The September 2023 update to the Central Digital and Data Office’s 2022-2025 Digital Future Roadmap reported that 15 of the 75 top services have met the government’s “great” standard for being faster and easier to use. This indicates that government organisations are making some progress toward achieving these set goals, but accelerated transformation is required.
To better understand how organisations reach that standard and where opportunities exist for those groups to grow and improve, Total Politics Research and Granicus surveyed 70 civil servants to understand the importance of using a digital platform for citizen engagement.
The white paper produced from the survey looked at six key areas to understand organisations’ level of proficiency in delivering various digital skills:
- Ability to understand the needs of a specific target group of users.
- Analysis and strategic research.
- Ability to design interactive and technological solutions.
- Communication and design skills for software and digital applications.
- Ability to design solutions integrating visual design, graphic representation, and interface design.
- User experience (UX) design and big data analysis skills.
An uncertain vision of current capabilities
Responses from those surveyed showed a lack of clarity about their current state, with no area of digital skills rising above 50% for “Quite good” or “Very good.” While 50% of respondents rated their organisations highly for “understanding the needs of a specific target group of users,” a similar proportion of civil servants rated this skill as “Average,” “Quite poor,” or “Very poor,” indicating that government still has some way to go to fully understand the needs, experiences, and expectations of specific citizen groups.
While respondents had a split image on their understanding of their audiences, a majority said their ability to use tools to communicate with those audiences is lacking. When asked to describe their organisation’s “ability to design solutions integrating visual design, graphic representation, and interface design,” 34% of respondents said their capability is poor, compared to 31% who rated it as good. In the same way, 32% of respondents saw their organisation as performing poorly in “communication and design skills for software and digital applications,” whereas 31% saw their performance as good.
“UX design and big data analysis skills” also presented a key underperforming area in the report, where the gap between “poor” and “good” capabilities was the greatest amongst civil servant organisations in the survey. This is reflected in ongoing government efforts to increase education and training, with the National Careers Service listing a series of courses to upskill staff including “web designer,” “UX designer,” and “app developer” to help employees grow in their profession and ultimately improve the overall digital experience.
The Total Politics/Granicus survey suggests that government organisations require more than a plan to put technology in place. Future success — and, more importantly, growth and evolution to meet changing user needs — requires an improvement also in the skills and talent within government. Arming staff with the knowledge to better gather and analyse data will enable the delivery of high-quality digital services that resonate with citizens.
Technical, collaboration barriers impact transformation plans
Outdated tools and systems might offer one other element in the prevention of digital transformation of service delivery for many organisations, as suggested by the Total Politics/Granicus paper. While the Digital and Data Roadmap’s Mission 4 sets out to identify “red-rated” legacy systems and take remedial action against them, the government’s effort to track and support legacy system replacement might not be having a timely impact on those organisations surveyed.
“Integration of new systems/platforms with existing legacy systems” remained as the top barrier (58%) for organisations looking to embrace digital transformation, though there has been some improvement to that statistic since 2022 (62%).
Likewise, the research paper revealed that government organisations often work at cross-purposes, duplicating efforts rather than collaborating seamlessly despite the UK government’s efforts at fostering a culture of collaboration with initiatives like GOV.UK One Login that enhance data access and help address siloed working practices. A higher proportion of civil servants surveyed highlighted “siloed working practices” (55%) and “lack of collaboration” (51%) as key barriers to improving and transforming digital communications and services compared to our findings in 2022 (46% and 41%, respectively).
Civil servants need to collaborate with the people who have the right skills and knowledge to solve problems. Improving collaboration within government will enhance services and lead to more innovation, more efficient processes, increased success, and improved communication, which will ultimately help improve the overall service delivery for citizens and residents.
These types of challenges may also be having a long-term impact on planning for ongoing digital transformation. Although the outlook for digital investment within government organisations looks encouraging, a smaller proportion of civil servants said they believe their organisation’s investment in digital service management systems is likely to increase (61% in 2024 compared to 82% in 2022). This year, only 24% of respondents predict significant increase compared to 39% in 2022. Comparatively, a larger proportion of civil servants report that their organisation’s investment in digital service management systems is likely to decrease (15% in 2024 vs. 2% in 2022).
Any progress being made in the provision of government digital services must be maintained in order to achieve the desired results. A decline in digital investment might delay overall growth and development, forcing organisations to make better use of their existing technology stack and focus on improving efficiency.
