01.11.16
Government accused of ‘tinkering around the edges’ of digital reforms
Efforts to deliver more government services digitally are being held back by a lack of understanding among senior civil servants, a new report from the Institute for Government (IfG) said.
The IfG estimated that between £1.3bn and £2bn could be saved by more efficient digital government – for example, providing a single online process to register a newborn baby.
But it argued digital government was being held back by a lack of understanding and skills in the Civil Service.
A recent survey of civil servants found that 53% thought a lack of digital training for staff was the biggest barrier to transformation of services. Since 2000, the government has also spent £10bn on IT projects that did not achieve their intended benefits.
Daniel Thornton, one of the report’s authors, said: “Tinkering around the edges of digital government has taken us only so far – now we need a fundamental change in the government’s approach.
“The starting point is recognising that digital is not just for geeks anymore – everyone in government must work to make it a success.”
He added that it was “disappointing” that prime minister Theresa May and chancellor Philip Hammond had not been as “explicit” in their commitment to digital government as their predecessors.
The report argued that the head of the Civil Service should encourage leaders of departments to learn from public and private sector peers about how to lead digital transformation, and the Major Projects Leadership Academy should prepare officials for managing transformation programmes.
It also recommended a review of reward structures and career paths for digital specialists, and greater focus on building centres of digital expertise outside London. Currently, only around 10,000 civil servants, or 3% of the workforce, are in digital roles. The IfG said that breaking civil service pay structures might be the only way to compete with technology companies to attract a talented workforce.
The report further proposed “a new kind of policymaking”, where multidisciplinary teams. including policy managers, user researchers, developers and designers, work together to develop policy solutions at the same time.
It said that at the moment, there was a “lack of dialogue” between policy-makers and those responsible for implementing policy, including IT. This led to unrealistic expectations about what could be achieved.
The IfG found that it was even harder to involve IT teams in policy because the lack of government expertise meant IT was being outsourced to contractors instead.
In addition, the institute said the government digital strategy needed to evolve to identify priority work, capability gaps and potential savings.
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