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Client
Department for International Trade
Domain
Trade & Growth
Service
Consulting
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Building a smarter, faster trade agreement process for the UK

 

Transform helped DIT create a unified, digitally enabled Free Trade Agreement lifecycle—aligning people, process and technology to deliver clarity, transparency, and speed across trade policy.

 

What kept the client up at night

In the run-up to Brexit, the Department for International Trade (DIT) faced a new policy imperative: outside the EU, the UK needed the capacity to scope, negotiate and implement multiple Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) simultaneously. This required maintaining transparency, evidence trails and cross-government coordination while preparing businesses to use the resulting agreements. However, DIT lacked a unified end-to-end view of how an agreement flowed from early mandate to implementation and utilisation. Teams were fragmented across documents, tools and workflows.

The challenge was to establish a repeatable, transparent and digitally enabled FTA lifecycle that joined up people, process and technology to ensure clarity of roles, consistent decision-making, and efficient delivery. Success meant achieving:

  • A lifecycle and shared language aligning policy, analysis, engagement, legal and delivery functions
  • Defined artefacts, roles and decisions at each stage
  • A pragmatic digital and data foundation reusing existing platforms where possible
  • A prioritised roadmap of alpha candidates to prove value quickly 

 

How we helped

Over an eight-week discovery, a Transform multi-disciplinary team designed a shared FTA lifecycle, mapped decision points, and defined a digital and data solution to support delivery. The approach was deliberately practical and included reusing existing platforms, adding lightweight bespoke components where value justified it, and ensuring early readiness for alpha.

  • We engaged a large group of stakeholders to produce a validated lifecycle and a shared vocabulary, user journeys and personas that directly shaped the proposed technical architecture and alpha priorities.
  • We organised framework for the work through the lifecycle design; starting with early intelligence gathering and scoping potential agreements (Awareness) to developing policy positions, assessing impact, and securing parliamentary preparation (Mandate setting), iterative drafting, inter-round coordination and analysis (Negotiation), legal review, ratification, and publication (Iteration) to finally ensuring businesses can understand and apply the agreement (Utilisation).
  • We focused on ways of working, building an FTA space for secure document management. On top of this, a thin bespoke layer in FTA Space would add structured dashboards, decision logs, and traceability across agreements, encouraging structures flows with inter-round task tracking, audit trails linking evidence to text, and integration with DIT Data Hub and People Finder.
  • We deployed CitizenSpace and integrated it with DIT’s systems to provide an immediate solution for both statutory and targeted consultations. CitizenSpace was chosen for rapid deployment via DIT WebOps. Consultation responses would be tagged and routed into policy areas and chapter drafting through a lightweight data pipeline. Over time, insights and contributor flags could integrate into great.gov.uk profiles and Data Hub to create a coherent engagement picture.

 

The difference it made

  • The discovery produced an actionable playbook for DIT—combining lifecycle clarity, pragmatic platform decisions and alpha-ready plans, creating a unified framework across policy, analysis, engagement and delivery. It clarified roles, artefacts and handoffs, making onboarding and cross-team coordination simpler.
  • DIT gained confidence in using existing platforms effectively. Office 365 handled most collaboration needs; CitizenSpace provided immediate consultation capability.
  • Improved evidence and engagement flow, allowing negotiators and chapter leads time to influence outcomes. This strengthened defensibility and transparency of policy positions while avoiding duplicated effort.
  • The discovery concluded with three well-scoped alphas, including team composition and dependencies, allowing DIT to move directly into implementation. This approach minimised delay between discovery and delivery and provided measurable outcomes for iteration.
  • By linking FTA Space and CitizenSpace with Data Hub and great.gov.uk, the design avoided rebuilding existing capabilities, creating coherence across engagement, policy and analysis workflows, reducing duplication and improving visibility for ministers and officials.
  • Policy teams gained clearer insight into analytical processes; analysts saw how their work informed drafting; and engagement teams understood how consultation evidence influenced text. 

 

The discovery demonstrated that a thin, well-designed digital layer—built around reusable platforms—can enable complex policy operations without over-engineering. It gave DIT a foundation for continuous improvement through alpha and beta development.

Following the discovery, DIT advanced several elements into alpha and beta phases, notably CitizenSpace deployment and lifecycle-aligned working practices. The lifecycle continued as the organising idea across trade policy, guiding sequencing and reinforcing alignment between people, processes and technology.

Overall, the work equipped DIT with a practical, adaptable framework for managing trade agreement lifecycles at pace—balancing policy ambition with operational clarity and digital sustainability.