When I started working as a civil servant in 2017, people were quick to tell me about problems with The way we funded digital work. Subsequently, I had the opportunity to take up these challenges and read countless blogs and opinions arguing that funding reform was the most important question to be unlocked to really provide a digital government.
I do not agree. Although funding is important, it is only one of the many fundamentals that must change, which represents something much deeper and more complex to change than a special policy or process.
In the digital world, IT leaders have spent years refined technology and ways of working to become more adaptive and responsive to change. We deploy updates several times a day, design modular architectures, tissons of APIs and building platforms that allow and flourish and do not prosperate on constant iteration and improvement.
In government, however, we superimpose these modern approaches on a system of thought and do things designed in the 19thth Century – The one built for a more static and predictable world.
Successive governments see technology as a miracle solution. Whether Process automationBlockchain or artificial intelligence (AI), they assume that the implementation of technology, perhaps with some adjustments to a process here and there, will be enough to overcome the deeply anchored ineffectiveness. This is not the case.
Rethink the policy by integrating digital from the start
The system built in a lot of conditionality and complexity which adds cost and time to delivery. It is difficult and slow to iterate and change policy in accordance with changing needs, even when the change is constant. Although there is an aspiration to break silos and work in multidisciplinary teams, this does not happen quickly enough.
The government must be more daring and oblige a different approach to the development of policies. There are many approaches that they could adopt here. For example, they could set up a customer experience duty to compensate for the implementation of the implementation in advance; Make compulsory to create wireframes or prototypes before finalizing the legislation; Or direct 25% of all political work to focus on solving problems through digital, technology and AI.
A more commercial and user -centered approach
One of the things that surprised me the most in the public service was the absence of data – something I used to see when I work in the private sector.
Having come from commercial organizations where the cost and performance of the lines of service were understood and constantly disputed, I was surprised to see that this was not the case with the government. For many reasons, it is difficult to define where public services start and finish, and difficult to bring together and follow cost and performance measures for these services. But that must change.
If we do not know what a service costs from start to finish or how it works, how do we know where to invest or where to really find efficiency or improve user experiences?
If we do not know what is a service or how it works, how to know where to invest, where to find efficiency gains or improve user experiences?
Gina Gill
To encourage and stimulate improvement, the government needs to return to the essentials and understand expenses according to the services provided rather than the capacities or the organizational structures that exist.
We must understand the performance and user experience of these services. And we must link both future financing and individual performance at the cost, performance and experience of the services on which the public and companies count.
Financing for services led by software
It is not a question of funding, but funding is important. Current financing processes are designed for things like railways and submarines, not the development of modern software. They are too slow, too rigid and too bureaucratic.
This results in a delay in delivery, and not to correct financing of the reduction of businesses or risks, and stifle innovation and experimentation with new technologies. A recent examination of digital financing has also revealed that the departments implement the strictest and most expensive version of the processes to ensure compliance, rather than taking advantage of the integrated measures to allow flexibility.
The government needs a new and separate approach to finance digital work to allow it to deliver faster and to rotate quickly, allowing real -time improvements rather than waiting for years for a major transformation program to be put in place.
Starting, some The departments created pilots to test the models To allow this. These must be tested, mandated and integrated quickly. But we can and should go further. In addition to funding, it is necessary to focus on incentives and, given the economic climate, incentives to save money.
The greatest financial prices must be encouraged to work together to unlock them. For example, if the cost of recurrence is greater than 18 billion pounds sterling per year, we must collectively collect the departments, agencies and local authorities concerned to reduce this cost, rather than everyone by shaving an arbitrary percentage on the cost of all services.
Purchase can open the door to innovation and agility
I have spent many years in the private sector and public organizations as a commercial leader. As with financing approaches, civil servants adopt the strictest and most expensive approaches to comply with the regulations on supply.
Rather than putting the result first and determining how to achieve this result, the conformity is put first and people hope that it delivers the right answer. The cost and time taken to obtain as well as an approach opposed to regulations, leads to long -term rigid contracts limiting the ability to adapt, generally with a handful of large suppliers As only they can afford to participate in long supply competitions.
The government needs a different approach to the purchase of digital products and services, led by digital commercial specialists. It must impose the use of flexibility that exists in the executives already to compete more quickly so that the departments use this flexibility – using benchmarks and establishing standards for what “good” looks like. The departments must contract more modular and flexible, allowing the course correction, scaling and innovation from the start.
It is also possible to contribute to growth by creating a “govtech” ecosystem, such as Scotland Civil Program.
Capacity adapted to a digital era
Finally and above all, there are many things written on the shortage of digital and data skills. What I mean in place is digital understanding outside the digital profession and government data which, while improving, is still far from where it must be.
The recent Digital government report have found that digital technology is not considered a set of precious skills both that the government is looking for technology to play a main role in making the provision of services better and more efficient.
We must expect high managers of the public service to manage digital companies – which is indeed what many of them do now – and equip them so well. We must integrate different expectations in work descriptions, recruitment processes, learning and development and performance approaches for all senior leaders.
Small interventions are not enough to develop leaders who have skills and confidence to direct the government in the digital age. A more holistic approach is necessary that plunges digital leaders and allows them to “qualify” to direct the change that the government needs.
Reactive government
These challenges are not easy to solve, but many constituent elements are in place, from understanding problems to certain parts of solutions in departments and agencies.
To create a digital government, technology is not the only thing that must be reactive – the entire government system must be designed for adaptability.
The question is – are we ready to integrate this reflection at the heart of the functioning of the government? If we don’t do it now, will we never do it?
