Digital

Digital Scotland Service Manual: A helping hand for digital

July 14, 2025 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Digital Scotland, Digital Scotland Service Manual

Blog by Angela Saunders, Senior Product Manager, Digital Directorate.

Hello. I’m Angela Saunders and I work in Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, in the team that’s developing the Digital Scotland Service Manual (DSSM). It’s a self-help resource designed to support colleagues across Scotland’s public sector in the delivery of digital projects.   

Unique doorknocker spotted in Valencia, Spain – Image by Angela Saunders.

Why the DSSM? 

We’re creating the DSSM because we know people sometimes need help with their digital projects. We want to make their work easier by bringing standards, guidance, tools and templates together in one place. 

Put simply, our goal for the DSSM is to help you improve the design of services and reduce the cost of delivery, while increasing your digital knowledge. 

For context, the DSSM is part of a wider programme that aims to make Scotland’s public sector ‘more digital’ in the service of Scotland.  Ongoing work to advance public sector reform in Scotland relies on the efficient and effective delivery of public services. That’s what those who use, and rely on, online services expect and deserve. Digital can help. 

It can be hard to find the advice you need when embarking on a project. You want to do it well and give users a seamless experience. So where to start? 

The DSSM contains a lot of guidance on good practices that you should know about. It also collates, and points to, useful resources and routes to learning. What’s more, if you follow the DSSM guidance, you’ll also learn how to meet the Digital Scotland Service Standard (DSSS) as your project rolls out. The DSSS is a set of 14 criteria towards which all organisations delivering public services should work.  

How the DSSM can help 

Here are just a few benefits you can get from using the site: 

• help to build and manage a successful project from start to finish 
• help to deliver quality in your digital project design, for the benefits of those using and providing services  
• access to specialist advice on a wide range of topics, sources of professional learning, and routes to develop your skillset 
• guidance on user research approaches – to discover the diverse needs of your service users, and how to make online services accessible and easy-to-use  
• advice on the skillsets you’ll need in your teams, including key roles and tasks 

Current content 

We started building the DSSM by covering stages and topics across a typical project lifecycle – focused on what our users might be looking for.  

Current content covers key principles for how to make your project a success, helping you understand and follow standards and good and effective practices. 

These are some of the subjects you can read about: 

• accessibility – create accessible websites that meet the legal standard 
• agile – project methods and stages, including discovery, alpha and beta 
• design – user-centred products and services, including how to test with users 
• business cases – what these are and how to write them  
• technology – reusing, buying or building a technology solution 
• measuring success – collecting data and setting metrics 

Help us take the next steps 

If you haven’t used the Digital Scotland Service Manual yet, please have a look.  

We are already planning new and improved content, based on user and stakeholder insights.  We also plan to communicate more widely about the site and invite feedback.

The things we’ll want to know include: 

• if you use the DSSM, what do you think of it? 
• which articles are most helpful to you? 
• how quickly do you find what you need? 
• has the DSSM helped you complete your tasks, through to the finish? 
• what might have helped that you didn’t find?   

Since we’re designing the site to help you, we want to know how it’s meeting your needs.  So don’t forget to tell us what you think, by emailing us at: DSSM@gov.scot. 

Tags: digital public services, Digital Scotland, Digital Scotland Service Manual, Public Sector

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