Independent digital thinking for a post-Brexit Scotland?
- Summary:
- After the Brexit vote, Scotland's government is talking about another stab at independence. Whatever the outcome, there's some good digital thinking at work that will serve it well.
One of the potential consequences of Brexit is the potential for a second independence referendum in Scotland, which voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union (EU).
This might have some interesting consequences all round if a second vote were to result in a break-up of the United Kingdom as, based on current statements from the European Commission, Scotland would not automatically stay part of the EU, but would have to apply for membership as an independent country.
This would most likely be vetoed by Spain, whose government is not keen on encouraging the idea of regional separatism. At the very least, unless something changes radically, an independent Scotland would most likely sit outside of the EU for some period of time.
From a tech industry PoV, if independence is declared and Scotland is outside the EU for however long it takes to get back inside, this would also put data centers in the country - and there are a couple of big cloud services providers operating out of there - outside the reach of EU data protection law. I asked the question of what would happen then during the last referendum and got a stony silence all round from those I put the issue to. We’ll return to that topic as and when we need to.
An independent Scotland would also work to its own digital strategy. This would be less of a radical departure as the devolved nature of government in Scotland has seen considerable work done in this area already, including having a national cloud computing strategy for the country in place.
In fact there are signs of quite how far along digital thinking is in the fact that the Scottish government has taken advantage of the passing of the Scotland Act, which devolves responsibility to set income tax rates and thresholds as well as control over parts of the welfare system, to recruit a Chief Digital Office for Social Security and a Programme Director for Scotland Act ICT Delivery and Transformation.
The new CDO for Social Security “will be responsible for developing the strategic approach to digital services and IT for our new social security powers”, according to the job spec while the Programme Director “will be the senior technology leader and digital evangelist for the implementation of the powers in the Scotland Act”.
Local CDO
Those two senior digital roles come at a time when a majority of Scottish local authorities have teamed-up to hire a shared CDO, something that their English counterparts have yet to manage.
Twenty-six of Scotland’s 32 local authorities are joining forces to recruit a shared chief digital officer to work across the sector.
As well as working with the participating councils, the chief digital officer will also collaborate with the Scottish Government, SOCITM, SEEMiS, NHS National Shared Services and the Improvement Service on best practice, wider public sector strategic direction and new shared services and capacities.
It’s noticeable that two absent authorities are Scottish Borders and City of Edinburgh Council, both of which have recently signed massive, multi-year outsourcing deals of the ‘old school’ with CGI.
Despite the present absence of key authorities such as the City of Edinburgh Council and Scottish Borders. Scottish Borders Council is paying out £92 million for a 13 year deal that will see outsourcer CGI drive the local council's "transformation agenda", providing it with new technology to help it deliver "excellent customer services and streamlined systems.” Meanwhile late last year, City of Edinburgh Council awarded a s 7 year £186 million transformational outsourced ICT services contract to CGI, intended to facilitate digital shift.
That’s all great progress, but Scotland needs a national CDO to progress its digital initiatives, according to a report earlier this year from the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI), in collaboration with BT Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The Scottish Government does have a Digital Director in place whose remit is:
Ensuring that Scotland is positioned to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the digital age.
But the report argued that if Scotland becomes a “digital world leader”, the country’s GDP would increase to £13 billion by 2030, compared to £4 billion if only incremental improvements are made. That boost needs the leadership of a full-scale CDO, it added.
New procurement approaches
Meanwhile the Scottish Government has begun the next step in trying to find new approaches to public service procurement as part of its Digital Directorate program. The CivTech pilot phase is looking at the development of new digital solutions for services, using a procurement route that asks open questions rather than the traditional tenders approach of laying down technical specs.
Six service areas are involved in the pilot:
- Help improve air quality (Scottish Environment Protection Agency).
- Make flood forecasting information better used by a wider audience (Scottish Environment Protection Agency).
- Get health and social care data and analysis to the widest possible audience (National Service Scotland).
- Make data publications more accessible and appealing (National Services Scotland).
- Promote tourist destinations along the A9 (Transport Scotland).
- Use technology to design smart roads (Transport Scotland).
Engagement sessions for the individual challenges will be followed by multi-stage pilots. Following applications from potential solutions providers, three teams will work for two weeks on a chosen solution, after which one team will work on a three-month accelerator program.
In a pre-commercial development phase, the sponsor will have the opportunity to continue the contract with the participant team, while the final stage will involve looking to find further clients nationally and internationally.
The solutions providers will retain all of the intellectual property and any equity they may put into the project.
Alexander Holt, Head of Digital Communities in the Scottish Government, said:
There are two strands to this. One is around delivering better digital services for the public sector; and two, providing economic development opportunities. So you have challenge sponsors, public sector organisations, start-ups, scale-ups, interested participants and developers of solutions, so the citizen at the top of our hierarchy is the person who benefits most.
The applications phase closes on 25 July, with solutions selection by September. The Directorate is aiming to make the selections by mid September, then run the accelerator phase until mid December, followed by field testing and implementation up to the end of March of next year.
My take
Whether Scotland declares independence remains, as with so much around Brexit, something that only time will tell. But whatever the outcome, there's some good digital foundation work being laid down here. The local government shared CDO is an excellent initiative that bears replication elsewhere. I'm still stunned though that any local authority would commit to a 13 year contract with any provider in this day and age.