The UK Government created the Service Standard to ensure public sector digital services are consistent, secure, and meet the needs of users. While originally designed for government departments, the framework is increasingly relevant to regulated industries such as financial services.
The current Service Standard includes 14 criteria:
- Understand users and their needs
- Solve a whole problem for users
- Provide a joined up experience across all channels
- Make the service simple to use
- Make sure everyone can use the service
- Have a multidisciplinary team
- Use agile ways of working
- Iterate and improve frequently
- Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
- Define what success looks like and publish performance data
- Choose the right tools and technology
- Make new source code open
- Use and contribute to open standards, common components, and patterns
- Operate a reliable service
In financial services, these principles align closely with the FCA Consumer Duty and operational resilience regulations. For example, a claims portal should be simple, accessible to all customers including those with disabilities, and continuously improved through feedback. Publishing performance data can also demonstrate transparency and fairness.
By adopting the Service Standard, financial services firms can show they are committed not only to regulatory compliance but also to building trust. Customers increasingly expect secure, inclusive, and reliable digital services, and this framework provides a proven foundation.
Summary:
The Service Standard sets out 14 principles to ensure digital services are secure, inclusive, and user focused. In financial services, adopting them supports FCA Consumer Duty and builds trust through transparent and resilient digital experiences.
Business Criticality
Category: Non functional
Topic: Business Criticality and Impact
Detailed Question:
What is the business criticality of this data, and what is the impact on business operations if the data is unavailable, delayed, or incorrect?
Sample answer / Additional context:
Consider whether this data supports critical processes such as risk assessment, regulatory reporting, or decision making. Clarify expected recovery timelines, tolerance for delay or data loss, and any defined SLAs or business impact scenarios.
Reason:
Helps prioritise data pipelines, define SLAs, and understand operational risk if the data fails.
2. Change Data / Delta Mechanism
Category: Non functional
Topic: Data Change and Ingestion Mechanism
Detailed Question:
How are data changes captured and made available, for example through full extracts, incremental loads, or change data capture mechanisms?
Sample answer / Additional context:
Consider whether the source system provides delta flags, timestamps, versioning, or event based updates. Clarify whether changes are tracked reliably and how inserts, updates, and deletions are handled.
Reason:
Critical for designing efficient ingestion and avoiding full reloads or data inconsistencies.
3. Historical Data Availability
Category: Non functional
Topic: Data History and Backfill
Detailed Question:
Is historical data available in the source system, and what is the approach for accessing or loading historical records for initial backfill?
Sample answer / Additional context:
Consider how much historical data is retained, whether full history or only current state is available, and if there are constraints on extracting older data. Clarify any limitations on retention, archival, or access to legacy records.
Reason:
Ensures completeness of data for trend analysis, reporting, and initial system setup.
thoughts & threads 
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