Stephen Earl, director at Cloudhouse, discusses the three main components to a successful local government-wide tech strategy in 2025.
The Government’s Transforming for a Digital Future roadmap, published under the previous Government in 2022, sets out a vision for where it intends to be in 2025. By next year, the publication says that the ‘vision [...] is to be a transformed, more efficient digital government that provides better outcomes for everyone’. These outcomes include exceeding public expectations with quicker and more reliable services, creating an upskilled civil workforce, and enhancing government efficiency and security.
How close it is to realising this vision is unknown. But of course, digital transformation and tech strategy is an ongoing activity – and from unmanaged legacy IT systems to siloed departments and costly processes, many issues remain.
In line with this strategy, the Local Government Association (LGA) launched its own mission-driven digitalisation framework in July this year to create ‘digitally-enabled councils’, ‘digitally-empowered residents’ and ‘digitally-equipped places’.
To take the next steps on their journey, local authorities and councils must continue finding ways to improve how they communicate with stakeholders, invest in innovation, and provide the necessary skills and tools for their workforce.
Here, we offer three components that can make the difference in building a successful local government-wide tech strategy in 2025.
1. Greater transparency and communication
Facilitating cooperation across local bodies and getting rid of siloes is essential. Currently, projects are too self-contained and there is a lack of coordination between departments, in particular around the challenges of using older legacy technology. A wider strategy would create more holistic benefits and save money, but there isn’t one that’s evident at the moment.
Moreover, there is a lack of public oversight over projects, from how they are carried out to, crucially, their outcomes. Public visibility on project progress is key to ensuring that such changes and processes are happening in the right way. Currently, lessons can’t be learnt as there is a level of obscurity and all we see are the failures. It’s just as important to shout about the learnings and IT success stories, because that’s how departments understand what is working well and successful models to follow.
The public sector also has to communicate with stakeholders and vendors better, as it can be guilty of not specifying what it needs. This can result in time and budget scope creep and projects failing to meet their objectives. The LGA, for example, has developed free councillor training sessions to help them understand tech’s importance in supporting the community. These can help local authorities gain buy-in from internal stakeholders for their digital transformation projects.
2. Better funding model
In the public sector, there is approximately a £5bn budget for IT across the board. But rather than implemented across government and local government bodies, it’s managed department by department, and each department has its own budget. So, step one is forming a holistic local government-wide IT funding model.
However, there is a deeper problem around how projects are paid for. Often, the public sector provides lump-sum payments to external vendors rather than adopting a milestone-based payment approach that rewards success and performance. Vendors typically tender for contracts that include upfront payments or restrictive terms, allowing them to work at arm’s length and, in many cases, execute projects on their own terms.
As the scope, time and budget for the project can be unspecified, local authorities can be taken advantage of. Vendors know the cost element of a project is not as important in the public sector as it is in the private sector – therefore, alongside their willingness to adopt new solutions, this can make councils an easy target for pricing. With a lack of defined requirements, projects can go on for months longer than they should do and fail to achieve their desired impact.
Therefore, local authorities and councils need to create a model that staggers payments and pays for deliverables – i.e. project objectives – met in a set timeframe, rather than just paying for an unspecified project in one lump sum. This immediately reduces risk while bettering outcomes.
3. Better tech literacy in the workforce
The issue that underscores the two aforementioned points is the level of tech literacy in the public sector workforce – or lack of it. The strategy employed for digital transformation projects places far too much emphasis on external vendors without a sufficient level of internal IT knowledge. Why does this matter?
Local government staff need to be able to adopt a level of critical review to understand if projects are progressing as they should and are having their expected impact. Better digital knowledge and skills in local authorities will not only drive digital transformation projects and enhance security, but mean projects are kept on track and within budget – and authorities are less likely to be taken for a ride.
The issue really lies at the top, as you often get situations where tech-literate employees are running the project but the local government leaders/councillors taking the big decisions don’t have the necessary technical knowledge to do so. This has also led to a strategy which is far too heavily weighted on adopting new solutions without clearly defined needs and goals. This leaves taxpayers under the impression there is a lack of joined up thinking and also a lack of regard for taxpayer value for money.
With a higher level of tech literacy in local government, authorities and councils may start to see the value in increasing the lifespan of their current systems and have the capability to do so, instead of spending vast amounts on integrating new tech.
Three steps for tech success
The Government’s digital future roadmap vision is fast approaching. But with instances such as the TfL cyberattack still unresolved, it remains to be seen just how far along it is in delivering this future. While the LGA framework has no set timeline, the strategies between Government and local government will inevitably be interlinked. This exemplifies, firstly, the need to foster greater transparency and communication, both between Government and local government departments and with the public.
Then, to ensure projects are kept within budget and achieve their aims, local authorities need a better funding model for their own budget and vendor contracts. Finally, while upskilling is a key part of the roadmap, there is a difference between basic digital skills and the level of IT literacy required to manage projects. The more skilled local government staff and leaders are in using tech and overseeing projects, the better the chance of success. And by taking on these three components, local government bodies have every chance of implementing a successful tech strategy next year.
