It’s All Political
Suggesting pathways for UK’s Government Digital Service’s future state
Background
UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) is widely considered to have pioneered the concept of “government as a platform” globally. It seeks to deliver platforms, products, and services that enable the government to be united, trusted, and responsive to user needs. GDS is situated within the UK Cabinet Office, marking a significant break from the conventional norm of IT functions being positioned as support services, in accordance with Margett et al.’s (2006) technostructure. Through its website, GOV.UK, GDS aims to publish and digitise high-volume transactional government services comprehensively for the end user — the citizen. Architected by Mike Bracken and Tom Loosemore following Martha Lane Fox’s report into digital government in 2010, GDS is agile in its process, prioritises user needs, works openly (including open-sourcing its code to encourage reuse in the UK and globally), and uses a set of design principles to guide its work.
GDS is designed to enhance the interactions between the end user and the government, and is less about the actual technology underpinning government departments. It is also an example of how, often, legacy processes in government impose greater impediments to change rather than legacy IT systems themselves. As such, this memo seeks to elucidate how and why the GDS team should focus on addressing the political dynamics at play in order to optimise on its efficacy and impact. It must be noted that the pathways suggested in this memo are by no measure a silver bullet to ensuring GDS’s lasting success; instead, they are one of several approaches that can be undertaken and prioritised by Bracken, Loosemore, and their team.
GDS’ Reception by its Various Stakeholders
GDS received warm reception upon its inception, owing to its potential to reduce government costs, improve citizens’ experience with government agencies, increase government efficiency, and so on. That said, it has had to contend with resistance from civil servants and established IT firms with lobbying power. Some of these stakeholders and their response to GDS are outlined below. An understanding of this is important in order to suggest and rationalise future pathways for its success.
Citizens: interested in convenience and cost reduction, citizens have, by and large, welcomed GDS and its ability to enhance their experience with government interaction. Since their source of power lies in re-electing or overthrowing a government, the GDS team must be cognisant of their evolving needs and demands.
UK Government: interested in re-election and cost saving, political actors in the UK government have mostly been accepting of GDS and its innovations because siloed functioning in the past has proven to be expensive and susceptible to fraud. That said, it is important for Brack and Loosemore to gain favour with other politicians besides Francis Maude (who was critical in backing and promoting the inception of GDS) and beyond immediate political cycles.
Civil Servants: interested in maintaining executive power and delivering services efficiently, civil servants are a critical cog in the digital wheel. Because most of the functionalities of GDS were designed by professional teams hired by Bracken and Loosemore, major factions within civil servants have been critical of, and discontented with GDS, calling it “naive and inexperienced”. There seems to be a sense of fear and paranoia among civil servants that their power will be curtailed by these new systems and processes.
For brevity and simplicity, other stakeholders such as the GDS team, other IT private players, the media, etc. have not been considered here. Based on the analysis above, in order for GDS to be fully entrenched in and accepted by civil servants — responsible for the execution, and therefore success, of public services — I propose pathways using Eaves and McGuire’s (2018) Maturity Model, by allocating 10 “Bracken points” across 3 capabilities.
Pathway 1: Develop Executive Public Service Sponsors
I allocate 4 Bracken points to developing executive public service sponsors under the theme of ‘Political Environment’ in the Maturity model. GDS “came in high” by being imposed on, both the government and citizens, by Maude, and therefore, was unable to gain favour of the executive and other political actors in the government.
At the time of the case study, I suggest that GDS had a formal relationship only with Francis Maude and selective players within his Cabinet Office (see Figure 1). In order to observe lasting success, Bracken and Loosemore should build common components in order to unlock value for other stakeholders, especially civil servants. Even though they, too, are interested in improving public service delivery, they would not like their authority and credibility to be threatened.
Although GDS is situated within the Cabinet Office, it needs greater buy-in from civil servants and multiple government departments. Bracken and Loosemore were able to deploy the lever of being in proximity to power, but need to build goodwill among civil servants. Perhaps this could include ceding power for certain functionalities such as procurement, IT expenditure, and communication in order to exhibit a spirit of collaboration and engender trust.
Pathway 2: Create Shared Platforms
Once GDS obtains adequate buy-in from the civil service and executive, I then suggest that GDS should work to create shared platforms to further improve user experience. I allocate 4 Bracken Points for this too, under the theme of ‘Cross-Government Platforms’ in the Maturity Model (see Figure 2). This would entail moving away from a siloed way of functioning to encouraging cross-department collaboration.
Currently, several individual government department websites need to be migrated to, updated, and made consistent with GOV.UK. This can be fulfilled by Bracken and Loosemore by training department leaders on key digital aspects of GDS, including building common services, tracking KPIs, etc. For instance, if the name and address of a user is changed once, it should reflect on all department platforms. Furthermore, departments could sign data-sharing agreements with one another, agree on a central interface, and move closer to a “tell us one” principle or “one-click” completion of common forms to further enhance UX. This should also include creating or procuring common tools for back-end processes in order to enable end-to-end digitisation of services.
Pathway 3: Make Space for Growth
Once executive public service support is won and shared platforms are created, I allocate 2 Bracken Points to making space for growth under the ‘Skills and Hiring’ theme in the Maturity Model (see Figure 3). This includes developing digital-specific hiring practices and role descriptions, establishing attractive government career paths for digital specialists, institutionalising training in public service schools, and building in-house talent simultaneously to synergise those with the new intakes. This involves a cultural shift from IT being a corollary to government service to being a central part of it.
This is important because it will help Bracken and Loosemore realise their long-term vision of building government as a platform. An instance of this in the UK is the GDS Academy, which provides training and educational resources for government employees. Once the digital talent pool within the government is bolstered and different parts of the government are trained in Government-as-a-Platform (GaaP), it will translate into a better user experience for citizens and greater efficiency gains for the UK government.
Conclusion
In order for GDS to achieve its long-term mission of paving the way for digital government, it is imperative to have a buy-in from major stakeholders, including political leaders (or the UK government), civil servants, and citizens. This memo put the role of the civil servant at the epicentre of GDS’ success. Even though the citizen is the end user of GDS and its innovations, none of those can be realised without the genuine buy-in of civil servants through whom these public services are implemented for citizens. Therefore, their needs and interests cannot be ignored by any measure. Undoubtedly, measures that address the needs of the government, including working in the open and real-time user testing, among others are important aspects of a digital service, I propose that Bracken and Loosemore should expend their limited resources towards optimizing the experience and buy-in of the executive public service to ensure its lasting success.
