A decade of stalled attempts to unify Scotland's licensing systems — then a working register live in six months, the fastest rollout in CivTech history.
Year
2024–2025
Services
Web app
Sector
Public sector
Type
Gov tech
The outcome
6months
from selection to the Tobacco & Vaping Register going live. Baseline: fastest rollout in CivTech history
5.5m
people whose interaction with government regulation it change
1 of 200+
applicants selected by the CivTech Accelerator
The challenge
Solving what others couldn't
For over a decade, the Scottish Government had been seeking a way to unify fragmented, outdated licensing systems into a single digital platform. Previous attempts had stalled due to complexity, cost, and scale.
Licensing sits between two impatient audiences: businesses that need a permit to trade, and regulators who need to know who holds one. Every licence type had grown its own process, its own forms and its own definition of “approved” — and a register is only as useful as its worst record, so the platform had to handle change requests, transfers and removals as first-class events rather than edits.
Zudu's role:
selected via the CivTech Accelerator; co-design and platform build
Accelerator phase:
three months with government stakeholders
Status:
Live, rolling out across further licence types
The platform
One register, built to become many
A single licensing platform behind Scotland’s Tobacco & Vaping Register - applications, premises, inspections and enforcement in one place, with the next register a configuration away rather than a new build.
One view of the register for the Tobacco Control Team — volume, recent activity, and the approvals waiting on someone.
Sole traders, partnerships and companies in one list, each carrying however many premises they trade from.
Every change is a request with a trail - who asked, what changed, who approved it, and what the record said before
01 · Method
Co-design with government
A three-month CivTech accelerator phase spent alongside government and local authority stakeholders, building an MVP against real regulation rather than a specification written at a distance.
02 · Architecture
Configurable licence types
New schemes are defined rather than developed. That is what turned a decade-long problem into a six-month rollout, and what lets the register after this one follow in weeks.
03 · Enforcement
AI-assisted casework
Agents sit inside the application and enforcement flows, clearing what is straightforward and explaining what isn’t, so compliance improves without adding case officers.
The results
Transforming regulation for millions
Within just three months, Zudu delivered the MVP, and ePass launched the Tobacco & Vaping Register in six months – the fastest rollout in CivTech history. The platform now integrates AI agents into application and enforcement flows, transforming how 5.5 million people interact with government regulation.
By reducing complexity and cost while improving compliance and transparency, ePass is being rolled out across multiple licence types and adopted by governments internationally.
Status
Live, rolling out across further licence types
Now
supporting The Tobacco & Vaping Register, covering 5.5m people
Next
Further licence types, and international adoption
6 months
Was was a decade of stalled attempts
Selection to a live register
3 months
Was accelerator phase
Discovery to working MVP
5.5m
Was people
Covered by the first register
Stack & deliverables
AI application triageChange request & audit trailEnforcement toolingGovernment system integrationMulti-register architecturePublic application portalRole-based access
