Redefining digital estate management across government

The design and development of the new digital service called InSite, for the Office of Government Property, creates a simpler and more intuitive experience to manage, analyse and understand the physical estate across the whole the public sector.

The Office of Government Property is a UK government department that supports central government and the wider public sector to manage their physical estate (land and buildings).

For many years, CDS had supported OGP with a system called ePIMS — Electronic Property Information Mapping Service — which provided a centralised database of all public sector property and land, including details of leases and usage.

However, as ePIMS matured it became an every more complex system - a piece of software that needed dedicated training to use, rather than a service that could enable better understanding and decision making about the overall government estate.

A new system called InSite was planned, and after a number of failed procurements based on using MOTS (Modified Off The Shelf) solutions from software vendors, CDS were eventually awarded the contract to create the InSite service as a bespoke development.

A key part of the project was that it needed to follow the Gov.uk Service Manual and Gov.uk Design System, leveraging the fantastic work done by GDS to create a comprehensive set of working practices and user centred design principles. These include proven design patterns and UI components which, when implemented properly, lead to consistent, high quality services that prioritise user needs over technical determinism.

Using the GDS design patterns and principles enables rapid development of screens and interactions, allowing the design work to focus on flows and functionality. I spent most of my time on the project working with the data experts both internally and externally to understand the various use cases and paths for journeys such as searching the database or adding a new property (ie a new record).

All of this work was underpinned by a large amount of user research and service design that CDS had undertaken when sub-contracted by one of the previous procurements, much of which was still relevant for the later project.

The new service includes a public facing landing page

InSite maps public property across the UK

An advanced search tools helps users find relevant property - both land and buildigns