Published on the 13/08/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
In a recent blog post, titled Keep Calm and Carry On – England’s mantra during World War II – the new leader of the UK equivalent of Australia’s Digital Transformation Office called for more support…
Stephen Foreshew-Cain, former chief operating officer of the Government Digital Service (GDS) said he would lead the agency following the recent sudden departure of Mike Bracken, who had been in the top slot since 2011. Prior to leaving, Bracken had acknowledged the enormity of the challenge of trying to transform Government services to take advantage of modern technology to deliver improved services and reduced costs.
He wasn’t the only one to leave.
Paul Shetler, the recently installed head of the Australian DTO had a brief stint at the GDS before moving to Australia. The UK’s GDS has also lost its deputy director, Tom Loosemore, director of strategy Russell Davies and director of design Ben Terrett. Former GDS staff Leisa Reichelt and Jordan Hatch have meanwhile been lured to the DTO by Shetler.
In his blog Foreshew-Cain attempted to put the spate of defections in a positive light saying that; “digital transformation was neither a sprint nor a marathon, it’s a relay,” with people passing the baton from time to time.
However Bracken before leaving had already made clear than securing government wide transformation posed enormous political challenges despite the financial imperative facing governments the world over to do more with less. The challenges he faced in the UK are similar to those which Shetler may encounter in Australia.
While Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has Shetler’s back and has made the DTO responsible for driving innovation across every portfolio, those portfolios still have a measure of autonomy that Shetler and his team will have to navigate.
David Moody, vice president and global practice leader for government and public sector, for customer support and engagement specialist, Verint, is in Australia this week and told iStart that the challenge of transforming Government should not be underestimated even though “austerity measures mean governments need to do more with less.”
He questioned whether having a central transformation office was the right approach, as it could lead to tensions with individual departments or portfolios which were being told what to do.
Moody has written a blog on the issue, this week noting; “In short the responsibility has to be devolved to the organisation delivering the service,” adding that this had now been recognised in the UK and US where chief digital officers were being appointed in individual departments.
He warned that comprehensive digital transformation of government services would be neither simple nor cheap.
“There has been a lot of supposed success with shiny happy apps. But behind the scenes it is still the same,” he said. “It’s great for politicians to stand up with …. but it’s lipstick on a pig.”
Verint is currently installing a speech analytics system in Australia’s Department of Human Services to help analyse caller needs, and hence speed their progress through a call centre. Moody said that Governments all over the world were now attempting to “channel shift” and encourage citizens to go online to access government services, but warned that without comprehensive reform of the back end, any changes could be purely cosmetic.
Moody said that a UK survey of local authorities revealed that digital transformation projects were much harder than had been anticipated as back end processes needed to be completely re-engineered.
He said that the successes to date had come mainly from automating very simple processes.
