Delivering future public services

By Julian David, chief exec­u­tive of techUK

The dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion is upon us. Tech­nol­o­gy is enabling social and eco­nom­ic changes for good across the globe. Some indus­tries have accel­er­at­ed their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. The retail sec­tor, for exam­ple, has invest­ed in big data ana­lyt­ics and automa­tion to pro­vide a high­ly per­son­alised expe­ri­ence and improve sup­ply chain effi­cien­cies.

The UK has also made strong progress to date in build­ing its Gov­ern­ment Dig­i­tal Ser­vice. And with ongo­ing dig­i­tal lead­er­ship ambi­tions, the pub­lic sec­tor is ready to dri­ve change and cre­ate a world-lead­ing civ­il ser­vice in its adop­tion of inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy.

The gov­ern­ment is faced with tight­ened bud­gets and a grow­ing strain from an age­ing pop­u­la­tion who are increas­ing­ly demand­ing as they con­sume more dig­i­tal ser­vices. This is an enor­mous oppor­tu­ni­ty for the trans­for­ma­tion of pub­lic ser­vices through the smart appli­ca­tion of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy.

All cit­i­zens should be able to access all ser­vices at all times and have con­trol over their own infor­ma­tion via one login to a sin­gle intu­itive pro­file

Gov­ern­ment is already wise to the poten­tial of tech­nol­o­gy. In a first-of-its-kind project in 2015, the DVLA made a seam­less tran­si­tion to abol­ish the paper coun­ter­part to the pho­to­card dri­ving licence and pro­vide all dri­ver infor­ma­tion online. This trans­formed the DVLA, cre­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant cost sav­ings and improv­ing ser­vices.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion does not stand still and the DVLA is con­tin­u­al­ly mak­ing iter­a­tive improve­ments to the ser­vice, hav­ing been reas­sured by the ini­tial invest­ment in inno­va­tion. This con­stant dri­ve to improve is some­thing that should be repli­cat­ed across the pub­lic sec­tor.

Digital public services

Life would be much sim­pler if you were remind­ed of rou­tine med­ical appoint­ments auto­mat­i­cal­ly, or updat­ed on your plan­ning appli­ca­tion progress on your smart­phone, or informed your pass­port will soon expire via a per­son­al device.

By 2030, pub­lic ser­vices could and should be as acces­si­ble and as cus­tomer friend­ly as we would expect from our cus­tomised, effi­cient retail expe­ri­ences.

All cit­i­zens should be able to access all ser­vices at all times and have con­trol over their own infor­ma­tion via one login to a sin­gle intu­itive pro­file. Con­nect­ed ser­vices will allow dif­fer­ent pub­lic ser­vices teams to work togeth­er remote­ly. Fur­ther to this, autonomous and smarter tech­nol­o­gy, such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and drones, will enable pre­dic­tive and pre-emp­tive ser­vices in areas such as emer­gency ser­vices and traf­fic con­trol.

Work­ing close­ly with indus­try and open­ing up the pub­lic sec­tor to har­ness the best of UK tech­nol­o­gy will make this dig­i­tal­ly enabled world a real­i­ty.

Gov­ern­ment and indus­try must work togeth­er to ensure that all cit­i­zens’ data is secure­ly stored and all sys­tems are safe. In fact, AI and big data ana­lyt­ics can pro­vide the pro­tec­tion, rather than the risk, but we must equip teams with the right skills to use the tech­nol­o­gy appro­pri­ate­ly with secu­ri­ty at the heart.

In this new dig­i­tal era, pub­lic ser­vices are chang­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly and the poten­tial improve­ment in qual­i­ty of ser­vices for UK cit­i­zens by 2030 is vast.

techUK’s pub­lic sec­tor con­fer­ence PS2030 2017 is a focus for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, where civ­il ser­vants and indus­try lead­ers come to togeth­er to cre­ate the vision and set the course for our dig­i­tal future.

Digital public services