Digital Scotland Service Manual: A Helping Hand for Digital
The DSSM, now in its beta phase, consolidates expert guidance, standards, and tools to support user-centered, accessible, and efficient digital service design.
As they describe in this blog by Angela Saunders, Senior Product Manager in the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, introduces the Digital Scotland Service Manual (DSSM) as a vital resource for public sector teams delivering digital projects in Scotland.
The DSSM, now in its beta phase, consolidates expert guidance, standards, and tools to support user-centered, accessible, and efficient digital service design.
It aims to reduce delivery costs, enhance service quality, and increase digital knowledge across organizations, aligning with Scotland’s Digital Strategy for inclusive and joined-up public services.
The post highlights the manual’s evolution from the Digital Support Hub, noting improvements in content, accessibility, and usability based on user feedback. Key features include guidance on agile methodologies, user-centered design, accessibility standards, and data management, with practical tools like templates and communities of practice.
The DSSM supports the 14 criteria of the Digital Scotland Service Standard, emphasizing user needs, inclusivity, and continuous improvement. The team plans to transition to business-as-usual operations by early 2026, with ongoing updates driven by user input. The blog encourages feedback to refine the manual, positioning it as a collaborative tool for transforming Scotland’s digital public services.
Service Design in Action
The feature video shares the webinar from Social Enterprise Scotland, where they explain how the No One Left Behind Strategic Plan 2024-27 includes a commitment to ‘embedding the Scottish Approach to Service design’ in local commissioning and delivery. This is central to ensuring person-centred services and means that they are designed with, and not for, people seeking support on their journey into work.
In this session, Pegs Bailey, Third Sector Employability Partnership Engagement Manager at TSI Network, Christina Graham, on the Lived Experience Team at Fife Voluntary Action and Maja Naumczyk, Community Engagement Lead at Glasgow CVS discuss the complexities of service design in employability.
