As well as fatality notices, for MOD’s arrival we also introduced a way to provide profiles of significant units within an organisation.
You can see some examples listed here on the MOD homepage and another here on the BIS page.
Internally we’re referring to these as “sub-orgs”. They are the significant bits of an organisation which, while not being organisations themselves, have some characteristics in common, such that there is a demonstrable need for users to be able to read about who they are and what they do and see all of the content the unit produces in one place.
GDS will keep a tight rein on what qualifies for the sub-org treatment. Here are our current draft criteria, very much subject to iteration as we analyse each case:
- the parent org views a separate corporate online presence for the unit as essential to the implementation of their digital strategy
- the unit is public-facing (ie well-known by its name)
- the unit has the resources to manage its profile page and content
- the unit has the regular throughput of content to justify its own page and entry in the filters on document list pages
- the unit has a clear mission statement
- the unit publishes transparency information separately form the parent organisation
- the unit has a corporate structure (ie a board, reporting directly to a perm sec or minister)
- the unit is contactable directly by the public
- (optional) the unit has its own lake
In terms of the publishing interface, these high profile unit pages are created using the template for standard organisations. Specifying their ‘type’ as ‘sub-org’ (as opposed to ministerial department, agency or NDPB) means that they have all the features of a standard org, except:
- they are not listed on the organisations page, and instead are listed at the foot of their parent organisations’ page instead (as per the links above)
- they do not have a logo using the single government identity
- they have a pared-back homepage with a sub-set of the page elements available to actual organisations
(At the time of writing, the layout of the sub-org pages has gone slightly askew. It will be fixed soon).
