Making a success of digital government

Our report, Making a Success of Digital Government, says that after five years of getting more services online, government is hitting a wall. But despite some public services still running on last century’s computers, the real barrier to progress is not technology but the lack of political drive from the top.

Filling your tax return should be as easy as doing online banking. The technology exists. But outdated practices and policies mean that, in the case of many government services, we are still filling in and posting off forms to be manually processed. Taking digital government to the next level – which the report says would satisfy citizens and potentially save billions in the process – requires leadership. Civil servants need to improve their skills, old systems need to be overhauled, and policies need to be updated.