David Blamire-Brown
Head of Client Development (Commercial)
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What does broken government IT from 2010 have to do with the UK's water sector crisis today?
In 2010, Martha Lane Fox called for a radical overhaul of government digital services in a government-commissioned review entitled ‘revolution not evolution’. The Government Digital Service (GDS) was formed to champion and drive change.
With technology rapidly changing, and talented software engineers drawn to the private sector, the necessary skills were in short supply. The lack of internal skills created a tension between suppliers and buyers that manifested in detailed procurement specifications and complex, detailed contracts designed to cover all eventualities, rather than foster collaboration.
The work of transforming an entrenched industrial structure has valuable lessons for other sectors. Here are three that feel most applicable to the Water sector today.
1. Creating multidisciplinary teams
In 2010, the default model for government IT projects was for a policy team to establish legislation. This was then handed to a team of specialists to identify any new technology requirements . A technology team, usually an external supplier, would be contracted, based on a detailed specification, to build a solution. Finally an operational team would be handed the working software, trained how to use it (if they were lucky) and expected to work out how to implement any new processes required to operate it.
The serial nature of this model delayed programme delivery. Design cycles became endless as requirements shifted before work could be completed. When delivery started, new issues were immediately identified, requiring new design decisions.
GDS set standards for multidisciplinary teams that had representation from all stakeholders, transforming how policy informed delivery. Quality assurance reviews and service standards defined what good looked like and also made it easy to pause projects that were not set up to succeed.
2. Setting standards for interoperability
In 2010 the typical answer for government IT projects was a bespoke software build.
GDS fundamentally changed the landscape by emphasising open standards and the creation of reusable platforms such as GOV.UK Notify. Until the creation of Notify, the government's process for providing transaction notifications to citizens had involved each department building its own means of communication.
There may always be tension between nurturing effective commercial markets and creating standardisation. Standardisation inevitably leads to commoditisation, which translates to lower prices for consumers. For suppliers, it disrupts business models and strategic positioning.
On the other hand, market failures almost always harm end users by reducing choice, increasing cost and slowing innovation.
As we move to open monitoring, smart meters and data handover, standardisation is not optional. We cannot afford to have data locked in proprietary siloes.
3. Dismantling traditional procurement-industrial behaviours
In 2010, most government IT procurement was run through procurement frameworks typically of 10-15 suppliers running for 5+ years. As a new start-up embracing internet-era ways of working, you either had to find a prime contractor or you had to wait years.
GDS led a radically different commercial approach. Informed by work on standardising common service elements, GDS helped drive simpler, lightweight procurement vehicles for standard components. The GCloud framework was established, enabling some standard service components to be procured in days rather than months.
GDS also established a new Digital Marketplace. This opened the market to a much wider community of. With thousands of SMEs and start-ups, as well as established suppliers on the marketplace, competition and innovation increased dramatically.
How do these lessons apply to Water today?
Granted, there are clear differences between delivering sustainable engineering assets and digital government services. But there are also strong parallels.
The following elements would be a good starting point:
Shift from regulatory compliance to citizen service Current discourse focuses on how the regulatory system should be redesigned to work with delivery. But a more fundamental shift is possible: changing our organisations to align around the services that are delivered, not the functional siloes required to deliver in a compliant way.
Build multidisciplinary teams as a catalyst for collaboration We can create new conditions for success and collaboration, bringing together all relevant perspectives from the whole life of a project. These are not just different skills within the engineering discipline, but the full stakeholder landscape: regulators, local authorities, policy makers, community groups, supply chain, clients.
Overhaul procurement to identify the real drivers of value Output specification-based procurement often arises as a response to previous failed deliveries. But procurement that is built on a foundation of distrust inevitably yields dysfunctional relationships. As new conditions for success are created with multidisciplinary teams and resilient, adaptable design, procurement can shift to emphasise the outcomes to be delivered, not the things to be built. This shift speeds up procurement cycles, gathers faster feedback and aligns incentives between buyer and supplier.
Transform internal culture and capabilities It is said that "culture eats strategy for breakfast." The way things work today is based on a series of individually reasonable responses to lessons learned in the past. But sometimes those individual decisions add up to something that is not fit for purpose. It takes courage to embrace change. Government IT leadership embraced external perspectives and coaching to help them make the necessary changes.
Simple isn't easy
We take digital services for granted because they are simple to use. Can you remember queuing in the post office to renew your Road Tax to get a paper disc? Have you renewed a passport or driving licence re-using information you'd already uploaded to a government service? That simplicity comes from someone else doing the hard work.
Martha Lane Fox's report catalysed a new approach to government technology with an explicit focus on learning from internet-era ways of working. Public Digital’s founders were at the heart of that transformation.
This is a moment where our Water sector can choose a radically different future, making the hard work easier by learning from the lessons of other transformations.
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