Public Sector · National Welfare · Service Direction
Scoping pensioner services to inform delivery decisions after a late strategic pivot
Overview
A national welfare transformation programme serving over five million citizens required service-led clarity after a late strategic pivot.
My role
Service Design — I led the service design workstream end-to-end, managing a small team and shaping how service insights informed sequencing, build, and detailed design. I worked closely with programme leadership and with policy, legal, architecture, business analysis, and delivery leads to ensure outputs were usable, technically feasible, and grounded in real service needs.
What needed deciding
The challenge
Following mobilisation, the programme made a late decision to prioritise pensioners as the first population delivered. This shifted the focus from long-term strategy to near-term delivery while key elements — including service approach, channels, and platform capability — were still evolving.
Sequencing discussions were already underway in a largely greenfield environment. Without a shared service view, teams risked building technology in the wrong order, embedding assumptions into foundational platforms, and fragmenting delivery across digital, phone, and partner channels.
Direct engagement with pensioners was limited, and core enterprise artefacts such as the service model, channel strategy, and tiered service model were still maturing. The programme needed service-led clarity quickly, without over-specifying a final solution or constraining future populations.
The focus
To provide just enough service clarity to inform sequencing, build, and detailed design decisions — without defining a fixed end state.
Priority was given to:
pensioner scenarios where escalation, exceptions, and evidence handling would drive delivery effort
cross-team and cross-agency dependencies that could affect sequencing
early automation and channel assumptions with long-term delivery risk
How direction was shaped
Approach
I led service-level scoping to bring together policy intent, operational practice, and system considerations, using service blueprinting as a scoping and decision-support tool in sequencing discussions.
This work built on an earlier blueprinting cycle for working-age services. Known service patterns and risks were reused, allowing effort to focus on what was materially different for pensioners — particularly escalation, evidence handling, intermediaries, and cross-agency coordination.
Rather than describing a final end state, the work focused on surfacing dependencies, ownership boundaries, and areas requiring early resolution. Detail was increased where sequencing decisions were time-sensitive, and deliberately left open where further validation was expected.
Key activities
Targeted conversations with policy, legal, operations, and delivery leads to understand constraints, responsibilities, and dependencies
Service blueprinting of pensioner scenarios to make escalation paths, exception handling, and evidence flows explicit, particularly for high-complexity cases
Structured scenario walkthroughs with delivery teams to test automation assumptions and cross-agency dependencies before sequencing decisions were finalised
Facilitation of decision-focused discussions with programme and workstream leadership
(Service blueprints were used to highlight escalation points, handoffs, and cross-agency responsibilities.)
Service blueprint showing escalation points, handoffs, and cross-agency responsibilities
Key service decisions
To front-load service scoping before build, rather than discovering risk during delivery
To use service views to inform sequencing decisions, not to define a finished design
To prioritise early clarity on escalation, exception handling, and cross-agency coordination, where delivery risk was highest
Why these decisions mattered
Sequencing discussions were already underway in a greenfield environment, where early decisions carried disproportionate risk for national delivery, operational load, and citizen trust. Front-loading service scoping allowed teams to separate assumptions requiring early resolution — such as escalation ownership and evidence handling — from those that could be safely deferred without increasing delivery risk or constraining future populations.
Outcomes and implications
Key deliverables
Pensioner service blueprints highlighting dependencies, escalation paths, and cross-agency responsibilities
Scenario packs used to test sequencing, automation assumptions, and operational risk before build
Decision-focused synthesis highlighting service risks and dependencies requiring early resolution
Outcomes
Delivery teams had a clear, shared view of where pensioner services would rely on escalation, evidence handling, and cross-agency coordination before sequencing was locked
Automation and channel decisions were grounded in realistic pensioner scenarios rather than assumed “digital-by-default” patterns
Service design provided a practical bridge between strategy and delivery, supporting business analysts and delivery teams in shaping high-level requirements and phased implementation
Key learning
In late-pivot programmes, service scoping is most valuable when it exposes where escalation and exception handling will dominate delivery effort — rather than aiming to describe a polished end state.
Clear structures, shared language, and well-timed facilitation often have more impact than detailed artefacts.