Case study
Helping DWP Digital improve consistency and standards
DWP Digital, part of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), wanted to see more consistency and standards in the way its systems were built, to help improve efficiency and reduce duplication. Opencast has worked with DWP Digital on digital projects in this space from 2020.
Challenge
Improve efficiency and reduce duplication
DWP Digital’s ‘green zone’ team has focused on reusable application services that could be used across different teams in the department. Its project delivery units identified inconsistencies in their application build pipelines and integration solutions.
An Opencast project team worked within the green zone as an enabling team from 2021 to help ensure more consistency and standards in system builds, helping improve efficiency and reduce duplication.
Working together, we were able to spot inefficiencies and duplication in workflows across teams, as well as complications when the app reached the deployment stage.
Response
Off-the-shelf solution makes work easier
The Opencast team did a full review of the different solutions in place across DWP Digital. We focused on an off-the-shelf solution to reduce complexity and technical boundaries for application teams with reduced DevOps support.
The work led to a reduction in inconsistencies and, crucially, developed new quality-assured templates that could be optimised for different application types such as Java, Node and Node Casa. Teams can now migrate on to these templates to improve application build workflows across the green zone within DWP Digital.
Impact
A high-quality, repeatable solution
The work culminated in a batch migration to integrate multiple product delivery units (PDUs) into one Gitlab project, providing a consistent and high-quality template solution for 24 application service teams providing no less than 112 applications underpinning services that are consumed by millions of DWP public users.
Throughout the project Opencast worked collaboratively to share knowledge through one-to-one training and shared documentation, as well as participating in engineering steering groups across DWP Digital.
Improving support for military veterans and their families
The Office for Veterans Affairs (OVA) partnered with Opencast in 2024 to make it easier for veterans and their families to find the right support online. Veterans often faced an overwhelming mix of services from government, armed forces networks, charities and other providers. The project streamlined information into a single, accessible place and explored ways for OVA to connect veterans directly with services. The result was a new Finder tool and support guidance, launched on GOV.UK in September 2024, giving veterans a faster, clearer route to the help they need.
Case study
Working together at HMRC
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) urgently needed to provide new digital services to support people and businesses as the Covid pandemic took hold in 2020. Opencast played a significant role in helping it to deliver.
