Patryk Kosmider - stock.adobe.co

Interview: Feryal Clark, AI and digital government minister, DSIT

Computer Weekly talks to the parliamentary under-secretary about digital identity, the importance of trust and utilising the power of artificial intelligence

Feryal Clark might only have been the minister for AI and digital government for six months, but technology is far from a new area of expertise for her.

It’s easy to see from the start how passionate she is about getting technology right for both government and citizens, as she talks animatedly about the potential of digital and artificial intelligence (AI), and the importance of getting it right.

One of the first moves the new government made when it came into power was to set up an AI action plan unit, tasked with coming up with the AI opportunities action plan, which was published on 15 January 2025. The 50-step AI plan sets out a series of measures to develop the UK as a powerhouse for artificial intelligence.

“The AI revolution has started, it’s not waiting for us,” Clark says. “This is about how we as a government actually utilise the power of AI to make life easier for all our citizens.”

She adds that the consequence of not doing so would mean the UK has no hope of becoming “one of the best AI nations” in the world.

“We want to be leaders – whether that’s attracting new AI businesses to the country, or government utilising AI across public sector to make sure our services are fit for purpose, there is a huge aspiration within government to be the leaders in AI,” she says.

When it comes to technology, Clark knows what she’s talking about, from taking apart and building her own computer in her bedroom, to studying bioinformatics at university, it has always been something she’s keen to get right.

The importance of trust in technology

One of the things Clark’s passionate about getting right is trust – both in government and in technology, especially when it comes to digital identity.

It’s been several years since the then-government launched the first and second versions of its digital identity and attributes trust framework. However, it took until the new government came into power to finalise the framework, which aims to make it easier for people to use digital identity services in the knowledge that it is safe to do so.

Clark says it’s important that people have confidence in the digital ID products they use, and the trust framework is a way of ensuring that citizens know a product is trustworthy with a government trust mark.

“It makes a huge difference to how people feel about these products when they’re using them,” she says. “There are already security measures around data protection with GDPR, of course, but the framework [gives] additional measures.”

This includes ensuring people are asked and informed about every stage when the data is going to be stored or shared with anyone else. A key point, Clark adds, is that a lot of what is in the ID trust framework is currently voluntary, but once the new Data Bill is passed, there will be statute underpinning it, meaning that providers have to comply with the framework to have a government trust mark.

Overhauling digital government

To fully take advantage of digital technologies, the government recently announced that it plans to change the way technology is funded, implemented and acquired across the public sector to speed up the development of digital services.

This includes making government services more intuitive and accessible for citizens, as well as more linked up, ensuring citizens only have to provide information once across services.

Speaking to press at a recent government event, Clark said the government is currently looking at how to bring together teams across different departments to look at how they “smooth out these processes so our citizens only have to tell their story once and that the services are able to be responsive in a timely manner”.

“It’s trying to find ways of streamlining the services and making access easier, ensuring that services can see what is going on with that citizen so they can give them the right help at the right time,” she said, before adding that this work will initially be undertaken by a small multidisciplinary team within the Government Digital Service (GDS) to give the government a better view of how to join up systems across departments. 

The government also recently published a study into the state of digital government, written by external consultants from Bain & Company, which identified £45bn of potential savings through better use of technology by government, including £14.5bn spent on external consultants – a figure estimated to be three times higher than if civil servants were to do the same IT jobs.

Changing procurement

It is no secret that many areas of government struggle with outdated IT and technology systems, which no longer fit a modern Whitehall. While there are many reasons for this, one of those reasons is that writing a business case and getting approval for the spend by HM Treasury is often a long and drawn-out process.

As part of the government’s plan to overhaul digital government, it is looking at ways to make budgeting for digital services more agile and iterative, instead of the traditional upfront spending followed by smaller annual maintenance costs.

Clark says this includes “changing how we procure and make the case for digital investment”. Currently, a project team can “spend 18 months to two years building a business case to be able to convince HM Treasury, and by the time you go out to market, what you have in there is too old and you can’t change it. So, by the time you get to procurement, it’s all out of date,” she says. “It’s not great, it’s not agile, it’s not quick. So, we are completely overhauling that as well.”

Portrait of Feryal Clark© House of Commons

“We have fantastic people. I am beginning to see great examples of work that is happening”

Feryal Clark, AI and digital government minister

Another part of the overhaul is in policy making, where digital experts will now be at the heart of policy development from the beginning, “so when it’s finished, you know you’ve factored in all the digital requirements”, Clark says.

The planned overhaul of digital government is significant, both in that it’s the first major attempt by the Labour government to transform how digital technology is delivered, but also because it takes a very different approach to what has been done earlier.

Under the Conservative government, numerous digital strategies were published between 2010 and 2022, each promising to improve digital public services, address legacy IT issues, cut costs and modernise government – and while some strides were made, there is still a very long way to go.

Whether the Labour government has found the right formula to do so remains to be seen, but Clark is optimistic it will succeed.

While she started off being frustrated by how slow the government has been, she says she is now “impressed by the capabilities within the department” and elsewhere, adding: “We have fantastic people. I am beginning to see great examples of work that is happening.”

Read more about government and technology

Read more on IT for government and public sector