Rewiring Whitehall’s digital service will help to spur growth

What is remarkable is that DoGE - the organisation now being held up as the answer by advocates of a leaner, more efficient state sector - traces its roots directly back to the UK. The US Digital Service, founded in 2014, took inspiration from the early successes of the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) – an organization that was founded two years earlier in 2012. Will this be yet another example of UK creative innovation being deployed at greater scale and impact in the US?

Not so fast. The Government Digital Service - now into its fourteenth year - looks set to be, once again, at the vanguard of efforts to make the UK state more efficient, better connected, and as an enabler of economic growth. In short, DoGE without the inflammatory X account. But conversely with a plan and an understanding of how the public sector has crucial differences to the commercial world.

That plan, as a quirk of timing, was unveiled by Technology Minister, Peter Kyle, just twenty-four hours after the second inauguration of President Trump. The plan is a blueprint for modern digital government and builds on fourteen years of foundations that began with a single gateway - gov.uk - and has systematically rewired large parts of how UK state approaches data standards, data sharing and the user experience.

Since its foundation years under the Coalition government this organisation has been quietly fighting turf battles across the UK public sector with the express aim of bringing taxpayers and citizens onto a single platform for accessing public services. Government as a Platform (GAAP) takes its inspiration from the most successful private enterprises in the world today – including Google and Amazon – platforms where there is seamless integration of data, payments, information, and vendor marketplaces.

Progress is never linear. Critics would argue that UK public sector productivity has remained flat over the last fourteen years and citizen satisfaction with public services remains low. Polling carried out by IPSOS Mori ahead of last year’s General Election found widespread pessimism about the future of public services. Only 1 in 7 expected things to improve during the current Parliament. But what if there is a tipping point to all the hard work? January’s blueprint sees the work of recent years coming together under One Login to access public services, and a National Data Library. Should this be done successfully this has three huge benefits for economic growth.

Firstly, anyone who has experienced a life event - a birth, a marriage, a death, moving house - knows the time, effort and money involved in registering new information with various branches of the state. A single platform that updates seamlessly puts more time back into people’s days to undertake more productive endeavors. The current morass of agency websites is an outright headwind to productivity.

Secondly, in a world of ever more sophisticated fraudsters in the online realm having a single, trusted interface is key. The plurality of access points for public services is the soft underbelly for those seeking to undertake identity-related fraud. Asking citizens to develop a knowledge of multiple genuine nodal points - and identify the criminally-finances frauds – is both unrealistic and dangerous. The National Audit Office (NAO) estimate that fraud and error costs taxpayers up to £81bn a year. This will only grow without the state getting smarter.

Thirdly, Government as a Platform is the most effective way to avoid expensive consultants building proprietary services where they have all the pricing power, and taxpayers pick up the tab. The initial work of GDS under the Coalition government’s Efficiency and Reform program helped save taxpayers £20bn a year by the end of 2014/15 and in doing so avoided deeper cuts to public services during the years that were widely dubbed as austerity. Whatever one thinks of Brexit and the economic and political legacy of that decision, it did mean the focus on more efficient state sector, and realizing greater savings became less acute.

This whole agenda - not least because of the precarious fiscal position the government finds itself in - is now poised to be thrust into the spotlight. Cabinet Office Minister, Pat McFadden, is expected to make a speech this week outlining targets for greater public sector efficiency. We should all wish him well as much more difficult challenges to come on defence spending, an ageing population, and welfare cuts become easier to navigate with a more efficient state sector.

Cynics - and there are plenty - will argue that technology as the cure to all fiscal and productivity ills has a checkered track record. National ID databases and NHS IT systems most saliently. The counter argument is that the commercial world is screaming loud and clear that platforms are what consumers want, what they trust, and what they flock to. Shareholders are not far behind. Public services have to imitate that model to play their part in raising growth and prosperity. The recent transformation of UK passport application services from being a source of traveler stress and costly cancelled holidays to an award-winning service shows what is possible. The bigger financial prizes across pensions, benefits, tax, and health care will be harder to crack but the potential spillover to growth is huge.

One thing is for sure, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who government insiders report as being an instinctive ally to this agenda, needs this to work. Otherwise the fiscal noose she finds herself in only tightens from here.