How to build a smarter state

This has been a year like no oth­er. No one has been unaf­fect­ed by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. From a pub­lic sec­tor tech point of view, it has changed how the state works, the ser­vices it has to deliv­er for the coun­try and how it engages with part­ners to help address the cri­sis.

As we come towards the end of the year, it is impor­tant we take the time to reflect on what good dig­i­tal learn­ings we can take from this unprece­dent­ed time as we pre­pare for what comes next for our ser­vices, econ­o­my and peo­ple in 2021.

Like many oth­ers, techUK, rep­re­sent­ing the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try in the UK, has long been an evan­ge­list for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion between gov­ern­ment and indus­try to dri­ve inno­va­tion, increase effi­cien­cy and improve out­comes for cit­i­zens. That col­lab­o­ra­tion has nev­er been more impor­tant, nor more intense.

Improving how services work together

The past few months saw major devel­op­ments in how pub­lic ser­vices and indus­try work togeth­er. The gov­ern­ment issued a pro­cure­ment pol­i­cy note advis­ing pub­lic bod­ies to pro­vide con­trac­tu­al relief to sup­pli­ers affect­ed by COVID-19 and pro­vi­sion for more direct awards and urgent pro­cure­ments in these excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances were demand­ed. Mech­a­nisms were set up to help chan­nel inno­v­a­tive solu­tions and offers of sup­port from indus­try to local and cen­tral gov­ern­ment.

What lega­cy will these devel­op­ments leave in terms of how the pub­lic sec­tor access­es indus­try capa­bil­i­ties? How will buy­er and sup­pli­er behav­iour change? How can we main­tain pro­cure­ment dynamism and agili­ty while ensur­ing a lev­el play­ing field and fair com­pe­ti­tion?

Along­side these ques­tions raised by the COVID-19 cri­sis, all the famil­iar issues that were top of the gov­tech agen­da still need deal­ing with and came to light at techUK’s flag­ship pub­lic ser­vices con­fer­ence Build­ing the Smarter State.

The lega­cy IT estate still rep­re­sents about half of cen­tral gov­ern­ment IT spend­ing and it is wel­come that this issue has now risen up the pri­or­i­ty list. Over the past few months, seri­ous efforts have been made across White­hall to address it. Pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies still need to improve their access to inno­va­tion, improve the lot of small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es in this sec­tor, and get more val­ue out of their data. Brex­it and the end of the tran­si­tion peri­od mean there will short­ly be an over­haul of pub­lic pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tions.

Major public sector change is on the way

This all points towards a peri­od of upheaval for the gov­tech sec­tor and over the last few months we’ve seen hints that more major change is on the way. It has been report­ed that Lord Maude who, as a min­is­ter, found­ed the Gov­ern­ment Dig­i­tal Ser­vice (GDS), recent­ly led a review of the role of the Cab­i­net Office and its rela­tions with depart­ments.

In his first blog for GDS, Alex Chisholm, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer (COO) for the Civ­il Ser­vice, empha­sised his com­mit­ment to recruit­ing a gov­ern­ment chief dig­i­tal offi­cer to lead the dig­i­tal, data and tech­nol­o­gy func­tion and shape and deliv­er the government’s trans­for­ma­tion strat­e­gy.

The blog also announced that Ali­son Pritchard, who impressed as inter­im direc­tor gen­er­al of GDS, will be mov­ing to the Office for Nation­al Sta­tis­tics as direc­tor gen­er­al for data capa­bil­i­ty, to make progress on the peren­ni­al issue of gov­ern­ment use of data, with Fiona Deans, cur­rent COO of GDS, tak­ing over lead­er­ship of the organ­i­sa­tion. This is all hap­pen­ing along­side the launch of the much antic­i­pat­ed Nation­al Data Strat­e­gy that will help dri­ve the vision of the UK as a world-lead­ing data econ­o­my.

As we con­sid­er all this, ten years on from the report that led to the found­ing of GDS, it feels like we are on the cusp of the next step-change in dig­i­tal gov­ern­ment. Now is the time to be ambi­tious and have a vision for the future of our dig­i­tal econ­o­my and ser­vices. As we move for­ward, we must con­tin­ue the engage­ment between indus­try and pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions and bring togeth­er all the ingre­di­ents need­ed to build a smarter state that meets the needs of its peo­ple and places.