4Cultural challenges
71.This Chapter assesses the leadership of the digital Government transformation agenda and of GDS, as well as the pace at which change is being implemented.
Loss of momentum?
72.We heard from several witnesses, including Tom Loosemore, a former Deputy Director of GDS, and GlobalData, a technology advisory company, that digital Government in the UK had lost momentum.151 GlobalData said that digital Government in the UK has suffered from “a loss of momentum through changes of leadership and weak political backing”.152
73.Tom Loosemore emphasised the importance of leadership, including in GDS, for realising the ambition of Government to digitise and suggested that the political standing of the figurehead at the top of digital Government was integral to its initial success.153 Mr Loosemore argued that the current Government did not have the leadership that the then Government had had during the coalition Government:
Francis Maude [Minister for the Cabinet Office 2010–2016] would get the chief executives of global technology businesses into his office and show them the door, saying, “‘You are not taking our billions off us anymore. Enough—the game is over.’ That alignment and political support from the centre, with Jeremy Heywood right behind it, is now absent.154
He went on to explain that momentum had slowed since Francis Maude had left and he argued that, since his departure, there had been a “wilful, deliberate misdirection of the centre”.155 SAS, a software analytics company, said that the Government had lacked political backing and leadership in its commitment to innovative technologies, whilst Deloitte explained that there was a need for further leadership in Government to “shape and support” the digital economy.156
74.GDS has seen three leaders since 2011 and is set to see a fourth leader in eight years later this year. In 2011 Mike Bracken was appointed Executive Director of GDS, he was replaced by Stephen Foreshew-Cain in 2015 and then Kevin Cunnington in 2016. In June 2019, Kevin Cunnington left GDS to take on the role of Head of the International Government Service. A recruitment process for a new Director General will shortly be launched.157
75.Tom Loosemore, a former Deputy Director of GDS, told us that the Civil Service had a role to play in providing the continuity of leadership and drive, even if Ministers change post: “at the end of the day, you need a Civil Service leadership that can provide the continuity and help Ministers to understand—even if they are there for only 18 months—that this is an important long-term mission and change”.158 As such, he emphasised the importance of a strong central leadership within the Civil Service, that could support Ministers and ensure momentum was not lost.
76.However, much of the evidence we have received regarding a lack of leadership in digital Government is anecdotal. The Minister for Implementation, Oliver Dowden MP and the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, Margot James MP, refuted claims of a lack of leadership, arguing that Civil Service leadership and political backing were still there, but the nature of the relationship between digital leaders and departments had changed.159 Oliver Dowden MP told us that centralisation and leadership from the centre were no longer necessary to ensure digital success across Government.160 He explained that GDS was successful in the initial first steps of breaking up department silos, but since then, the role of GDS had developed and matured over time. It was only if digital projects were getting off track that they were escalated to Ministers at department level.161
77.The Institute for Government (IfG) reaffirmed this perspective in its 2017 report Improving the management of digital government.162 In that report it explained that although there must be a driving force at the centre of Government, in the form of a Minister for Digital Government, to ensure digital transformation had enough buy-in from departments, GDS and its leaders now had to take on a supportive role with departments instead of driving digital transformation.163
78.Further, when we put Mr Loosemore’s accusation that the centre of the Civil Service had deliberately slowed the progress of digitisation (see paragraph 72 and 73 for a detailed explanation of his remarks), to John Manzoni, the Chief Executive of the Civil Service, he refuted such a claim, explaining that there was “little to no evidence” to support the assertion that the UK had lost momentum.164 He explained that “the UK consistently ranks internationally in the top five countries globally for digital government and open data”, and had hosted 69 delegations so other countries could learn from the UK’s success.165 As set out at paragraph 4 of this Report, although the UK was placed fourth in the 2018 UN e-Government survey, it was ranked number one in 2016 before falling behind Denmark, Australia and South Korea.
79.Despite this, the majority of the evidence we received on this issue argued that a lack of central leadership could impact on the success of Government digitisation. Peter Fleming representing the Local Government Association, for example, explained that for local Government there had been a “backwards step” in the drive for digitisation over the last few years, resulting in an un-coordinated approach throughout Government.166 This was also expressed in evidence submitted by his organisation, the Local Government Association, which set out the negative effect this could have on the relationship between the citizen and the State element of digitisation:
Despite the creation of the GDS, the various elements of the Government’s digital work are spread widely […] This means the citizen’s experience of government can be confused, contradictory and complicated.167
UKCloud also advocated that “strong leadership and direction from the top down” was needed if the Government was to build on GDS’s earlier success.168 Daniel Korski, CEO of PUBLIC, a GovTech consultancy company, explained that for digital transformative progress to happen there needed to be an alignment of political will and Civil Service leadership. He recommended: “I would like to see a situation where in every Department there is a Minister and a senior official who think it is their job to drive innovation and rethink how the Department works”.169
80.When we enquired about how ministerial responsibility for digital Government was split, the Minister for Implementation and the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries told us that cyber security resided with the Duchy of Lancaster, GDS and digital transformation resided with the Minister for Implementation and data policy resided with DCMS.170 However, we heard from witnesses that specific elements of digital Government might need a specific Minister. For example, Professor Chris Johnson from the UK Computing Research Committee told us he would like to see a specific Minister for Cyber Security.171 Furthermore, in the 2017 Institute for Government Report, Improving the Management of Digital Government, the Institute recommended a Minister for Digital Government who drives digitisation and transformation from the centre.172
81.Political leadership in digitisation has been lacking in recent years since Francis Maude ceased being Minister for the Cabinet Office. This, coupled with the departure of senior Civil Service figures in GDS, has resulted in a slowing in the Government’s digital momentum, as evidenced by other countries overtaking the UK in international rankings. It is now necessary to put in place processes which embed digitisation at a department-level and across the Civil Service.
82.The Government should introduce a ministerial digital champion in every department by the end of 2019 who has responsibility for using innovation and digitisation to transform the way their department operates. These champions will need to co-ordinate at a department level and across departments. In response to this Report the Government should set out how this co-ordination will take place.
The role of GDS
83.Kevin Cunnington, then Director General of GDS, told us that GDS was far more advanced compared to where it was when it first started: “When GDS started in 2012 we really had no capability: no people and no profession. Developing digital service was not normal but abnormal”.173 However, there is evidence to suggest that the Government was cultivating and valuing the digital technology profession long before the creation of GDS. The National Audit Office’s 2011 Information and Communications Technology in Government Landscape Review report noted that a clear strategy for the professionalisation of the government ICT workforce was first set out in 2005.174 Further, that report referenced the development of a competency framework to support career development of technology professionals and establishing a Government IT academy to “support both the professional development of IT Professionals in government and the building of a culture and identity for the Profession.”175
84.Further, Mr Cunnington’s claim that the Government had “no people” contradicted the 2011 NAO report, which had explained that “Government is one of the most significant employers of ICT professionals in the United Kingdom. Estimates of the number employed range from 35,000 to, if staff contracted to the public sector were included, well over 135,000.”176, 177 Though there might not have been a coherent team in the form of a digital service, there were several previous central Government teams who were responsible for driving cross-Government change prior to GDS, such as the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (1957), the Office of the e-Envoy (1999), the E-Government unit (2004), and the central Chief Information Officer Council (2010), made up of the Chief Information Officers in all Government departments.
85.Mr Cunnington set out the role of GDS in detail to us:
- Setting the cross-Government strategy;
- Setting standards and assurance;
- Providing capability across Government;
- Designing services and platforms;
- Providing expert services; and
- Providing continuous improvement across the Departments.178
The Minister for Implementation, Oliver Dowden MP, affirmed that the role of GDS, alongside the Cabinet Office and DCMS, was to provide departments with the “drive and direction” for digitisation.179
86.Evidence from GlobalData, techUK and others was positive about the initial role of GDS and the achievements it had made, but still said that as its role had changed it had struggled to consolidate its purpose.180 GlobalData said that one of the good things that GDS had achieved was “the approach to digital service development that is now pervasive across Government and championed by GDS”, but that now “GDS appears to have lost its way somewhat”.181 Further, techUK explained that “GDS has played a key role in stimulating change both in how public authorities adopt and how suppliers provide new digital technologies and services”, but agreed with the NAO’s 2017 report, Digital Transformation in Government, that GDS had struggled to redefine its role as it has grown.182 This view was shared by UKCloud, a cloud platform provider.183
87.Tom Loosemore and Dafydd Vaughan, former senior leaders at GDS, as well as Joel Bellman representing Deloitte, for example, recommended that GDS needed to be part of a more powerful centre of digital Government.184 This was supported by evidence from PUBLIC, which explained that there was still an important role for GDS to act as the “rule-setter” and “to control underlying data so citizens can own it, and to be the manager of equitable, cheaper and better provision of services, whoever delivers them”.185 In this sense, they advocated that GDS had a role to play in setting the digital standards and policies that departments should adhere to.186 This perspective was also affirmed by Kevin Cunnington, the Director General of GDS.187
88.Further, Joel Bellman, recommended that GDS, and the Cabinet Office in general, should have a greater role in compelling departments to take action with regards to their digital capacity, and should utilise powers to enforce departments to collaborate. He suggested that more hard power should be given to GDS, such as control over funding and accountability structures:
They could be strong, carrot-and-stick levers, as in, “We can force you to and use spending controls and hold you to standards”; they can also use funding levers through the way they allocate money to projects and programmes that are cross-departmental; and they can use softer levers. But the power of the centre in making things happen is very important in a settlement such as we have in the UK where there are department boundaries.188
89.Conversely, the Chief Digital Officer at HMRC, Jacky Wright, advocated that the role of GDS could be, as set out by Mr Cunnington and the Minister for Implementation, more facilitatory (see Annex 3). In a meeting, Ms Wright explained that GDS should be a central co-ordinator around standards and knowledge-sharing, bringing together best practice, while operational departments designed platforms for current Government use as required. In particular, she highlighted how HMRC’s identification verification tool was a model that could have been used by different departments, and GDS could have taken the lead on sharing the model (see Annex 3). By doing so, it would have ensured that those with the capability led on design and implementation, and GDS’s role would be to support and set standards. Others agreed. For example, GlobalData pointed to GDS leading digital service development across the Government.189 The Cabinet Office highlighted successes of GDS in developing standards for data and shared components across Government, stating that GDS “have inspired similar initiatives in other governments internationally”.190 Shared components were demonstrated by the success of Government as a Platform, as referred to in Chapter 2, and in the creation of common components and platforms, such as GOV.UK Notify, Verify and Pay.191
90.The 2017 Report Improving the Management of digital Government, from the Institute for Government, recommended that GDS clarify its standards, so it was clear what were expected standards for departments, and what was guidance so as to ensure they were “applied more deeply in departments and more widely in the public sector”.192
91.GDS made good progress in its early years on standards and platforms that applied across Government. However, we heard how GDS has “lost its way somewhat” and its purpose is now less clear. GDS’s purpose should be twofold: to provide advice to departments when needed, but also to devise and enforce minimum standards to be applied consistently across Government digital services. Departments, with the relevant capacity, should retain the ability to develop platforms and software. The Government needs to clarify GDS’s role and its relationships with other departments, as well as determining with GDS whether there are any powers it needs to compel departments to take particular action.
Responsibility for data policy
92.From 1 April 2018, control of data policy and governance was moved to DCMS from GDS/the Cabinet Office. The Prime Minister announced this machinery of Government change in a written statement to Parliament in March 2018.193 The following functions were moved from the Cabinet Office to DCMS:
- Responsibility for data-sharing (including coordination of Part 5 of the Digital Economy Act 2017);
- data ethics;
- open data; and
- data governance.
In addition to this, policy responsibility for digital signatures moved from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to DCMS. DCMS told us that GDS would still lead on delivering technical components that supported data-sharing e.g. the Application Programming Interface strategy, open registers, and attribute exchange.194
93.Evidence from the Cabinet Office argued that the entirety of Government was “committed to using data more effectively in order to design and deliver high-quality and efficient public services”,195 and as such, emphasised that data policy must remain at the heart of digital policy for the successful implementation of digital Government (we explored in detail the issues surrounding the use of data to achieve digitisation in Chapter 2). However, witnesses raised concern that the move of data policy from GDS to DCMS might signal the opposite. Councillor Peter Fleming representing the Local Government Association, for example, explained that the move of data policy to DCMS could potentially be damaging to digitisation, as DCMS might lack the same clout as the Cabinet Office in instructing departments to take action on its data policy.196 This point was also made by Tom Loosemore, a former Deputy Director of GDS, who highlighted to us that DCMS did not have any enforcement powers to reprimand or compel departments for failing to comply with central data policy and guidance.197 While the Cabinet Office did not have such powers either, Tom Loosemore and Councillor Peter Fleming argued that the Cabinet Office had soft power that it could exercise in such circumstances.198 When asked whether there had been occasion when DCMS had been able to compel a department to do something against resistance, Matthew Gould, the then Director General for Digital and Media Policy, pointed to a number of policy reviews, but was unable to give a specific clear example.199
94.Matthew Gould, the then Director General for Digital and Media Policy advocated that it made good sense for the Government to create a department that dedicated its resource and attention to data, and refuted claims that DCMS lacked standing with other departments:
Increasingly, across the range of what we do we are seen as delivering competence and having expertise. It is a sensible investment by Government to create a Department that is capable of taking all those digital policy issues in the round, including the wider data issues, so that we can lead on the data economy and some of the policy questions around data as a counterpart and partner to GDS.200
95.Tom Smith representing the Office for National Statistics was also positive about the move, explaining that it ensured better links with other parts of data policy, which sat within DCMS, such as the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and the Information Commissioner.201 Private sector companies and non-government organisations such as SAS and 360Giving also viewed the move to DCMS as presenting fresh opportunities to improve the use of data, such as in the work on identification verification and in using AI and innovative technology.202
96.It is too early to tell if the move of data policy to DCMS presents a challenge or an enhancement for Government digitisation. We urge the Government to keep under review whether DCMS should be the lead department for open data and data ethics, governance and sharing. Further, in response to this Report, the Government should set out whether DCMS requires any additional powers to drive data reform across Government. If it does not deem this necessary it should set out why.
157 The Cabinet Office and GDS, “Head of Government Digital Service to take on new role”, June 2019
162 Institute for Government, “Improving the management of digital government”, (June 2017)
163 Institute for Government, “Improving the management of digital government”, (June 2017), p 3–4
164 Correspondence between the Chair of the Committee and John Manzoni, Chief Executive of the Civil Service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary, regarding Digital Government, 10 January 2019
165 Correspondence between the Chair of the Committee and John Manzoni, Chief Executive of the Civil Service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary, regarding Digital Government, 19 December 2018
172 Institute for Government, “Improving the management of digital government”, (June 2017), p 4
174 National Audit Office, Information and Communications Technology in government Landscape Review, HC 757, (February 2011)
176 National Audit Office, Information and Communications Technology in government Landscape Review, HC 757, (February 2011), para 2.17
177 Mr Cunnington told the Committee that “When GDS started in 2012 we really had no capability: no people and no profession.” Mr Cunnington was referring to the lack of a Digital, Data and Technology profession including roles such as data scientists, and not just the creation of the IT workforce in Government
182 National Audit Office, Digital transformation in government, (March 2017)
192 Institute for Government, Improving the management of digital government, (June 2017), p 3
Published: 10 July 2019