For some time now, the UK public sector has faced the major challenge of delivering more with less. How can a growing and ageing population, expected to rise 9.9% to 73.7 million over the next 15 years (ONS), placing increasing demands on care and services, be supported successfully without crippling the economy?

A key driver is digital innovation – improving efficiency, cost-saving and the citizen experience through the latest technology. The UK Government recognised this need over a decade ago, forming Government Digital Services (GDS) in 2011 tasked with transforming the provision of online public services. Digital transformation of the public sector is ongoing, but the process is being held back by several significant challenges, recently confirmed through a report by KPMG and Forrester.

Entitled ‘UK Public Sector Must Accelerate Digital Transformation To Achieve Digital Maturity’, it surveyed 148 public sector digital transformation decision-makers. Respondents cite a number of barriers preventing successful digital transformation spanning technology, process, people and governance. They are listed below along with the proportion of decision-makers facing the challenge.

These have been distilled into the following key problem areas:

• Legacy systems – Threaten service delivery, hinder digital integration: According to the Central Digital and Data Office, IT Risk Assessment, there are more than 60 legacy IT systems in the UK public sector at a critical level of risk. Their complexity (cited by 37% of respondents), and lack of agility and adaptability (23%) prevent interoperability with new digital platforms. This hinders the integration of digital tools and the sharing of data and insight (28%), impacting decision-making and seamless service delivery. As well as damaging the citizen experience, this reduces the impact and value of new technology investment, which is the last thing that’s needed with budgets under increasing pressure.

Quote 60 legacy IT systems in the UK public sector are at a critical level of risk – Central Digital and Data Office, IT Risk Assessment report

• The digital literacy spectrum – Slows adoption, holds back productivity: Inconsistent levels of digital literacy blight the public sector workforce. While some employees are experienced and skilled at using digital tools, others struggle. This can hinder adaptability to new processes (cited by 23% of respondents as a problem), and in some cases prevent the adoption of digital innovation. This in turn reduces performance levels and efficiency.

• Cultural resistance to change – Impedes adoption: Another barrier to digital innovation is created by the bureaucratic structures that exist across the Public Sector, which can create a culture that breeds a reluctance to move away from traditional processes. Named as a barrier by 23% of respondents, this can also hold back the implementation and integration of new technologies.
• The skills gap – Hinders digitisation, impedes progress: The Government estimates it has under half the number of digital, data and technology professionals it needs, when benchmarked against comparable organisations, according to the Digital Transformation in Government: Addressing the Barriers to Efficiency report. Clearly more digital talent is needed, as cited by 42% of survey respondents. However, digital skills are not only increasingly rare, but also expensive. So, even if public sector organisations could find the right people, would they be affordable? And is training through upskilling and reskilling (37%) achievable in-house?

Quote The Government estimates it has under half the number of digital, data and technology professionals it needs – Digital Transformation in Government: Addressing the Barriers to Efficiency report

• The cybersecurity threat – Puts critical national infrastructure, public services and citizens at risk: The digitisation of sensitive data is necessary to increase accessibility and deliver insight through analytics to boost efficiency, provide better services and improve decision making. However, it comes with an increased cybersecurity risk. This is heightened by the rise of hybrid working which requires remote access to data. Some 37% of decision-makers surveyed cited the need for cybersecurity solutions to protect citizen information and prevent service disruption.

• Budget constraints – Limits digital investment, progress, training: Tight budgets in the public sector restrict investment in both the latest technologies as well as training, impacting all of the above. Named by 44% of respondents as a key issue, this presents a constant struggle that demands getting the highest possible returns on technology investment and securing the best value talent and services.

• Lack of strategy and management – Causes inefficiency, delays, financial loss and failure: In several high-profile cases where funding has been secured, key digital transformation projects have fallen over, wasting investment and impacting services. This underlines the project planning and management challenge, respondents citing technology strategy (44%), ineffective prioritisation (28%), and insufficient change management (23%) as key problems.

A manifesto for change

From the above list of challenges, it’s clear that successful digital transformation of the public sector goes much further than harnessing the right technologies. Seamless integration with legacy systems is a must. Training and education is essential to accelerate adoption and optimise performance. Stringent security protocols must be implemented, robust and resilient enough to prevent data breaches both on and off premises. Best-practice project planning and management is vital to deliver long-term success. And all this must be achieved as cost-effectively as possible, with solutions designed to maximise return on investment and reduce future spending.

This demands a software development partner that thoroughly understands the unique challenges facing the public sector and can take a holistic approach. Every project must be viewed in the context of the overall goals and compliance criteria. It must be carefully planned in terms of strategy and architecture, with key milestones and monitoring built in to optimise quality and performance, and prevent delays.

To overcome the skills and training challenges, proficiency levels should be assessed and a team built to fill any gaps, integrated into the in-house workforce to drive the project forward, offer critical guidance and develop skills and experience. This should include examining ways of working and adopting agile delivery wherever possible to maximise performance, leaving a lasting legacy that helps future proof public sector organisations.

The way forward

Although there are multiple, wide-ranging public sector digital transformation challenges, they can be overcome by taking the following four key actions:

• 1. Modernise legacy systems
  – a key driver for 51% of survey respondents: Transforming legacy systems into scalable and secure solutions improves performance, lowers costs, and ensures compliance with GDS standards. It enables integration and adaptability with new solutions to satisfy the current and future demands of UK citizens.

• 2. Migrate securely to the cloud
  – a priority for 82% of respondents, and a focus for increased spending for 75%: Successful cloud migration delivers agility and scalability, while saving costs as you only pay for the computing power you use. First, existing infrastructure must be thoroughly assessed, a target architecture developed and a migration strategy formulated. The entire process must then be carefully managed to minimise disruption. A focus must be placed on security (a priority for 81% of decision-makers), compliance and cost optimisation to maximise service resilience and taxpayer value.

• 3. Design and build better digital products
  – a priority for 74% of respondents and a focus for increased spend for 52%: Ensuring the needs of end-users are considered throughout the whole process, from ideation to prototypes to fully developed digital solutions, the right products can be delivered that are easy to navigate and meet the diverse needs of the public, compliant with WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards.

• 4. Develop capability in digital technology
  – 74% of respondents plan to prioritise training, 76% agile ways of working: There is a need for more training, upskilling and coaching to improve capabilities in modern digital delivery. This includes upskilling in modern technologies, improved knowledge of cloud infrastructure and cloud services, and agile methodologies to bootstrap projects. Augmenting existing teams with external expertise and experience can also help drive change more quickly, spread skills, enable scalability and save costs.

Implementing these actions and teaming up with the right technology and software development partner to provide essential expert support along the journey will accelerate the successful digitisation of public services, making them simpler, faster and accessible for everyone. It will also help organisations constantly adapt to the expectations of citizens today and tomorrow, while optimising security, data privacy and taxpayer value.

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Key takeaways

• A range of challenges threaten the successful digitisation of public services ranging from legacy systems and a digital skills gap to cybersecurity, budget constraints and effective project management.
• This means solutions must go beyond pure technology to address a complex array of factors to cover everything from planning, integration and data security to talent, adoption and culture.
• This demands a technology partner that thoroughly understands the challenges and can take a holistic approach. Every project must be viewed in the context of the overall goals and compliance criteria. It must be carefully planned out in terms of strategy and architecture.
• Teams should be built to fill skills gaps and integrated into the in-house workforce. Agile ways of working should be introduced to maximise performance, leaving a lasting legacy that helps future proof public sector organisations.