The Science, Innovation and Know-how Committee has questioned tech specialists on the federal government’s plans for the digital centre of presidency – or the brand new Authorities Digital Service (GDS).
The committee examined the position of the brand new centre and whether or not the federal government’s digitisation of public companies might be profitable.
Earlier this month, prime minister Keir Starmer promised a possible £45bn in financial savings ought to the federal government get digital companies proper, and pledged to ship groups into authorities departments to make sure they’re utilising know-how and synthetic intelligence (AI).
That is a part of the federal government’s blueprint for digital authorities, printed in January 2025, which guarantees agile know-how supply, upskilling of civil servants and a concentrate on AI.
Giving proof to the committee, the federal government’s head of AI, Laura Gilbert, mentioned there are presently lots of people in senior digital, information and know-how (DDaT) roles in authorities who she wouldn’t “contemplate know-how folks”, including, “I wouldn’t rent them”.
“It’s very troublesome to rent technologists effectively. The way in which the civil service hires for this form of position isn’t appropriate for this form of function. It’s actually hit or miss,” she mentioned, including that having CVs with the appropriate buzzwords and programming languages checked off doesn’t essentially make these folks the appropriate match for the job.
“The system doesn’t have a option to rent that assures that individuals [can] do the job. Till that adjustments, it’s going to proceed to be very troublesome.”
She added that to develop into an AI engineer within the authorities’s AI incubator, she places potential hires by means of a four-hour coding check, testing their expertise in an actual situation, whereas the civil service “continues to be doing behaviour-based interviews and making an attempt to use that to technical roles”.
Gilbert mentioned she can be involved concerning the prime minister’s announcement that, by 2030, one in 10 civil servants might be in a digital position.
“Will they actually be digital expertise? Would Google rent them? As a result of that’s the usual we must be going for,” she mentioned.
The committee additionally questioned the potential £45bn in financial savings, a determine that comes from a Bain & Firm report printed in January 2025.
Gilbert mentioned the methodology for arising with these numbers “is completely good” however, as with all the pieces else, it’s guesswork.
She mentioned there’s a front-loaded half the place there are straightforward positive factors on fairly massive tasks you possibly can spin up that don’t depend on conserving legacy techniques afloat, however lots of will probably be long-term tasks that want folks and cash, and he or she doubts the federal government will ever get to some extent the place they’ll say they’ve saved precisely £45bn.
Former civil servant turned guide Richard Pope, director of Richard Pope and Companions, added that it’s “actually onerous to digitise an analogue service and never get monetary savings”, so there’ll naturally be financial savings.
“However tasks predicated on saving cash have a tendency to not work very effectively for the general public,” he added.
He’s additionally involved that the federal government has publicly targeted an excessive amount of on AI because the saviour.
“I ponder if ministers have painted themselves into the nook with AI just a little bit, as a result of it’s virtually like AI has develop into synonymous with financial savings,” he mentioned, including that there are different digital merchandise, companies and techniques that won’t sound as flashy, however work effectively, and that to attain the financial savings predicted, the federal government wants to make use of “the complete scope of digital”.
Each Pope and Gilbert are involved by the dearth of readability round what the federal government is making an attempt to do in information trade.
Pope mentioned that previously 5 years, GDS has accomplished 5 completely different information trade tasks, and the federal government’s blueprint indicators that one other one is within the works.
Gilbert is worried that the worth across the information programmes to this point has been “actually low and never far-reaching”. She says the plans across the information library and information sharing should be “actually clear” on why it’s being accomplished and what downside it’s making an attempt to unravel, whether or not that’s information trade inside authorities, public information, private information, what the outcomes might be, and the place the cash is being spent.
“The sensible implementation is essential. There’s a actual lack of readability on what persons are making an attempt to do within the system,” she mentioned.
Pope added that the brand new GDS wants to indicate that it could actually train affect throughout the system and concentrate on delivering good companies for civil servants and the general public, significantly attending to grips with outdated, end-of-life techniques.
“There’s lots of unmaintained know-how the federal government depends on to do its job. It’s not adequate in the meanwhile, and we clearly want to repair that. We have to do this concurrently delivering worth to the general public,” he mentioned.
Whereas the federal government’s plans for digitisation focus closely on cyber safety and legacy techniques, Pope mentioned it is very important suppose “a bit extra holistically” and concentrate on digital public infrastructure and what’s wanted to ship what works cross-government.
The specialists additionally identified that whereas the remit of the brand new GDS is an effective one, ought to it work, will probably be troublesome to get proper.
Pope mentioned that traditionally, GDS has been targeted on citizen-facing companies, versus companies and the broader financial system, which has been not noted.
Gilbert added that the proof might be within the implementation.
“The opposite factor is, how are we monitoring whether or not it’s delivering on that remit in a method that doesn’t contain plenty of written paperwork and includes precise outcomes?” she mentioned.
