According to a recent study by Gartner, 80 per cent of government organisations are still at the initial or developing stages of digital maturity. Many public institutions have been stuck on a slow trajectory to digitise for years. However, the global Covid-19 pandemic has played a significant role in catalysing the digital transition, pushing governments to transform the delivery of public services.
As individuals and businesses started operating remotely at the beginning of 2020, the demand for digital services increased. This encouraged governments to digitise faster and to scale their digital capabilities by leveraging artificial intelligence and automation, often turning to cloud solutions.
A Covid-19-led transition
The U.S. state of Rhode Island, for example, modernised its unemployment insurance contact centre by using cloud technologies in order to increase its capacity to handle simultaneous calls.
In the first 45 days since the governor declared a state of emergency, Rhode Island's Department of Labor and Training received more than 140,000 initial claims for the unemployment insurance program alone. With approximately 80 per cent of all claims made on Sundays and the capacity to support only 74 simultaneous calls, the government agency’s web service needed a fast and cost-efficient solution.
In only 10 days the state migrated its service to the cloud, which allowed it to handle thousands of concurrent calls. Also, the old website didn't offer insights such as the number of applications that were filed unsuccessfully. In contrast, the new system provides direct access to the data – showing, for example, that about 900 people have been trying to apply every minute.
A ‘’whole-of-government’’ response
The example of Rhode Island shows that local governments are capable of moving swiftly when it comes to digitisation. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has also created a need for entirely new services, as its far-reaching consequences necessitate a ‘’whole-of-government’’ response.
The term "whole of government" refers to a digital infrastructure that makes specific technologies developed in one field of government accessible to another. In other words, it allows a diverse group of ministries and agencies to collaborate on a common issue.
The United Kingdom effectively developed such an infrastructure that enabled it to collaborate between institutions, increase public notification efficiency, and enhance security. Tools such as the GOV.UK Design System, GOV.UK Notify, and GOV.UK Pay enabled both central and local governments to ensure a timely service delivery.
For example, by incorporating GOV.UK Pay's payment connection functionality, the UK Home Office quickly developed an online processing system to facilitate payments that formerly required staff to be available on-site.
Indeed, several government agencies managed to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives in reaction to the demands and external drivers that emerged and escalated during Covid-19. They've even discovered that they can push further progress at a quicker pace than they previously imagined.
The Swedish municipality Trelleborg, for example, started using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to administer and handle welfare support systems. Administrative duties, such as calculating home care costs, are now performed by a case handler program, which leverages RPA. The RPA drastically reduced the statement wait time for welfare-support applicants from 8 to 20 days to 24 hours. Furthermore, applications used to take up to 17 minutes to process, whereas the adopted technology now is able to process them in less than a minute.
The Tipping Point
The global pandemic has been described as a tipping point when it comes to the digitisation of public and private-sector services. The World Economic Forum states that "the infrastructure around digital and innovation is critical for business continuity and for our future society to thrive, but it cannot be achieved by the action of one company or country alone and it requires global public-private partnerships."
This holds true, given that governments themselves depend on private sector innovation and infrastructure. After all, governments are not necessarily innovators and almost never entrepreneurs. Yet, public service providers are certainly adopters of technology and digital transformation.
And governments are increasing their willingness to share previously siloed data through API stores, data marketplaces and data labs. The goal is to create value-adding public services and predict risks and benefits prior to their occurrence.
Privacy and Data concerns
One critical component of digital transformation in the public sector is the implementation of technology that combines data privacy and security requirements with scalable capabilities. Several governments adopted cloud computing during the pandemic, enabling them to quickly scale their programs while maintaining administrative agility.
A truly digital government must be able to use more data in decision-making processes, as data provides both feedback and context, allowing governments to become more effective and attentive to citizens' needs. Furthermore, leveraging real-time data eliminates the risks of working with obsolete data generated with significant time lapses, thus providing governments with agility in crisis management.
In China, where data privacy concerns usually take a back-seat, the implementation of high-tech capabilities, including high-tech thermal scanners at train stations, have sped up the tracking of the transmission of Covid-19.
However, especially when people's health data is at play, an active public debate on security, privacy and ownership is guaranteed to take place. As a result, policymakers are tightening rules concerning the handling of sensitive data to safeguard citizens' privacy and allow them to control how their data is used.
The skill gap – a hindrance?
Aside from data privacy concerns, the speed and quality of a truly digital transformation largely depends on the workforce's relevant skills to keep up with the changes. Many government services had to be stopped or productivity was severely impacted due to the extensive reliance on people to deliver critical steps in the process.
One of the main challenges public administration workers are currently facing is the lack of the digital skills needed to keep up with digital transformation, including skills specific to the adoption of AI and big data. To tackle this hurdle, governments rely on building talent from the inside due to the in-depth understanding of the public sector's mode of operation.
Tipping point or stumbling block?
Public sector services are often still dependent on paper trails and bureaucratic processes, which can seem antiquated – especially when viewed from the perspective of consumers´ expectations, which have been shaped by companies like Amazon. Yet, as the rush to digitise in the past 18 months has shown, there is plenty of will and determination in many governments to move fast and make change possible.