How to build a better Britain?
Collectively leveraging digital, data and technology, and public procurement would help
On March 11, we attended techUK’s Tech Policy Leadership Conference 2024 titled ‘How can the next Government use technology to build a better Britain?’, which was held in the heart of Whitehall. The event was used to launch techUK’s 'Seven Tech Priorities for the next Government' report, elements of which were frequently referred to during the numerous panel discussions held throughout the day (session recordings are available on techUK's Youtube channel).
The title of techUK’s conference piqued our interest, having recently read ‘The Radical How’ report that was published by Nesta / Public Digital (PD) in February.
Both reports frame a number of challenges, opportunities and recommendations in the context of what the next administration should prioritise following this year’s UK general election. Both reports also recommend what the next administration should do first, next and later, to varying levels of specificity.
The techUK report recommends a number of activities to be carried out to put policies into action, mostly within the first 6 months:
Consultations and reviews;
Creating new entities, task forces and sandboxes;
Project scoping exercises and feasibility studies;
Invitations to tender; and
Policy “sprints”.
The Nesta / PD report recommends making mission-oriented government an enduring reality, and uses the decarbonising Britain’s housing stock mission to illustrate this, which will require the first 100 days to be focused on:
Publishing a clear statement of political intent and a clear set of outcomes that the government will be held accountable for;
Establishing a multidisciplinary team, including experts in policy, service design, user research, economics and technology, led by a Senior Service Owner;
Defining a clear set of hypotheses to test the core proposition - that it is possible to persuade people to give up boilers and install alternatives; and
Testing these hypotheses for real through a series of small, bounded experiments in the marketplace.
Here we draw out the challenges, opportunities and recommendations from the 2 reports, with some of our own commentary added, which we believe are most significant for:
Commercial and procurement practitioners involved in public sector digital transformation;
Digital, data and technology leaders across the UK public sector (not just central government departments); and
The next administration to focus on.
Challenges
Inflexible procurement processes: Traditional procurement practices are often rigid and not well-suited for the dynamic nature of technology and digital services. This can hinder the government's ability to respond swiftly to changing needs and to adopt innovative solutions effectively.
Inadequate early market and pre-procurement engagement: Current procurement practices often lack sufficient open and honest early engagement, which is crucial for understanding market capabilities, helping potential suppliers to understand the problems teams are trying to solve, and shaping procurement requirements effectively.
Barriers for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): The effectiveness of the Digital Marketplace, its early headway and world-leading status, has been steadily eroded over time. Consequently, existing procurement frameworks can be overly complex and daunting, creating significant barriers for SMEs that wish to engage in public sector contract opportunities.
Government buyer capability: Deficiency in the experience and risk aversion among government buyers, often leads to preference for established, large firms over potentially innovative SMEs and startups.
Cyber security and legacy IT: There’s a critical need for updating procurement strategies to address cyber security risks and the costly maintenance of outdated legacy IT systems.
Opportunities
Innovative procurement strategies: There’s significant potential to innovate within procurement to better support digital transformations. This could include simplifying processes and making them more adaptable to the needs of multidisciplinary digital, data and technology teams.
Make procurement more accessible to SMEs and scale-ups: There’s a significant opportunity to increase their participation in the UK’s substantial procurement budget. This is something we hope Shirley Cooper OBE will have at the top of her to-do list, as the recently appointed Crown Representative for small businesses.
Building civil service capability: Investing in retraining existing officials in scarce skills such as data science and cyber security, and mainstreaming better commercial practices in digital service delivery through new central entities, such as a ‘National College for Government’ and ‘Technology Procurement Delivery Body’ as proposed in the reports, would focus on addressing the above challenges and associated barriers.
Enhanced agility and flexibility: There’s an opportunity to make procurement processes more agile, allowing for quicker pivots and adjustments as projects evolve. This can lead to more effective public service delivery and sensible use of new technological capabilities (done ethically, inclusively and transparently, having experimented practically with how these might solve real problems).
Recommendations
Reform procurement practices: While the Procurement Act 2023 legislates for greater flexibility and innovation-friendly procurement, current working practices need to be overhauled to make them more aligned with the realities of digital service delivery. This involves adopting frameworks that allow for iterative development and practical experimentation with new technologies as they emerge.
Adopt test-and-learn approaches: Such methods within procurement would support teams to learn about what would and wouldn’t work in reality, at pace. This can lead to achieving more successful, impactful outcomes and better, more targeted use of public funds for trusted, empowered and multidisciplinary teams.
Support for SMEs: To encourage innovation and increase competition, implementing more proportionate procurement practices that lower barriers for SMEs, provides them with better and more equal chances to participate in government contracts.
New social value procurement guidance: Better integration of social value into procurement processes, and making these criteria clearer and more applicable across contracts, would help improve how service delivery is managed and better monitor and evaluate social value outcomes and impact.
Invest in digital infrastructure and move away from legacy IT: Open, standardised and canonical data, common platforms, loosely joined and adaptable components that are reusable, as well as clear design, should collectively serve as the basic foundations for the government’s technology infrastructure. Updated procurement and commercial approaches should match and require a more nuanced understanding of what digital public goods and infrastructure exists that can be reused, and what’s available in the market as ‘off the shelf’ cloud software.
Review of cyber security standards: A comprehensive review of cyber security standards in procurement would help ensure that procured goods and services meet the highest security benchmarks.
In conclusion, we can see how techUK’s priorities and Nesta’s / PD’s changes to make the Radical How a reality, each intersect at one or more levels with the Procurement Act 2023 that will come into force from Monday 28 October 2024 (according to the latest Cabinet Office update).
But (and it’s a rather large but) only if public sector commercial and procurement practitioners seize this golden moment to:
Reimagine their profession by heralding a renaissance in mindset, culture and behaviours, to realise the art of the possible;
Welcome a paradigm shift that’s fit for the internet era; and
At the very least be as radical as the changes set out within the Nesta / PD report.
At Curshaw Commercial we firmly believe that more streamlined, agile, innovation-friendly and outcome-based procurement and contract management approaches, undertaken by trusted and empowered multidisciplinary teams, can help address the range of challenges outlined here.
Every step of the commercial lifecycle is important to approach holistically, as each offers opportunities to either create or erode value and integrity. By doing this as recommended here, we can capitalise on a number of opportunities within the UK public sector and the digital, data and technology services sectors.
Collectively leveraging digital, data and technology, and public procurement can help to build a better Britain.
If the commentary here has piqued your interest, make sure you follow us on LinkedIn. We’re planning a series of thematically-linked blog posts, which will each focus on the specific elements covered here and Curshaw Commercial’s real world experience of helping clients throughout the commercial lifecycle.