Aker delivers a Seamless Citizen Experience for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

The Client

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) safeguards British nationals overseas and operates one of the UK’s most complex global networks — spanning 175 countries and 250 diplomatic posts.  FCDO Consular & Crisis Directorate supports British people overseas who find themselves in need or distress, and to help people avoid the need for our assistance in the first place - handling millions of citizen interactions annually.

To improve consular services responsiveness and operational intelligence, the FCDO partnered with Aker Systems to modernise its Consular data ecosystem — servicing key digital services including CRM, contact-centre and integrating citizen-centric data into a single, secure, real-time platform. The goal: a seamless, citizen-centric experience backed by data-driven decision-making across global operations.

The Challenge

FCDO’s Consular systems had evolved in silos — with fragmented data, inconsistent interfaces, and limited visibility during crises such as COVID-19 and the Afghanistan evacuation. Leaders needed a unified, trusted view of global activity and performance, while maintaining security and compliance with UK Government and NCSC cloud principles.

The vision was to deliver:

• A single integration and intelligence platform connecting all FCDO consular digital, CRM, and contact-centre systems.
• Real-time, event-driven interoperability to replace 36+ legacy integrations.
• Operational insight for crisis management and ministerial decision-making.
• Resilient, scalable, 24/7 cloud infrastructure built to OFFICIAL standards.

This was not a simple technology refresh — it was a strategic transformation to enable data-driven decision-making and citizen-centric service delivery on a global scale.

The Solution

Aker designed, built, and operates the Consular Event Driven Messaging Service (EDMS) & Integrated Real-Time Intelligence Service (IRIS) — combining secure cloud foundations, real-time data exchange, and global operational insight:

1. Secure Cloud & DevSecOps Foundations
   
   • Delivered via the Aker Cloud Enablement Platform (CEP™) — providing hardened, compliant AWS environments with built-in automation and governance.
   • Seamlessly integrates with FCDO enterprise services, including Microsoft Power BI.
2. Real-Time Integration & Interoperability
   
   • EDMS is powered by Aker’s Data Enablement Platform (DEP™) and Amazon Managed Kafka (MSK) and API Gateway for event-driven messaging.
   • Enabled integrations between FCDO services, and also HMG shared services (e.g. Gov.Uk Pay and Gov.Uk Notify)
   • Replaced legacy integrations across CRM (Salesforce), digital services, and global operations.
3. Operational Intelligence, Visualisation and Reporting
   
   • IRIS provides 24/7 visibility into consular activity, crises, and enquiries.
   • Built on an AWS Lakehouse architecture using S3, Glue, Redshift and other supporting AWS services.
   • The team replaced the legacy and inflexible BI system with a modernised database which integrates with Power BI for dashboards/reports delivered by our partner, SVGC.  
   • The FCDO Consular Services users now have the ability to analyse data and create new dashboards/reports in flexible and scalable way. This ability to self-serve is key during crisis periods when there is pressure to provide accurate up to the minute reports on the situation to facilitate operational decisions.
   • The new system empowers senior officials with actionable insights and performance metrics in real time.

The Technology 

The solution integrates best-in-class technologies including:

• Aker Cloud Enablement Platform (CEP™) for rapid provisioning of secure, cloud environments – AWS in this case
• Aker Data Enablement Platform (DEP™) to integrate, manage and unify data products in real time
• Amazon Managed Kafka (MSK) for container orchestration and real-time messaging
• AWS API Gateway for synchronous request/response RESTful API integrations.
• Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift and Glue for delivering the Data Lakehouse
• Microsoft Power BI for analytics and operational reporting

This technology stack enables interoperability, elasticity, and security — ensuring the platform scales instantly in response to global events or surges in demand.

The Value

“85% of service users who accessed consular and crisis support were satisfied (8/10 or above) with the service they received. This continued to exceed the existing benchmark of 80%.” - FCDO Annual Report 2024–25

The platform provides a step change in resilience, transparency, and responsiveness — ensuring services can adapt dynamically to emerging challenges.  Key benefits include:

• Unified Global View: Single, real-time dashboard of all consular operations.
• Enhanced Citizen Experience: Faster, more personalised assistance via integrated digital and contact-centre channels.
• Crisis Readiness: Instant situational awareness and coordinated response to global events.
• Operational Resilience: 24/7 secure platform that scales elastically to global demand.
• Efficiency Gains: Reduced manual effort and improved staff productivity.

Future-Ready Architecture: Modular, event-driven foundation for new digital services and partners.