Apply for New Style JSA Live Assessment Report

Apply for new style JSA

DWP's Apply for new style JSA live reassessment report

From: Government Digital Service Published 13 April 2026 Assessment date: 3 August 2021 Result: Met Stage: Live
| From: | CDDO |
| Assessment date: | 03/08/2021 |
| Stage: | Live |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | DWP |

Previous assessment reports

• Alpha assessment report
• Beta assessment report
• Live assessment report

Points to be assessed

Standard 5   : Iterate and improve frequently

Standard 8   : Make all new source code open

Standard 12 : Make sure users succeed first time

Standard 18 : Test with the minister

Service description

Enables citizens to make an online claim for contributions based Jobseekers Allowance and enables internal DWP users to view claim details, make updates and monitor the progress of the claim.

Service users

Users Groups

Primary users (citizens):

● Working-age citizens who are out of work and want to claim New Style JSA

Secondary users:

● Contact Centre agents (G4S) who book Jobcentre appointments and take assisted digital claims

● Workcoaches

● Benefit Processors

High level user needs this service aims to meet

Citizen:

● As someone who has lost my job, I need to apply for the right benefit for my circumstances, so that I get the support I’m entitled to quickly.

● As someone who is applying for a benefit, I need to complete the application quickly and easily, so that I get the support I need without stress.

● As someone who has submitted my application for a benefit, I need to know what the next steps are, so that I know what to expect and don’t worry.

● As someone who has applied for a benefit, I need to know whether my claim is successful, so that I can make plans.

● As someone who has successfully applied for a benefit, I need to be paid quickly, so that my financial situation is stable.

Staff:

• As a contact centre agent, I need to help people through questions, so that I can get the right information to help them.

•As a contact Centre Agent I need to know who is eligible for the benefit so that I can book them an appointment with the workcoach

• As a work coach, I need to know the situation and history for the claimant, so that I can help them appropriately.

• As a service centre agent, I need to know the application is complete, so that I can proceed with processing the claim.

• As a service centre agent, I need to have all the information I need to process the claim so that a decision is made and payment happens as quickly as possible.

• As a service centre agent, I need to quickly make a decision and inform the claimant, so they know their application was successful and they will be paid.

5. Iterate and improve frequently

Decision

The service met point 5 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

• there was evidence of an iterative approach to development of this service
• that these iterations were informed by user insights
• That the team is involved in user research and has empathy with user needs
• The Service Team makes decisions about changes and improvements to the service using sound data and insights from a range of sources, (web analytics, user research, surveys, contact centre data).
• the Service Team was able to demonstrate specific changes that had been made (and that are going to be made) in direct response to feedback from users.

What the team needs to explore

Before their re-assessment, the team needs to:

• ensure that their iterations are grounded in sound user research practices - creating hypotheses/research studies based on feedback
• that these iterations are tested with a broad range of users and potential/non users and that these users are recruited in a variety of ways
• that the needs of assisted digital users are explored through research with these users and their journeys

8. Make all new source code open

Open-source repositories

Office Search: https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-office-search-service

Change of circumstances service: https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-circumstancesservice

Common library used by microservice: https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-commons

Decision

The service met point 8 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

• team has now the better integrated process with the GitHub publication
• team is now more explicit about the code in use is the same as the open sourced version
• the team has published the code in open:
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-drs-lambda.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-bank-details-service.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-citizen-ui.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-claim-statement-service.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-claimant-service.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-drsintegrator-metadatacreator.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-jsaps-adapter.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-notification-service.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-validation-service.git
  • https://github.com/dwp/nsjsa-agent-ui.git
• the team has some other integrated services for which they don’t have any control and working with them to see which part can be published in open

11. Make a plan for being offline

Decision

The service met point 11 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

• the team has planned well for the Zero Downtime with the progress of  implementation of the required infrastructure

• team is in the advanced stage of final testing, preparing to go-live (estimated early
  September 2021)

• all new feature development will follow the initial release of the zero downtime infrastructure

12: Make sure users succeed first time

Decision

The service met point 12 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

• the service team has taken previous assessment feedback and actioned it as quickly as possible to improve the service and have met WCAG AA accessibility standards.
• the service did extensive research into whether the name of the service made sense to users seeking to apply for job seekers allowance and found that any negative evidence against the service name was not a huge cause for concern.
• the team has removed ambiguous language throughout the service where it would not negatively impact user completion rates, pages and questions not vital to the outcome of an application have also been removed such as the question around NI payments; the team made a decision to remove the question in early September after concluding it was resulting in significant drop out rates within the service.
• the team has been able to reduce the average completion time from 33 minutes to 11 minutes by implementing the above changes around content.

What the team needs to explore

the team must:

• ensure the service remains as accessible as possible, checking that all page title tags conveys the information of what the page is about and the wider context of the service, for example “Application claim – Apply for ‘new style’ job seekers allowance – GOV.UK”. It needs to be in that order to be front loaded for ease of use by screen reader users.

• Remove the question around NI that was causing users to drop out of the journey after the service has completed zero downtime.
  The team should:

• continue to monitor the service name and are open to revisit the name in future inline with any changes that may occur with how benefit claims are structured.

18. Test with the minister

Decision

The service met point 18 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

• The service has been tested with the minister.

Updates to this page

Published 13 April 2026 Contents