techUK news and views
22 Jan 2025

Digital centre for government sets out a blueprint for modern digital government

Public sector technology has burst out the gate sprinting in 2025.  Yesterday (21 January) alone the government launched a new Digital Centre for Government and published 2 reports (“The State of Digital Government Review” and “Blueprint for Modern Digital Government”).  These developments all seem to signal a recognition of the critical importance of technology and delivering high quality public services. 

Digital Centre 

The new Digital Centre for Government is an expansion of the Government Digital Service (GDS) and includes the Central Digital and Data Office, Incubator for AI, the Geospatial Commission and parts of the Responsible Tech Adoption Unit. It will be a distinct unit within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).  The centre promises to: 

  • Be the home of specialist expertise in digital service design, AI and other areas; 

  • Enable teams in different organisations to work together more easily to deliver the missions and power public sector reform; 

  • ensure that the use of digital in the public sector drives efficiency and productivity gains, and helps accelerate economic growth; and 

  • work in partnership with colleagues across and beyond the public sector, including over time with local councils, police forces and arm’s length bodies. 

 

The Blueprint  

The blueprint for modern digital government will guide these efforts, as it lays out six priorities for transforming government for the digital era: 

1. Join up public sector services: enabling next-generation public services, better supporting businesses, redesigning cross-organisation end-to-end service delivery, ensuring services are consistently high standard, and acting as one public sector.  

This priority features new rules making it mandatory in due course for every public sector organisation to publish their “application programming interfaces” or APIs, making it easier for public sector organisations to exchange data in a secure and controlled way. 

2. Harness the power of AI for the public good: establishing an AI adoption unit to build and deploy AI into public services, growing AI capacity and capability across government, and building trust, responsibility and accountability into all we do. 

Government will also set up an external Responsible AI Advisory Panel and a dedicated in-house team. The Panel will bring together expert insight from the public sector (including frontline workers), industry, academia and civil society groups to provide constructive challenge and advice, and shape standards based on best practice.  

3. Strengthen and extend our digital and data public infrastructure: expanding GOV.UK One Login and other common components, enabling access to data through the National Data Library, strengthening cyber and technical resilience and building more responsibly. 

Under this theme the digital centre for government will establish a Technical Design Council led by AI and data experts to tackle the toughest technical challenges faced by different areas of government as it puts technology to work across the public sector. 

4. Elevate leadership, invest in talent: elevating digital leadership to the centre of public sector decision-making, investing in the digital and data profession and competing for talent and raising the digital skills baseline for all public servants. 

Government plans to review how digital professionals are paid and rewarded across the public sector, with a view to making this sustainable and more competitive with the private sector. Critically, a new “Government Chief Digital Officer” will be advertised shortly, who will sit as a Second Permanent Secretary within DSIT and have responsibility for leading the overall digital profession across Whitehall. 

5. Fund for outcomes, procure for growth and innovation: reforming government’s approach to funding digital and technology and maximising the value and potential of public procurement. 

6. Commit to transparency, drive accountability: publishing and acting more on performance data, and doing more of the work of government ‘in the open’ so that people can help shape changes that affect them. 

What this means for tech suppliers 

Critically, the Blueprint has advice on what these changes might mean for tech suppliers.  It notes that the public sector needs to work in partnership with a thriving tech sector across the UK. There are plans to extend the digital centre’s work on technology procurement and strategic supplier management to help local government achieve better outcomes and value for money.  

It suggests that over time, tech companies will find: 

  • It’s easier to do business with the public sector, regardless of how big your organisation is, with more consistency and less complexity in the demands made of suppliers. 

  • There are more opportunities to link their products and services directly with digital public services or data sets, delivering more for users, building on good examples in tax and public transport. 

  • Relationships with the digital centre are clearer, especially for suppliers that supply a product or service to multiple government organisations. 

 

techUK Response 

techUK will be engaging with the new digital centre for government over the coming weeks to ensure that our members have the opportunity to collaborate with and support the objectives of the centre. 

Central Government Programme activities

The techUK Central Government Programme provides a forum for government to engage with tech suppliers. We advocate for the govtech sector, evangelise tech as a solution to public sector challenges, facilitate market engagement, and help make the public sector an easier market to operate in. Visit the programme page here.

 

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