• UX

Written by Richard Caddick, Consulting Director, Sopra Steria Next UK

Public services work best when collaboration and the people who use them become the centre of how those services are designed and implemented. Yet too often, organisations feel the need to jump straight into solutions. When that happens, teams risk missing the real problem and citizens end up feeling the impact.

We have long championed approaches that put users at the heart of public service delivery. Our acquisition of specialist user centred design consultancy, CXPartners, in 2020 strengthened that vision and developed our deep expertise in all things people centred.

For 15 years, the GOV.UK Service Standard has challenged teams to understand users, solve whole problems, and work in multidisciplinary ways. But of course, the landscape has evolved significantly, and the complexity of today’s world demands more structured, strategic collaboration that redefines how public services are designed and delivered.

This is where user centred collaboration moves from practice to capability and why it sits at the heart of our approach.

The turning point: why “user centred” alone isn’t enough

For decades, public sector transformation has focused on “putting users first.” Yet we continue to see programmes struggle because understanding users is not the same as designing and delivering with them.

Success now depends on:

• shared ownership between policy, operations, digital technology and suppliers.
• evidence driven decisions rooted in real user behaviour.
• multidisciplinary problem solving from day one.
• agile learning across entire service ecosystems.
• structures that enable sustained collaboration, not episodic cooperation.

These expectations are embedded throughout the Service Manual,  from solving whole problems and iterating frequently to working as multidisciplinary teams. But standards alone aren’t enough. The way teams behave together determines whether the standards become lived reality.

Case in point: Civil Aviation Authority – where collaboration shifted culture

Our work for the Civil Aviation Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) illustrates why user centred collaboration matters now more than ever.

When rising complaints triggered scrutiny from the Secretary of State, the CAA faced a challenge shared across many public bodies: how to understand user frustrations and redesign services in a way that would endure. Working with CXPartners, the CAA embarked on three parallel research projects that didn’t just uncover problems but demonstrated the value of user centred, collaborative practice (including toolkits, a measurement dashboard and a long-term roadmap).

The change was cultural as much as operational. “From ‘I’m not sure customer experience is right for us’ to ‘I’ve put customer experience into my objectives.’”

This is what user centred collaboration makes possible: shared understanding, shared language, shared commitment to citizens.

Collaboration: from soft skill to strategic discipline

Public sector teams increasingly recognise that collaboration is not a “nice to have.” It is a strategic delivery discipline and one that must be designed, structured and measured.

Our approach is underpinned by  ISO 44001 (Collaborative Business Relationship Management) accreditation, which provides a rigorous framework for shared governance, joint planning, clear accountability, transparent decision making and continuous improvement across partnerships.

You can see this in practice through our user-centred work to design the first digital cross‑organisational licensing service for the UK Space Agency. With multiple organisations involved in each licences application and assessment, the programme required regulators, assessors, policy teams and operators to work as one. By grounding Discovery in real user needs and running technical and service research in parallel, we created a single, coherent licensing journey that aligned diverse stakeholders and supported evolving legislation. It showed how structured collaboration solves problems, unlocks clearer decisions, better design and services that work.

This kind of transformation cannot succeed through siloed effort. It requires:

• unified governance,
• shared evidence and transparent decision making,
• cross functional problem solving,
• and joint accountability for outcomes.

The result is a shared sense of direction, where every organisation involved understands the user journey and works together to make it smoother and more coherent.

AI’s role: augmenting, not replacing human centred delivery

As government ambitions for responsible AI accelerate, user centred collaboration becomes even more critical. The  Roadmap for Modern Digital Government calls for ethical, transparent AI adoption that enhances service delivery.

In practice, AI in public services works best when:

• users’ needs shape the problem being solved.
• multidisciplinary teams test assumptions early.
• explainability and accountability are built in.
• data governance and inclusion are considered from the outset.

AI is not a shortcut. It is a tool that strengthens outcomes when anchored in real user behaviour and ethical design choices which is consistent with the direction set out in the government’s roadmap.

A new model of Public Sector delivery

Across government, several trends converge:

• rising citizen expectations.
• pressure to demonstrate impact and value.
• increased cross department dependencies.
• responsible AI becoming a delivery requirement.
• sustainability becoming non-negotiable.
• tightening budgets demanding smarter, evidence driven investment.

The organisations that succeed will be those that master user centred collaboration as a repeatable, scalable delivery model and not a project-by-project methodology. For us this means:

• embedding a focus on user needs from day one, aligning with the GOV.UK Service Standard to ensure decisions are grounded in real evidence about what people need and why.
• starting with discovery that builds a shared understanding of users, their contexts and constraints, not based on assumptions, per the Service Manual.
• using structured frameworks like ISO 44001 to strengthen delivery relationships.
• applying AI responsibly in line with the government roadmap.

When these elements come together, services become simpler, more inclusive, and more robust and assessments stop being hurdles; they become natural validations of good practice.

Collaboration that creates services people choose

The public sector’s most complex challenges cannot be solved by any single discipline, team or supplier. They require a new model of partnership.

The strongest validation of this approach comes not from frameworks or methodologies, but from the people we work alongside.

In summary:

• Public services perform best when structured, user‑centred collaboration drives design, delivery, and decision‑making.
• Evidence‑led, multidisciplinary working which is supported by frameworks like ISO 44001, creates clearer governance, better services and sustainable outcomes.
• Case studies from the CAA and UK Space Agency show how collaborative practice builds shared understanding, cultural change and more trusted services.

Originally posted here

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