State Of Digital Government Review
Some thoughts on the recently published State of Digital Government Review. To keep it concise (ish) I’ve highlighted 4 things:
- a massive positive of the review – “Budgetary Nirvana”
- a brilliantly impactful piece of data shared in the review – “Wowzers”
- a theme that needs further development – “Pay is Table Stakes” – and
- finally, a negative that makes me nervous – “Cost of Everything, Value of Nothing”
Budgetary Nirvana
First, the positive. The section on funding continuous improvement of the technology estate – Alleluia! As we’ve moved from a hardware to a software world the prioritisation of capital spend for new things over revenue budget for ongoing development of existing systems has become increasingly perverse. This funding model means that almost any tech enabled project across the public sector is bound to disappoint, eventually. The review calls this out explicitly and commits to change. Needing enough money to look after something you’ve built or bought might sound obvious to the uninitiated, but it is critical and so rarely mentioned.
Wowsers
Second, the impactful data. The review identified 18 of the largest and/or most significant government bodies and found that only 3 of them had technology representation at Board Level. Think about the heat, light and noise about public sector digital, data and technology over the last decade – particularly from exec directors of public bodies. And almost none of them thought that it would be worth having someone that knows something about technology on their board. This shocking fact endorses the reviewers’ perspective that poor leadership is the number one barrier to effective digital public services. We don’t have a technology crisis; we have a leadership crisis.
Pay Is Table Stakes
Third, the point for further development; skills and capabilities.
The review emphasizes the disparity in pay and conditions for such roles in public versus private – this is true, but pay isn’t even half the battle. The problem is caused, again, by years of poor leadership. However much they are paid smart software engineers won’t work somewhere where they have to go through an overly onerous recruitment process, where they have to wait 4 weeks for a laptop before they can start to work, where they can’t access data and tools needed to do their job, where it’s clear that their skills are not valued in the same way as a policy or project management professional. It is true that pay is an issue but there is so much more to it. Pay is arguably the easiest one to solve.
Cost Of Everything, Value of Nothing
Fourth, the point which makes me nervous. The section on Digital Supply Chain has much goodness in it but the overall tone of the section is demonstrated in the following line:
“Only 28% of leaders believe there are sufficient internal capabilities to effectively monitor, track and drive supplier performance, with only 40% of leaders stating that third parties perform in line with expectations”.
As a supplier to government this is not me denying the right of our clients to hold our feet to the fire – they should do. But the section promotes a common view of the public sector tech buyer as a helpless victim. There are in fact plenty of procurement professionals across the public sector that like to track and monitor performance and allocate blame.
Realistically, given the scale of the government’s tech enabled plans it will retain a large reliance on the external market to deliver. Yet there are very few public sector procurement professionals that are students of the broader technology market, strategic about the type of supply chain they want to encourage or brave enough to think about how they can help suppliers to deliver more for their clients. Start with what you want from suppliers, how that can be made possible with the minimum amount of friction for both sides and track your own performance in supporting their work – as well as theirs.
Overall, though the review is good. If we could implement just 30% of the suggestions in the review it would make a huge difference. To do that we need brave, humble, modern leaders. I’m not sure how that gets fixed – it’s not even really a digital question. I’d start with the entire HR model of the public sector myself.
