DWP, MoD and Cabinet Office among departments trialling digital staff transfer service – PublicTechnology

Organisations employing 150,000 government workers, equating to about 30% of the overall civil service total, are now using a new tech platform hoped to eliminate manual processes and payroll errors

A growing group of government bodies – including several major ministerial departments – are piloting a new multimillion-pound digital system to support civil servants moving between differing Whitehall employers.

The Employee Transfer Service – plans for which were exclusively revealed last year by PublicTechnology – is being created to “enable all civil servants to move from one department to another – at pace and without friction”, according to commercial documents concerning the delivery of the new platform.

The digital system is intended to ensure that, when a civil servant moves between government organisations, their HR data can automatically be transferred from their old employer to their new one. In many cases, this information is currently exchanged via an Excel-based form and then re-entered manually – a lengthy and sometimes fallible process which reportedly contributes to about 2,000 payroll errors across government each year.

Plans to undertake a trial of the new automated service among a select group of users were first mooted a year ago, with the Cabinet Office, Department for Work and Pensions, and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs slated to participate.

An update made this week to government employee guidance published on GOV.UK reveals that the three departments are now all taking part in an ongoing pilot exercise – as is the Ministry of Defence, and its executive agency the UK Hydrographic Office.

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The update also clarifies that DWP arm’s-length body the Health and Safety Executive is participating in the trial, as is the Government Commercial Function – a collective of 6,000 procurement professionals across the civil service – and all four of Defra’s executive agencies: the Animal and Plant Health Agency; the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science; the Rural Payments Agency; and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate.

The updated guidance outlines that, for any staff moving between two employers that are both involved in the pilot, their “transfer will use the new service”.

Between them, the pilot participants employ about 150,000 people – equating to almost 30% of the overall civil service headcount.

For the remaining 70% of officials – as well as those whose move involves only organisation trialling the new system – “transfers will continue to use the Excel-based staff transfer form on GOV.UK”, according to the guidance.

“If you complete the wrong form, this will delay your transfer,” it adds.

Delivery of the Employee Transfer Service is being led by the Government People Group (GPG), which was created last year by the merger of Civil Service HR with the Government Business Services unit. GPG is being supported by Fujitsu, which was awarded a £6.3m four-year contract to develop the digital system, a key component of which will be technology from enterprise software vendor ServiceNow.

Once the platform has been fully rolled out, it will support the 20,000-30,000 employee moves within the civil service that take place each year. The completion of the manual process that support these transfers currently takes a total of 420,000 work days per year – a requirement which GPG intends will be vastly reduced as a result of the digital tool.