Saving the Department for Education millions on outsourcing

Ushering in a new chapter of data with an award-winning automation solution

Responsible for UK children’s education, the Department for Education (DfE) were handling the collection, storage and matching of 150 different data sets through a third-party vendor. Given the £5 million price tag of these services annually, it made sense that the department wanted to bring these services in-house instead. Transform were asked to create an automation solution for this newly created programme, Learner Data Service (LDS).​

We grabbed our markers and headed for the whiteboard.​

What DfE wanted to achieve​:​

• Bringing in-house their capabilities by 2024/2025 for the Learner and Matching Systems ​
• Data integrity across the new ecosystem​
• Saving significant costs (£5 million p.a.) on outsourcing​
• Creating a single view of Learner Operational Data Store and Calculation of School performance indicators

​Transform implemented a 5-stage engineering approach:

• Assess and ideate: by identifying gaps, performing POC and defining KPIs
• Strategise and design: by eliminating siloed teams and implementing an Agile approach ​
• Transformed ways-of-working: through workshops, collaborative work and community-building to enable easier and more flexible work on multiple projects​
• Implementation: by creating and testing a centralised framework ​
• Monitor KPIs and make it continuous: by working towards initial objectives to improve efficiency and collaboration in the long run.

The Results:​​​​

• 6 KPIs were met 100%, ​
• 3 KPIs (including the automation test coverage increase) exceeded the expectations ​
• 1 KPI exceeded up to 150%​
• The framework is now being used across other projects as well​
• Automation across all SDLC phases achieved faster time to market ​
• Better collaboration between teams and an improved working culture ​
• Full oversight of what the new service is doing to its data, allowing for the data lineage to be fully understood, strengthening the departments data governance ​
  

"Thanks to the team for all the hard work automating the testing of the LDS Data Pipeline. It’s a fantastic achievement, and a first in data test automation in DfE saving days of test time per sprint"​

Corinne Richardson, Deputy Director