Once more it's deja vu all over again in digital government

When you write about government IT for as long as Computer Weekly has – which is pretty much as long as “government IT” has been a thing – it’s hard not to get a sense of what can most accurately be described as déjà vu all over again.

Not only do we end up writing articles that say, “We’ve been here before!”, but subsequently articles that say, “We can remember the last time we’ve been here before!”. So here’s a warning – this article might just be saying, “We can remember the last time we wrote about the last time we remembered saying we’ve been here before!”

Peter Kyle, the Labour’s new secretary of state for technology, knows there is a problem with digital government. He’s acknowledged a “glaring technology gap between the private sector and public services”. He wants to “rewire Whitehall”. He’s right, of course. So, to help him achieve this, he’s done what every new administration does, and appointed a panel of independent experts. Makes sense. Not original, but it makes sense.

This panel is chaired by Martha Lane Fox. We’re fans of Martha. She has enormous experience, contacts, knowledge – she gets it. But she’s also the person who headed up the then-new Conservative-led government’s attempts to address the glaring technology gap between the private sector and public services that existed in 2010. Her seminal report led to the creation of the Gov.uk website and the Government Digital Service. Successive governments have yet to fully implement all the recommendations she made 14 years ago. Surely there were other potential candidates to lead such a group, more than a decade since she last did?

The other panel members are similarly impressive. Top notch industry executives, academics, influencers, researchers and consultants. All have much to offer. But among the 12-strong group, there is only one who could be described as an IT practitioner – Paul Willmott, chief digital adviser to Lego Group, and even then his CV is mostly advisory roles with a long stint at McKinsey. And he’s there because he’s already part-time chair of the government’s Central Digital and Data Office.

There’s not a single CIO or CTO type – not one IT leader who is actively implementing digital transformation in large-scale, complex organisations. Plenty of people who can write you a solid report on what to do based on all the latest, most innovative thinking. Not so many who have done it, who have got their hands dirty and delivered it.

If the government truly wants to transform the way it delivers its services, how about talking to some of the technology leaders who have done it already? Computer Weekly knows a few Mr Kyle, if you need suggestions…

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