Making Digital Government Work for Everyone

Recommendation Summary
The following table lists all recommendations from the report.
Each recommendation has been assessed to determine where it supports our five desired outcomes. The recommendations have has also had a high-level assessment of
yearly benefits and implementation cost.
In this assessment of yearly benefits we have focused on the benefits to the Treasury through reduced costs. Some of the recommendations, in particular recommendation
four, have a more detailed assessment within the detail of the report including an assessment of the economic benefits to wider society.
For both benefits and costs we have used the simple measure key of: -- = Unquantifiable, 0 = Existing Spend, = <5m, = <50m, = >50m. Some of the benefits will
go significantly higher than these figures, for example the digital transformation of central government services to modern standards will allow several billion pounds of
yearly expenditure to be redirected to other purposes.
Chapter

Ref

Recommendation

Priority

Supporting Desired Outcomes

Restore
Trust, Ethics
and Security

The Prize of
Digital
Government

Ensuring
Everyone
Enjoys the
Power of
Digital

3
4

Retain Cabinet Level leadership for digital

transformation but with individual Secretaries of
State in key departments (DWP, HMRC, DfE,
DEFRA, DCLG, Transport, MoJ, Health) leading in
their own areas.
Individual central government departments
should complete the digital transformation of the
identified transactions by 2020 to best-practice
standards under governance of the Government
Digital Service (GDS) group
Focus the best digital experts on services with the
highest value to society.
Provide digital skills to an additional 4.9million
people over the next Parliament. This will
improve peoples lives and create over
189million in annual savings

Design
Digital for
Everyone

Focus on
Benefits to
Society

Build
Delivery
Capabilities

Put
People In
Control

Estimated
Yearly
Benefits to
Treasury

Estimated
Implementation Cost

--

Benefits and Costs

Making Digital Government Work for Everyone

Chapter

Ref

Recommendation

Priority

Supporting Desired Outcomes

Restore
Trust, Ethics
and Security

5
6
7

Restore
Confidence in
Open, Shared
and Personal
Data

8
9

10

11
12
13
14

Empowering
People and

15

Extend the use of social infrastructure, such as

libraries and town halls, so it is increasingly fit for
use in digital inclusion, assisted digital
Direct Ofcom to produce a report on a Universal
Service Obligation for Internet access
Define a baseline set of digital capabilities that all
people should expect from the public sector and
work across the public sector to implement this
baseline by 2020.
Improve accountability by releasing public sector
performance data as open data
As part of a general move to open up geospatial
data the UK should have an open, authoritative
and definitive address dataset by 2021. This will
increase economic growth, reduce wasted effort
and improve access to public and private services
by all citizens
Government should provide a clear, easy to use
method for requesting open data and should
certify all open datasets to an equivalent level by
the end of the next parliament.
Set up a review into Data and Society
Discover and publish as open data all existing
data sharing agreements
Urgently deliver on the Identity Assurance
programme
Create an ethical framework and governance for
emerging ethical issues around the interaction of
the state, its citizens and corporations via digital
technology
Public sector organisations should publish open
roadmaps of service improvement plans and

Design
Digital for
Everyone

Focus on
Benefits to
Society

Build
Delivery
Capabilities

M
H

Estimated
Yearly
Benefits to
Treasury

Estimated
Implementation Cost

Put
People In
Control

Benefits and Costs

Page 96

Making Digital Government Work for Everyone

Chapter

Ref

Recommendation

Priority

Supporting Desired Outcomes

Restore
Trust, Ethics
and Security

Communities
through
Digital
Services

16
17

18
Thinking Local
by Energising
Cities and
Regions

19
20
21

22
23
Reducing Cost
with an Open
Digital
Architecture

24

actively request and listen to feedback on existing

services; suggestions for improvement and ideas
for new services
Ensure that open policy processes provide open
data and equal opportunity for people and
communities across the country to contribute.
Provide digital scaffolding to enable
communities to quickly form an online presence.
Stimulating such communities around public
services
Government Digital Service (GDS) should be given
the remit to work with local government
Maintain a strong, open evidence base to capture
the outcomes, costs and benefits of implementing
digital services in local authorities.
Local authorities should recruit strong, capable
leadership and delivery teams responsible for
both digital activity and culture change
A new national organisation to create local
digital factories should be set up and run on a
fundamentally open, collaborative and not-forprofit basis.
Use public spaces and open data to stimulate
local innovation
Run innovation challenges to help solve real
problems
Government should develop a common
architectural model and platform based on open
standards

Design
Digital for
Everyone

Focus on
Benefits to
Society

Build
Delivery
Capabilities

Benefits and Costs

Put
People In
Control

Estimated
Yearly
Benefits to
Treasury

Estimated
Implementation Cost

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Making Digital Government Work for Everyone

Chapter

Ref

Recommendation

Priority

Supporting Desired Outcomes

Restore
Trust, Ethics
and Security

Creating
Better
Outcomes by
Building
Digital
Partnerships

25

26
27

28
29

30

31

32
A Digital Civil
Service for a

Government should build on the G-Cloud

framework but needs to increase use of
commodity cloud services and actively research
and understand needs outside of central
government
CCS should publish a current and desired map of
frameworks; working to rationalize and reduce
the number of frameworks over time.
GDS should build on Digital Marketplace to
support the search needs of differing buyer
groups, to incorporate additional frameworks,
and to encourage searches aligned with
government policy
Government should experiment with open, online
feedback about suppliers
Cabinet Office should develop and publish
guidelines for how suppliers are expected to work
together when multiple suppliers exist in supply
chain.
Government should annually publish a forwardlooking procurement strategy to signal its
intentions and thereby foster an informed,
diverse and flourishing market of suppliers
Complete the update of the civil service
competency framework to recognize the need for
basic digital skills at all levels and the ability to
deliver on or work within transformation
programmes at higher levels
Recognise the need for and value of digital
specialists by offering appropriate salaries,
training opportunities and building career paths
to senior grades.

Design
Digital for
Everyone

Focus on
Benefits to
Society

Build
Delivery
Capabilities

Benefits and Costs

Put
People In
Control

Estimated
Yearly
Benefits to
Treasury

Estimated
Implementation Cost

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Making Digital Government Work for Everyone

Chapter

Ref

Recommendation

Priority

Supporting Desired Outcomes

Restore
Trust, Ethics
and Security

Better
Government

33

34
35

Provide 5 days of digital training to all civil service

staff during the next Parliament and encourage
and support frontline workers to become
champions for a digital nation
Provide civil servants with the ability to
anonymously comment on projects and provide
ideas for improvements
Assess delivery capabilities and transparency
rules for major digital delivery projects and align
Major Project Authority (MPA) guidelines with
the need to focus projects with a high social value

Design
Digital for
Everyone

Focus on
Benefits to
Society

Build
Delivery
Capabilities

Put
People In
Control

Benefits and Costs

Estimated
Yearly
Benefits to
Treasury

Estimated
Implementation Cost

Page 99