UK govt can be as innovative as Google, says think tank

A new study says the UK government can be as innovative as Google, including by learning from Australia's GovPass.

UK think tank Policy Exchange has called on the UK to become a global GovTech hub, with a government that is as efficient and innovative as leading technology companies.

In a new white paper, the think tank said digital technology has the potential to move away from the top-down bureaucracy of today to a new model where the citizen is an active and responsible user in direct control of their public services.

“Imagine a government that was as efficient as an Amazon, as innovative as a Google and as well designed as an iPhone,” the white paper states.

“The UK already enjoys a thriving GovTech ecosystem. In the future, the UK has the potential to become the leading world hub for the technology, working alongside our other strengths in FinTech and RegTech.”

Achieving this vision will likely involve the incorporation of advances in AI, big data and machine learning. The report notes that the UK government has already made putting the UK at the forefront of the AI and data revolution the first major priority for its new industrial strategy.

Greater control

Key to the new model of bottom-up democracy will be ensuring that, wherever possible, the user should be in control of their data.

Accordingly, the think tank has called on the Government Digital Service to create a new single Government Digital Account that would link multiple government services similar to the GovPass system being developed by the Australian Government.

The proposed account would show which government services a citizen is using and which can be opted into, such as telemedicine GP services or lifelong learning online courses.

A single account would require disparate government organisations to work more closely with each other, ensure greater transparency over the use of an individual’s data and give individuals greater control over who has access to their data, the report argues.

This would align with the goals of the recently introduced Data Protection Act 2018, which attempts to give UK citizens greater control over how their personal data is used by companies.

A more long-term priority should be turning government into a platform, using digital technology to fulfil the vision of developing open public services, Policy Exchange has argued. This would enable the government to more effectively share data and connect citizens in a secure way to a wider range of new providers and services.

The task of opening up government and unlocking the potential for true disruption will likely require the participation of outside talent, the company said. Transforming government into a platform will therefore require ensuring the environment exists for start-ups developing GovTech solutions to emerge and thrive.

The report also proposes initiatives such as developing a single, open roadmap of progress made in digitalising core government transactions, and establishing a new innovation lab centred on AI and machine learning.

New government-wide principles should be developed covering the handling of personal data, use and analysis of this data, engaging with citizen groups to foster public trust and confidence, and setting tiers of access to data.

Challenges abound

But the report also warns that there are a number of challenges that will have to be overcome in order to usher in the GovTech era.

For example, while achieving these ambitions would require a holistic use of data, governments are currently organised strictly by service, making it very hard for data sets to work together. Government bodies are also often operating under “rigid and fragmented” data ownership models and legacy operating models that will need to be modernised.

Operational and data silos as well as a shortage of IT and analytics skills will also hinder the ability to effectively create data driven services, the report states.

Another challenge in the wake of recent high-profile data harvesting scandals is ensuring that the public trusts the government with their data.

“The UK already has a thriving cyber security industry, but will need to do substantially more to improve the security and privacy of government data,” the report states.

“Loss of faith in government digital security, or one new major data breach, could set back the progress of digital government by years.”

New technology can be part of the solution by enforcing good practice and user ownership of data. Distributed ledger or blockchain technology, for example, could be used to transform processes including tax collection, benefit administration, land registries and health records by generating secure and open records of who has accessed what data and for what purpose.

“Technology by itself, however, will not be enough. As important is ensuring that the user remains in control, with transparency over how their data is being used,” the report states.

“Rather than [the government] trying to make all the hard decisions, hiding away complexity, we should default to transparency, unless there are clear and provable harms. In the private sector, users are increasingly being given ever more granular control over which service has access to which source of their data, from their Facebook profile to their current location. There is no reason for the public sector to offer anything less, rather they should offer more.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Denys Rudyi

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