
simpler to build and run great
services
GDS
11. A service
might use any
of these
elements but
the end to end
service is
owned by the
department
team
GDS
Data
GOV.UK Notify
GOV.UK Pay
Hosting
12. This parliament, GDS will focus on
supporting departments as they transform
by building cross-government platforms,
and developing common tools and
components for them to use
GDS
30. And we’re developing service patterns -
consistent ways for services to meet
common, generic needs across
Government
GDS
31. For example, a licensing service pattern
will allow any organisation granting
licences to draw on the common
components that are transferable
between different licensing services.
GDS
32. Common Technology Services will
develop blueprints for technology
solutions that can be used across
departments, from cloud hosting, to
wifi, to the computers we use
GDS
33. And we’re building registers -
trustworthy canonical lists of data made
available in digital formats that can be
easily consumed by services
GDS