Thursday 16 May saw the National Technology Awards 2019 take place in London’s Grosvenor Square.
This year DWP Digital picked up two further awards:
- Tech Team of the Year for the Intelligent Automation Garage
- Best Public Sector Project for ‘Find a job’
This was the second consecutive win in the Best Public Sector Project category following last year’s win for the Searchlight customer information system, DWP Digital’s reputation for innovative and large scale public sector projects continues to grow.
Simon McKinnon, CDIO said:
“I’m so pleased that the teams behind these services are getting the recognition they deserve. Here at DWP Digital we’re putting huge effort into improving services for our customers so to pick up two awards in really competitive categories is quite exciting.”
The Intelligent Automation Garage is a team dedicated to pioneering applications of artificial intelligence, such as robotic automation, virtual assistants, machine learning and data analytics. Established in July 2017, the team aims to reimagine how more than 80,000 employees and 20 million customers interact with DWP’s services.
As a result of the Garage’s work, more than 850,000 functional tasks have been automated to date, equating to around 40 years of full-time equivalent effort saved, freeing up colleagues to focus on higher value activities which AI is not equipped for. The automations have also resulted in 869,000 pages of printing being avoided – that’s the equivalent of 100 trees saved.
Where there are tools that streamline back-office processes or prevent fraud DWP Digital has a duty to explore them – and that’s what the Intelligent Automation Garage team is doing. It is working at the frontiers of digital capability and with a culture of responsible, rapid and results-driven execution that ensures the department can continue to focus on its customers.
Find a job (findajob.dwp.gov.uk) is a digital online service and is a key part of the government’s digital agenda, which aims to provide easy online access to government services. Find a job provides the facility for employers to post jobs and a service for jobseekers to view and apply for those available jobs, and is one of the most popular digital services in government. It offers a fast, simple experience and powerful search, matching jobseekers to employers’ available roles quickly and effectively.
Since its launch in May 2018, over 46.8 million adverts have been viewed on the site and over 800,000 jobseeker accounts have been set up and verified. 1.3 million adverts have been posted and 114,000 companies are actively using the site. The service is constantly being iterated using Agile methodologies to address user feedback and stakeholder input. This had led to improvements in accessibility and the implementation of checks to ensure that vacancies meet National Minimum Wage regulations.
