Blog

Delivering a new website and intranet for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service


Portrait of Linsey Lydon
By Linsey Lydon

29 November 2023

Find out how we plan to completely redesign the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service's web estate.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service undertook a three-month review of its staff intranet and public facing website in January 2022. This review identified the need to redevelop both platforms. Following a competitive tender, we were appointed to design and develop the website and intranet plus a document library.

We will initially create a document library for SFRS within SharePoint Online. We will design and develop a new public-facing website for SFRS on Umbraco v10: the latest long-term supported version of Umbraco and design and develop the new intranet ‘iHub’ on SharePoint Online in an existing Office 365 tenancy.

The website will see us redesigning the existing information architecture to provide content in simple, defined streams, which supports the key areas of SFRS. The redesign will also provide an intuitive, accessible and engaging user experience for visitors.

The Intranet will be accessible to any authenticated user from any location, e.g. within the corporate network or outwith, and on any authorised device. Access is dependent on having an internet connection and an authenticated user account in the SFRS Azure Active Directory. When developing the new Intranet for SFRS, we will integrate SharePoint Online with SFRS’ other digital systems including PTFAS Programme and Azure Active Directory.

The Document Library offers a single source of truth for all key policies, documents and processes. These must be easy to find through a simple and smart search function. Building the Document Library on Office 365, it will host thousands of documents and will feed into both the intranet and website.

In development we will meet Cyber Security Standards and WCAG Level AA standard for accessibility. Google Analytics 4 tracking code will be created and applied across the website and Intranet, along with Google Tag Manager tracking as this provides additional benefits, such as the ability to quickly add other tracking later should new functionality be enabled, helping to future-proof the implementation.

The development programme initiated in January 2023 and will see the new digital services delivered in stages through to completion in January 2024, followed by a short period of post-implementation support.

We will provide an agile approach, which employs the phased delivery framework championed by the Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Digital Scotland Service Standard (DSSS). This includes continuation of the Discovery phase, followed by Alpha, Beta and Live phases for each digital service.

"We would like to thank SFRS for the opportunity to deliver three new platforms over the next 12 months and are excited to support them on their digital transformation journey. We feel proud to be able to support SFRS in their work to improve the safety and wellbeing of people throughout Scotland."
"SFRS has a clear vision and strategy including the commitment to be innovative in the use of technology, data and information and change how we work to meet the changing needs of our stakeholders. We are confident in partnering with Storm ID on the successful delivery of our new website, intranet and document library."