Central government and departments now believe that delivering public services digitally could save billions of pounds annually and make the services better and more flexible for customers. 'Delivering services digitally' means much more than using websites to access services. Each step of the service process needs to take advantage of ways technology can replace manual processes, and information from various sources can be used to inform decision-making. Government needs to be able to get and make use of more comprehensive information, organisations need to work together, and systems have to be able to respond to changes in the needs and behaviours of both customers and staff, and ever changing technologies.
As well as all the wider issues to be addressed when transforming public services, delivering services digitally means managing specific challenges and risks, from integrating legacy IT systems to protecting service continuity and avoiding cyber crime. Achieving such a scale of change takes new skills and new ways of thinking, leadership, careful governance and risk management, and an ability to share lessons across government.
Key NAO publications:
Audit committees should be scrutinising cyber security arrangements. To aid them, this guidance complements government advice by setting out high-level questions and issues for audit committees to consider.
There is scope for greater use of online public services but there are still significant numbers of people who cannot go online or do not wish to do so.
Digital transformation has a mixed track record across government. It has not yet provided a level of change that will allow government to further reduce costs while still meeting people’s needs.
This report considers the readiness of the government to deliver its ambitions for digital transformation in the NHS in England.
The Home Office spent at least £830 million between 2003 and 2015 on the e-borders programme and its successors, but has failed, so far, to deliver the full vision. We cannot, therefore view e-borders as having delivered value for money.
Defra, the Rural Payments Agency and Government Digital Service have not worked together effectively to deliver the Common Agricultural Policy Delivery Programme.
This is the first report on Agile delivery in which we aim to provide practical support to those in publicly funded bodies who are using or considering using the approach in business change programmes.
Outlining cloud services and their use in government, this guide suggests questions to ask at planning, implementation and management stages.
Despite major expenditure by central government departments,weaknesses in departmental strategies and governance arrangements have limited the effectiveness of skills development activities.
The NAO has published a briefing paper on the Government’s identity assurance programme, which is aiming to create a safe and convenient way for people to access government services online.
