Yesterday the final phase of ‘Tell Us Once’ went live. This completes the 4 1/2 year journey Solidsoft started on this cross government project with the addition of full electronic distribution of data and the most import piece – access for the citizen to use the service on-line.

Tell Us Once (TUO) is the award-winning, cross-government programme that lets people inform central government and local authorities just once of a birth or death. In service in over 95% of councils in England, Scotland and Wales, it provides a permanent solution to the long-standing and frustrating issue of people having to notify the government multiple times. Several years ago, research showed that people had to make up to 44 contacts when reporting a death to government bodies and their local authority.

The TUO service is offered as a face-to-face interview by the local authority or by telephone to a dedicated telephony service run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). and a  now a TUO online service for death.

From the bereavement section of the  Direct Gov web site the citizen is able to ‘enrich’ the standard death registration data to allow the ‘Tell Us Once’ system inform the various government departments about the death. These include the local council, DVLA, DWP, Passport service and HMRC.

For the record this is an excellent example of how an SME working with a large SI partner can deliver success for government in a responsive and agile manner.

For me personally it is a proud moment in which a vision I started with a very small team was followed through, extended and finally delivered by an excellent team at Solidsoft.