Throughout our research, users told us that the Single worksheet was an important document to update.
It contains information other teams need to release funding for the new academy.
When we spoke to those other teams, it turned out that they hardly needed any of it at all.
The purpose of the Single worksheet
The Single worksheet is a document that caseworkers use when a school that's converting to an academy is close to opening.
They need to download it from SharePoint, enter all the requested information about the status of the project and send that completed Single worksheet to the Academies Operational Practice Unit.
That team then use the information in the document to ensure funding for the new academy is processed on time.
The worksheet's route to the Academies Operational Practice Unit
- Caseworker downloads and completes the worksheet.
- Worksheet is sent by caseworker or delivery officer to team lead or line manager.
- Team lead or line manager reviews and approves the Single worksheet.
- Approved dingle worksheet is returned to the caseworker.
- Caseworker sends the worksheet to the Academies Operational Practice Unit.
What the Academies Operational Practice Unit do with the Single worksheet
The Academies Operational Practice Unit add details of any land issues or shared usage agreements to the Baseline tracker spreadsheet. They add new columns to that spreadsheet.
They rename the updated Baseline tracker to the FA Submission spreadsheet. That is then sent to Deputy Directors for approval.
The Single worksheet people had been using
The Single worksheet in use at the time was an 8 page form. It asks for 41 different pieces of information.
Consistently in research, when asked why they had to fill the Single worksheet out or who else used it, users were unable to give us any details.
We spoke to teams from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, as the worksheet was used to help arrange the funding. They also had very little knowledge of who used the worksheet.
We spoke to the Academies Operational Practice Unit to try to find out what they used it for. They told us they only needed 6 of the 41 pieces of information.
Those findings were collated and work began on how we might reduce the need for the Single worksheet, and ultimately remove it from the process.
Redesigning the Single worksheet
With the vast majority of information on the worksheet being totally unnecessary, we created a revised version of the Single worksheet.
This only contained the fields for information that the Academies Operational Practice Unit needed.
They are:
- land or building leasing and transfer arrangements
- shared usage agreements
- name of the trust
- name of the academy
- if a Trust modification order is attached for signing by the Secretary of State
- if a Direction to transfer is attached for signing by the Secretary of State
That revised version of the Single worksheet is now live in the build.
For the time being, that will save the users from wasting their time, but the process still happens outside the digital aspect of the service.
We have started exploring how we might be able to capture and share the required information digitally.
Removing the Single worksheet
We've already prototyped a way we think we'll be able to remove and replace the Single worksheet with a task in the build.
The new task, named Describe land issues, appears in place of the Single worksheet task. It's found in the Get ready for opening section of the task list.
Users are able to tick off two actions. One to enter information about issues with land or building leasing and transfers. Another to enter information about outstanding shared usage land issues.
They can mark the task as not applicable if necessary.
Due to the way the task list was originally built, as a tool to track progress, we're not yet able to enter data on the task page in the way we'd like to.
We have to link from the check box hint text to a separate page that contains a text box. That is where the user can enter and save information about the task.
What we'll do next
We'll test this will users to see how we can improve this task. Once we have user feedback we'll better understand what to do and how to present and code it, and how to share the information users enter with the Academies Operational Practice Unit.
We hope that will replace the need for the Single worksheet entirely.