Labour and Lib Dems demand answers over delayed Transformation Strategy
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The opposition parties claim that the Prime Minister’s office is “moving to downgrade GDS” and that the digital revolution has been “downgraded”.
Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs have strongly criticised the Prime Minister’s office today, following the surprise decision to once again delay the much anticipated government Transformation Strategy (previously known as the Digital Strategy).
The Shadow Digital Economy Minister Louise Haigh, Shadow Minister for the Industrial Strategy Chi Onwurah and leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron have all told diginomica/government that Number 10 is dragging its feet and is putting the Government Digital Service at risk.
The strategy has been promised since the end of last year and has been delayed numerous times - with the government previously putting blame on the EU referendum for the changing timelines.
Since then it has consistently been promised that the strategy would be released by Christmas.
However, diginomica learned from sources on Friday that Number 10 had “canned” the strategy, with no clear reason as to why or when it would be released. The Cabinet Office said on Friday that the strategy would be published in “due course”.
diginomica/government was leaked the strategy a couple of weeks ago - where we said that it left lots to the imagination, with very few targets or ambitions in place to drive transformation throughout the public sector up until 2020.
Louise Haigh MP, Shadow Digital Economy Minister, told diginomica/government:
The digital strategy which was billed by Ministers last year as the chance to ‘transform government’ and lay the foundations for the digital revolution has been downgraded, delayed and now seemingly kicked into the long grass. It is now twelve months late and leaked drafts revealed the painful lack of ministerial ambition and vision for digital at the heart of government, relying instead on buzzwords and clichés.”
It is no wonder the PM canned it but while Ministers struggle to articulate any sort of vision at all, Whitehall mandarins are moving to downgrade GDS and with it the chance to truly transform government.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, said:
Government have thrown £450m at their own digital service yet there is still no indication of when we might see a transformation strategy affecting the public sector. Number 10 are dragging their heels and an explanation is needed fast.
Chi Onwurah MP, Shadow Minister for the Industrial Strategy, agreed and said:
The last Tory led Government took five years not to produce a vision for our communications sector, whilst making significant long term mistakes with broadband rollout. This Tory Government seems determined to extend this incompetence to the entire digital sector.
And indeed as the Industrial Strategy has also been repeatedly delayed and they refused to give any plan for Brexit they appear to be abdicating wholesale the responsibility of Government to provide vision and direction and minimise uncertainty.
Growing concern
It’s been a turbulent year for digital in government. The Government Digital Service leadership was replaced, with now director general Kevin Cunnington brought in from the Department for Work and Pensions to replace outgoing executive director Stephen Foreshew-Cain.
On the day of Foreshew-Cain’s ousting, a number of other digital chiefs in government left their positions, with some describing it as the “day of the long digital knives”.
We wrote a piece on that day accusing civil service chief John Manzoni of playing political games to take the public sector back to a time when IT projects were ruled by a few select suppliers and failures made people lots of money.
The UK is held up as a leader in digital government, but there is a risk that the good work could be undone.
I met with new GDS general director Kevin Cunnington a couple of weeks ago, where he explained his vision for transforming the public sector. He put emphasis on combining the government’s previous waterfall approach to projects with the agile approach of GDS to truly transform the ageing backend systems across government.
Cunnington’s approach has been criticised by some since the interview went live - including by GDS’s previous executive director Stephen Foreshew-Cain, who said that the approach would be a “stupid, remedial step”. On Twitter he publicly posted (quoting the interview):
"We’re actually quite good at [waterfall]." Oh dear. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. https://t.co/H6SOI1u6wI
— Steve Foreshew-Cain (@s_foreshew_cain) December 16, 2016
It is also rumoured the delay in the release of the strategy has something to do with Cunnington’s plans to up-skill the civil service, by bringing DWP’s skills academy across to the Cabinet Office and scaling it up across central government. During my interview with Cunnington, he said:
We brought the academies over from DWP. DWP trained roughly 3,000 of their own staff in these academies over the last two years. We’re going to double that number and train 3,000 civil servants a year going forward.
[That] gets us over that obstacle of not having enough skills within departments to do the things we might want to do. The academy is definitely cross-government.
However, one source suggested to me that whilst DWP’s permanent secretary agreed for the academy to be transferred over to the Cabinet Office, the plan has not received the funding from the centre.
My take
It has now been over 12 months since the Government Digital Service received £450 million from the Treasury to modernise government services up until 2020. Our concerns are getting worse and I find it disappointing that Cunnington and GDS aren’t receiving the backing from the centre and Number 10. Especially if it’s because of the investment in skills - one of the areas I strongly agree needs investment.
Whilst I wasn’t particularly keen on the leaked Transformation Strategy, it’s delay makes it feel like everything is balancing rather precariously as we enter into the New Year. I’m aware of political games being played and unfortunately Whitehall can’t seem to see past that to get the job done.
Clarity is needed. And soon.