Daniel Korski: To rise to the digital challenge, councils should embrace private sector practitioners and volunteers | Conservative Home
Daniel Korski is a London technology entrepreneur. He was Deputy Head of Policy at №10 Downing Street when David Cameron was Prime Minister.
London is one of the most dynamic and diverse cities in the world, but it also faces many challenges such as inequality, congestion, pollution, and crime. To tackle these issues effectively, we need public services that are responsive, efficient, and accessible to all Londoners.
In the modern world, that is in part a digital challenge. People expect services on their mobiles and easy-to-navigate websites — whether they are getting a parking permit or submitting planning applications.
But better-digitised devices do not just offer a better customer experience; they can offer considerable savings when so many councils are under financial strain. According to a report by McKinsey, digitising public services can generate up to £46 billion in annual benefits for UK citizens and businesses.
In London, boroughs have already started to make savings. Hammersmith and Fulham’s online self-service portal has saved £1.15 million annually with 70 per cent of households registered. London Borough of Barking and Dagenham has achieved a 100 per cent digital shift for benefit claims, reducing processing times by 30 days and saving £617,000 annually. Finally, Hillingdon has saved £4.597 million (2011–2014) by integrating telecare and assistive technologies.
However, these figures represent pockets of success. Digitisation is not an easy task. It requires investment, innovation, collaboration, and skills.
Founded in 2019, the London Office of Technology and Innovation ( LOTI) has spearheaded recent digital transformation with 22 councils, developing digital apprenticeships, pipeline adoption, information sharing frameworks and developing the London Data Store.
Despite this, councils in London still face many barriers to upgrading their digital services, such as legacy systems, siloed data, complex regulations, cultural resistance, and cyber threats to say the least.
Underpinning each of these issues is a common factor.
Unless boroughs have access to people with the required technical talent, none of the opportunities for effective digital transformation will be grasped. There is an industry wide shortage of engineering and technical talent, let alone of those who are willing to work at lower pay in the public sector. Poorer boroughs especially struggle to attract and retain skilled workers, losing out in the face of stiff salary competition from the private sector.
While LOTI does offer Councils recruitment support, it does not go far enough. Councils cannot afford enough best-in-class expertise.
That’s why we need a London-wide Digital Corps of coders, engineers, designers, and product managers: a pool of experts who can work on various projects for different councils and departments to facilitate digital transformation across public services.
But rather than just create another government body, London should follow Taiwan’s example and create a decentralised community for coders and volunteers who can develop digital tools to support more open, more efficient public services. There are hackathons a-plenty in London. Instead, we need a more systematic way of delivering useful products.
Taiwan’s g0v (gov-zero) has led the way in bringing volunteers into service; in one case a project to track political contributions resulted in 30,000 files within 24 hours, an extraordinary feat of engagement.
A London Digital Corps could consist of two elements. First, a cadre of people ready to be deployed into councils. Companies, incentivised by local tax discount benefits, could second experts into the Digital Corp who would otherwise not work for local government. Secondment in the Digital Corps would offer private sector practitioners a unique opportunity to develop new knowledge and networks across London by working on some of its most interesting and complex tasks.
Second, a London Digital Corps should also be a network of volunteers (including citizens, business and charities), working through an open-source platform to contribute to digital programme development suggestions in their spare time.
Such a London platform, modelled on the Taiwan platform, would facilitate an iterative development process where Londoners have easy access to a rough consensus on the issues that matter most to them, and the programmes being developed to solve them. Londoners would be encouraged to be active participants in, rather than passive recipients of, their public services. This could help to overcome many of the problems that have bedevilled programmes recently.
With these two components, the London Digital Corp would be a flexible and scalable model that could adapt to changing demands and opportunities, with staff deployed locally into London councils and agencies where needed. Experts would bring fresh ideas, best practices, and cutting-edge technologies to create solutions and solve problems according to the real-time needs and priorities of Londoners.
A London Digital Corp would require startup funding by central Government and the GLA, but if its costs could largely be borne by a percentage taken from all IT contracts across all London’s councils, the additional outlay could be limited.
The corps would also hopefully create savings and be deployed locally according to the real-time needs and priorities of Londoners.
London deserves nothing less than world-class public services that meet the needs and expectations of its citizens. A London Digital Corps would be a valuable asset for achieving this goal.
Originally published at https://conservativehome.com on March 23, 2023.
