Government should exploit blockchain technology, says chief scientist Mark Walport

Government chief scientist Mark Walport has called on Whitehall to look at how using distributed ledger technology can improve public services and boost productivity.

Distributed ledgers are databases that securely record assets shared across a network.

The technology is mostly known in the financial industry for the blockchain incarnation behind digital payment systems such as bitcoin – but Walport said the algorithms that enable the creation of distributed ledgers could transform public services.

In a report entitled Distributed ledger technology: Beyond block chain, he said that distributed ledgers “could be at the heart” of the Government Digital Service’s (GDS) development of government as a platform (GaaP).

He also called on GDS and the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Digital Economy Unit to develop a “high-level capability road map and a supporting outline plan, based on the work of this report and very early stage activity already underway in departments, and deliver this in a timely fashion”.

Backed by both minister for culture and the digital economy, Ed Vaizey, and cabinet office minister Matt Hancock, the report said distributed ledger technologies “have the potential to help governments to collect taxes, deliver benefits, issue passports, record land registries, assure the supply chain of goods and generally ensure the integrity of government records and services”.

The ledgers could also improve resistance against cyber attack because, instead of a single database, "there are multiple shared copies of the same database, so a cyber attack would have to attack all the copies simultaneously to be successful”.

The report sets out a series of recommendations for government, including the development of a vision of how the technology can be used, to improve how it does business and delivers services to citizens; and establishing trials of the ledgers to assess “usability within public sector”.

Hancock said that digital transformation is “central to our reform of the public sector”.

“With our world-class digital capability and strong research community, the UK is well placed to reap the potential benefits of distributed ledger technology,” he said.