Beyond the usual suspects: What’s really blocking public sector tech reform

A bad system will beat a good person, every time – W. Edwards Demming

The government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan paints a picture of renewal powered by technology and AI. But progress won’t be achieved by bypassing the people we need to deliver it. Civil servants are not the problem; the system they work in is. They're highly skilled and often deeply mission-driven. But they have inherited a system that is optimised for avoiding mistakes. Being innovative is risky, and taking risks is not rewarded. 

Civil servants have the institutional knowledge and skills to help reshape public services, and we need to support them to lead this transition. The government needs good civil servants and should tell them that, unambiguously. We risk losing some of the most capable people in public service and entrenching a defensive position that sees change as something to resist, rather than lead.

The real legacy problem

To focus on legacy technology is to be distracted from the bigger problem: the inertial legacy culture that defaults to “this is how things are done,” even when nobody can explain why, or what the consequence is of changing things. Stasis is safest. That cultural inertia is more self-defeating and more limiting than any 20-year-old mainframe. 

For example, let’s say an old system is reaching the end of its operative life. The civil servant responsible will make the case for a budget to replace it. The machinery of ingrained processes will start whirring, and then maybe a year hence, a technologist will be tasked with tackling the problem, long after risk assessments have been completed, budgets locked in, and commitments made. It’s not in the culture to bring together the right people at the start – digital experts, policy specialists and budget holders – to rethink how to deliver the intended value. 

Instead, the solution to the problem of a big old platform is deemed to be the implementation of a big new platform, requiring big suppliers – all without any address to what might actually be needed. As Tom Loosemore recently said, it’s almost easier to get approval for huge sums for a familiar big, slow replacement than it would be to get a small amount to test whether the same outcome could be achieved in a cheaper way. 

The inertial culture also plays out in procurement, where processes favour the large and established over the small and agile, as I’ve written about previously. Invitations to tender are often locked into lengthy timelines and sign-offs that would be inconceivable in the private sector. SME suppliers can’t bankroll such a delayed outcome, and so many of the most innovative companies are perforce excluded. The civil service should be engaging with innovative, expert and experienced businesses in a competitive marketplace, but its inherited processes work against that. Procurement reform isn’t just a legal issue, it’s a cultural one.

Mission: Improbable

This all stems from a culture that rewards risk avoidance over delivering value, aiming to avoid negative press and perceptions of wasted public money. It’s a culture that is directly at odds with a mission-led government that won the election on a ticket of “Change”. Innovation is talked about but rarely funded. Prototyping, failing fast, iterating in the open: these are approaches that exist more comfortably in PowerPoint than in practice. Even if such approaches have a higher hit rate of delivering value for money—and for citizens—they may require admitting failures and missteps along the way. 

But during the Covid-19 pandemic, the stakes were high and civil service culture did change. Collaboration flourished. Data was shared. The mission was unambiguous and existential, and much of the inertia evaporated. Services like the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable People Service went from concept to delivery in days, not years. The legislative blockers didn’t magically disappear, they were navigated. The mindset shifted. That’s the energy we need now: existential urgency and mission clarity.

A shift to digital-first leadership

Changing this culture will be impossible without leaders who understand it and are willing to challenge it. Many senior government figures have risen through a system that trained them to play it safe. For those who joined the civil service straight from education, digital-first thinking is often alien; not because they’re incapable, but because they’ve never seen it done well. They have only worked in a culture that has played catch-up through the digital transference (but rarely transformation) of analogue processes. 

The result is a leadership structure where “digital” is often a bolt-on rather than a core function. In some departments, we still see duplicated “shadow” digital roles, parallel hierarchies that add cost but not clarity. No modern organisation in any other sector would structure itself like this. 

The shift to digital-first isn’t about adding another layer – it’s about fundamentally rethinking how services are designed, built, and led.

We’ve done it before, we can do it again

This isn’t wishful thinking. We’ve seen what’s possible when the right mix of vision, capability and support is in place. The creation of the Government Digital Service (GDS) was proof that a different model can work. It was, and remains, a coalition of the willing – technologists, policy experts, delivery specialists – collaborating to reimagine how government could function in the digital age. 

What made GDS different wasn’t just its skillset, it was its mindset. It assumed that fast, iterative, user-centred delivery was not only possible, but essential. And it had just enough air cover from enlightened senior leaders to make it real.

We need that kind of coalition again. One that brings together civil servants who understand public value, digital experts who know how to build at pace, and political leaders who grasp that culture eats strategy for breakfast. 

The government has committed to a bold vision for digital reform. It speaks of joined-up services, smarter use of AI, and digital-first operating models. But the scale of ambition must be matched by a willingness to confront the cultural barriers standing in the way. Put simply, the civil service is not yet equipped to deliver that vision. 

But it could be. We have the people. We have the experience. We have the private sector partners ready to help. What we need now is belief, and leadership, to make it happen. We need to start where the real blockers live – not in the tech stack, but in the system of habits, incentives, and assumptions that shape how government works.

Steve Foreshew-Cain is the CEO of consultancy firm Scott Logic. He was previously the CEO of the Government Digital Service.