In March this year, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) reported that public sector net debt as a proportion of GDP would rise in 2015-16, not fall, corroborating its earlier forecasts. It has since been suggested that the Government’s fiscal programme is deferring the pain of the crisis, making next Parliament a “dumping ground” for problems deemed too difficult to resolve in this one.
So will innovation and public service reform happen? All three main parties appear to recognise that public sector budgets will be hit to an even greater extent next Parliament than this, in order to meet the current Government’s borrowing targets. The question is whether the executive is enabled to innovate around tighter public finances.
It is clear that the Government faces a choice of either offering fewer public services, or innovating to deliver more for less. In the immediate term, central government has put emphasis on innovation as a means to deliver better public services in periods of austerity. The Cabinet Office’s Digital Strategy and associated initiatives reinforce the ambition that technology will release innovation across government and the public sector.
Innovation involves taking risks and embracing the potential for failure. Yet this process of trial and error is not normally associated with the public sector mind-set. In some cases, civil servants are under greater pressure than their private sector counterparts to deliver value for money, as they manage public accounts. The increasingly popularised role of Select Committees through the media has also increased public scrutiny of the executive. But the civil service should be enabled to take some risks without the reproach of Parliament. This presents a real challenge. If the challenge is overcome, innovation from new technologies can be released into the public sector.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has witnessed a number of industries shift towards digital models of working. For example, digitisation has now completely revolutionised how the retail and financial service sectors operate. However, those transformations have been borne out of competitive pressure, rather than budgetary constraint. Business has to deliver more for less in order to maintain margins and competitive advantage.
Digitisation requires putting the consumer at the heart of the transaction process. It requires an organisation to consider how technology can make a difference to the consumer from the front to back office. For that reason, digitisation offers huge financial returns. For example, TCS digitisation projects in the public sector have been focused on removing redundant steps in transaction processes to both improve the customer experience and deliver financial savings.
Innovation requires a nexus of digitisation, mobilisation, big data and analytics. Digitisation has the power to improve overall citizen experience of government services, but citizens should also be mobilised through access from a variety of different devices. Additionally, interpreting big data sets through the use of analytics can provide valuable insights into government-citizen interactions. Government needs to consider all these topics in collaboration to transform public services. Integrating each new technological channel with pre-existing ones, such as paper correspondence and telephone, will be essential.
Open data is not just about exposing vast waves of information to the electorate. The real power of open data is an intelligent analysis of centrally-held information explicated in terminology that the electorate can understand. For example, while the creation of the OBR has brought welcome transparency to budgetary forecasts, the OBR’s publications are still intractable to those without the economic knowledge to interpret their models. Truly open data should aid democracy, enabling citizens to make better informed decisions and increasing the transparency and accountability of government.
Sharing information across departmental boundaries is another crucial aspect to achieving open data. Yet cultural resistance to sharing information is holding back innovation. Government should embrace the opportunity to create a much more holistic view of citizens and the services they receive. Not least, good data sharing mechanisms enable the detection of fraud and leakage in the whole system.
There is huge opportunity for technology to enable public service reform and alleviate pressure within current budgetary constraints. Cultural change is the biggest barrier to transforming government in this way. However, if negative attitudes towards central government reform can be overcome, the vision of a highly innovative public sector can be achieved.
TCS and Reform hosted a round table seminar on Innovation and REform in central government, led by Paul Maltby, Director of Open Data and Government Innovation at the Cabinet Office. To read an edited transcript of the event, click here.