Digital

Reflections from SEPA’s Future Flood and Incident Messaging Service programme team

March 19, 2025 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Digital Assurance Office, Digital Scotland

Guest blog by Laura Johnstone, Continuous Improvement team, Digital Assurance Office.

Introduction

SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) is Scotland’s environmental regulator and the national flood forecasting, flood warning and strategic flood management authority. The Future Flood and Incident Messaging Service (FFIMS) programme was initiated in 2020 to replace the previous Flood Warning Dissemination System and digitally transform various warning services and went live in September 2024.  As part of the programme, FFIMS has delivered a new customer account management page – myfloodline.sepa.scot – which meets accessibility requirements and is used by over 40,000 customers.

Context

The initial risk profile and estimated cost for FFIMS brought it in scope of the Technology Assurance Framework (TAF) as a major digital project, as well as assessment against the Digital Scotland Service Standard (DSSS). Following procurement, the risk potential reduced and the estimated cost of the project was below £5m, meaning the project was no longer classified as a major digital project. Reflecting this, the Digital Assurance Office (DAO) worked with SEPA to agree a proportionate approach to assurance.

The DAO have been working with the FFIMS programme team to capture and share some of their experiences from delivery.

Key activities

• The TAF business justification/pre-procurement review made a number of critical recommendations that had to be met before the project could issue the invitation to tender – the commitment of the project team and SEPA management to deliver on these recommendations was praised in a subsequent review
• to address these recommendations the project team worked closely with its own and Scottish Government procurement teams
• following assurance recommendations, the need for the supplier to address DSSS requirements was included in tender documentation
• the project team worked closely with their governance board to understand DSSS requirements and implications for the programme, particularly around accessibility
• during the course of the programme SEPA worked with the Scottish Government digital accessibility team to procure an external accessibility audit to ensure the outputs from the supplier met accessibility requirements
• the health check made recommendations around benefits management which the team have addressed, leading to the collection of business data demonstrating the benefits of the new service
• the tender required the supplier to deliver initial requirements using a waterfall methodology with subsequent requirements being delivered using an agile methodology – to effectively manage this the project team took steps to build their agile capability

Reflections

• you need to plan for assurance – consider what will be needed at project initiation and plan for that, making sure that all stakeholders (including the SRO) understand what will need to be done
• ensure the SRO and broader programme governance understand the requirements of DSSS and the assessment process, and the value that will come from embedding it
• consider what skills are needed for each stage of the project and take steps to put the appropriate multi-disciplinary team in place
• consider if external expertise is needed to assure the work of the supplier, for example the external accessibility audit that was commissioned
• when you are doing a procurement exercise work closely with your procurement team, engage them early to inform the procurement strategy and plan
• the external perspective on delivery from major digital project reviews provides confidence in the work of the project and has been helpful in identifying areas for improvement
• SEPA is building on the lessons learned from this and other projects to develop a suite of structured project management documentation to standardise processes

Find out more

For more information about this case study please contact the DAO who will pass your question onto the team at SEPA.

The Technology Assurance Framework (TAF) is designed to help prevent digital projects from failing for common reasons, improve delivery and ensure that the lessons learned from previous experience are reflected and embedded in future practice. The DAO are working with organisations to share information which might help others deliver digital projects and we have been publishing our insights and case studies on our digital blog. If you want to get involved contact us at DigitalAssurance@gov.scot.

Read our other case studies with the Social Security Programme, Registers of Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland and National Records of Scotland on how they got the most from assurance.  We have also written an insight on effective procurement and contract management.

For expert guidance on delivering a digital project visit the Digital Scotland Service Manual, which includes guidance on building accessibility into projects and buying and procurement.

You can get information, advice and guidance on developing digital, data and technology skills to support transformation from the Scottish Digital Academy. The Academy offers two interactive courses on understanding the Digital Scotland Service Standard and embedding it in your ways of working.

For further information and signposting to advice and support on programme and project management contact the Programme and Project Management Centre for Expertise. The Scottish Government programme and project management principles are available and apply to any project of any size.

Tags: Continuous Improvement, Digital Assurance Office, flood warning, SEPA, Technology Assurance Framework

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