The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has set out plans to for a new "digital centre of government" that will see the Government Digital Service "shift focus" and absorb other organisations.
Six months after the incoming Labour government announced that GDS, the Central Digital and Data Office, and the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence were moving from the Cabinet Office to DSIT, yesterday saw plans for their consolidation into a "distinct unit".
The Geospatial Commission and parts of the Responsible Tech Adoption Unit will also be part of the new GDS. The service's soon-to-be-recruited head – who will be the government chief digital officer – will also serve as second permanent secretary of DSIT.
According to DSIT, the new GDS will see its focus "shift towards catalysing joined-up delivery in line with the government’s missions" to drive better services that cut across organisational and functional boundaries and different levels of government.
The department's A Blueprint for Modern Digital Government says GDS will "serve and connect the wider public sector", starting with targeted support for local government and the NHS before eventually reaching approximately 100,000 digital and data professionals.
"As we embrace and encourage the use of AI at scale, we’ll work hard to use it safely and ethically, building upon existing delivery expertise in GDS, and specialist expertise in i.AI to plan, incubate and scale AI products, working with other departments," the blueprint says.
"We’ll be responsible for taking a strategic view of national opportunities and risks, developing more strategic relationships with technology companies of all sizes, and proactively monitoring and addressing threats to resilience at a national level."
According to the document, which was published on the same day as DSIT's State of digital government review, the new GDS will "stop doing" some things seen as delivered better outside the centre of government.
"That will mean radical consolidation of guidance and standards for digital and technology, retiring out-of-date and duplicative things, updating critical ones, streamlining the information teams need and making it easier for them to understand what to do," the blueprint says. "We’ll reform controls, in favour of more strategic, data-driven decision-making using performance metrics and close the Top 75 programme in favour of a focus on catalysing deeper service transformation."
The document says the expanded GDS will be "magnetic" as the home of specialist expertise in digital service design, AI and other areas, and "catalytic" in bringing teams in different organisations to work together more easily to deliver the missions and power public sector reform.
'Invest in talent'
Yesterday, technology secretary Peter Kyle suggested the government was keen to boost in-house digital skills in the civil service and said the State of digital government review had shown departments being "pushed towards" reliance on contractors for even basic tech tasks.
"This trend was driven by weak salaries and headcount restrictions that stopped departments [recruiting]," he said. "This is despite them costing three times more than civil servants and eating up £14.5bn in taxpayer money a year."
The blueprint pledges to "elevate leadership" and "invest in talent", acknowledging that digital and data capability in the public sector are "severely lacking".
"The digital centre will work with the Government People Group to elevate digital leadership, invest in the profession and the competition for talent, and raise the digital skills baseline for all public servants," it says. "Change won’t happen without the right people with the right expertise, working at the right levels, in multidisciplinary teams. We need greater technological literacy at the top of public sector organisations to ensure that digital is not an add-on but a core skillset across the public sector."
The document says government needs to be a "compelling choice" for specialists seeking new careers, as well as growing its own talent.
Among its priority reforms, the blueprint pledges to "assess the overall package for digital and data professionals, including remuneration, with a view to ensuring our offer is competitive within the market, making the UK public sector an attractive and viable place for digital specialists".
The State of digital government review says a typical central government cyber specialist earns 35% less than their private sector peers, while civil service chief information-security officers earn on average 40% less than their private sector counterparts.
Other blueprint HR priorities include developing and assessing "optimum employment models to attract, grow and mobilise expert digital talent" and working with the Government Property Agency to establish a digital hub in Manchester.
Last May, the GPA signed a deal to acquire a five-hectare site in the city's Ancoats area for the project, which is expected to be a base for around 7,000 civil servants.