Implementing user centred design within a user organisation

This paper briefly describes an innovative user-centred development method that has been used within the Employment Service in the development of one of its strategic IT systems. The paper focuses on: the organisational context within which the method has been developed; and lessons that we have learnt about introducing methods of this sort into organisations. The Employment Service (ES) is a government agency within the Department of Employment Group, employing over 40000 staff. It is responsible for, paying accurate unemployment benefits quickly and helping unemployed people in particular, and others into work through a network of over 1200 local offices. The development method described in this paper has contributed to the development of a major system to support all core components of the ES job broking service