Porosity K (PO-K) Card

Support claimants’ own ecosystems

1. Recognise how wider ecosystems contribute to social protection service delivery
   For these systems, the 'service user' is rarely just one person and there should be provision for other actors in people's wider ecosystems. Facilitate and aid these existing assets by enabling, encouraging and promoting information sharing, additional user roles with different privileges, delegated access, real-time-integrations, and other ways to involve the assistance of others.

Acknowledge claimants as people in digital design

1. Prioritise claimants' interests over system efficiencies
   All digital welfare design processes, methods and decision-making should prioritise claimants' needs to achieve best outcomes for individuals rather than system efficiencies. Organisational knowledge and resources should be utilised to this respect including intervening in advance to identify matters that affect claims or what claimants may have forgotten about.

Embrace a wider ecosystem and fuller claimant activity viewpoint for digitised public services

1. Legitimise extensibility and customisation of digital infrastructure
   Deploy technology in ways that will permit, support and advocate integration with digital welfare by other actors. Provide timely, free and open access to system information, supporting content, and details of upcoming changes and updates to support these efforts.
2. Use claimant-related policy outcome measures to assess digitisation
   The most relevant factors of success of digital transformation are metrics based on the intended purpose of the policy rather than focusing on state-incurred financial costs. The advantages of digitised policy implementation must be balanced with the gains and harms across the whole ecosystem from the viewpoint of claimants.

Design to assist claimants across the full span of their own activities

1. Accept, permit and encourage direct sole-use, shared-use, assisted use, and indirect intermediated use and proxy use of systems
   The nature of activities requires flexibility in how claimants and other actors in ecosystems interact with each other and with state systems, and these can change over time.
2. Recognise and promote the synergistic effects wider ecosystems can offer claimants
   Networks of actors and instruments contribute gains to claimants unrelated to the social protection payment public service, yet can contribute to improving people's lives. Ensure the integration of other actors is not purely transactional, but also provides opportunities to explore other beneficial aspects.

Signpost when additional assistance should be sought and recognise the time and effort needed to complete these activities

1. Indicate to claimants when professional advice is crucial
   Some activities undertaken to receive a social protection payment award require much more specialist knowledge and experience than most citizens have; such involvement can counter complexity to avoid becoming overwhelmed; increase visibility of when claimants should check whether advice can help by highlighting higher-risk parts of the process; avoid overly simplifying processes which can hide the underlying and necessary complexity of making and maintaining a claim and thus discourage seeking knowledge and experience in the wider ecosystem.
2. Reduce barriers for claimants to seek assistance and allow time for this to occur
   Provide pointers to claimants where they can obtain independent professional help ensuring there is always a choice of communication channels and sources, whether by self-service or from elsewhere in ecosystems. Avoid deadlines which limit claimants' opportunities to access assistance, providing sufficiently long periods for activities to include these actions if required.