The public sector’s digital lag: is the problem tech or mindset?
“How are you going to deliver digital services in the public sector when you can’t pick up my bins?” That was the question faced in early 2017 by Martyn Wallace, the freshly minted chief digital officer for the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government.
Initially a project set up for three years to help Scottish councils digitally transform, the project is in its seventh year and shows no sign of slowing down. “It’s never-ending,” Wallace admits. “Always one more mountain to climb.”
But back to the bins. “Do you think that’s what local government is? We just pick up your bins?” he answered. Wallace outlines the real scope – 5.5 million customers, educating 700,000 children daily, dealing with social exclusion, healthcare delivery, telecare, births, deaths and marriages – and bins. He admits that, in the eyes of the public, it is sometimes a thankless task. “We’re an easy target for the press,” he says. Not just the press, it seems. Jacob Rees-Mogg famously toured civil service departments, leaving a cheery ‘while you were out’ note on hybrid workers’ desks.
Given that one of the positives of the pandemic has been a widespread shift to hybrid working, this seems a retrograde step. “We’ve had much more interaction with the Highlands and Islands and the Borders because I can use Teams to talk to anybody across Scotland,” Wallace insists. “Why would staff come into Edinburgh when they’re as far afield as Stonehaven, Jedburgh and Glasgow?”
Wallace concedes that hybrid working is an incentive to stay in the public sector, as is the sense of purpose from the job. But he admits that there are aspects of the role that could be improved. “Being allowed to fail. In private sector organisations the culture is to fail fast but learn from it,” he suggests. But transferring private sector mindsets to the public sector isn’t that simple. “The challenge is that we have less money and higher expectations and scrutiny and we look after the whole population. Being able to fail and learn – rather than being crucified – that culture of risk has to move,” Wallace insists.
It’s a challenge they must meet. In the latest 2022 Digital Trends – Public Sector in Focus report from Adobe, only 14% of respondents said their digital experience was ahead of customer expectations with more than a third (37%) admitting they were falling behind.
Neil Bacon is a senior digital strategist at Adobe. He says: “We see two chief barriers to technology investment in the public sector. Data use and skills. There’s an uneven spread of digital skills at leadership and practitioner levels.
