Our Design Principles

User confidence in our systems and processes is critical to enabling users to self-serve.

Our decisions around the best systems and processes will follow a balanced approach, taking into consideration cost, risk, and benefit.

Where mistakes are made we will be transparent about what has happened, how it has been resolved and what will happen next.

Users will not be asked to provide more information than is absolutely necessary to complete the transaction.

If an address isn’t required we will not ask for one. If evidence is not required to be uploaded, we won’t ask for it.

Where a user is making a change of details to one service area, we will ask for permission to update all records we hold for that person. This reduces errors for services and users, and reduces avoidable contact at a later date.

Retention schedules will be enforced across all areas of the council.

We know that users have a right to be forgotten, and will ensure that our systems and processes can efficiently deliver this principle.

Systems will be procured and implemented as cloud first. This means using a supplier’s cloud platform to host their software, or using the council’s cloud platform to host their software.