{"id":619946,"date":"2023-03-20T09:50:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T14:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/20\/the-digital-education-problem-at-the-heart-of-government-transformation\/"},"modified":"2023-03-20T09:50:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T14:50:11","slug":"the-digital-education-problem-at-the-heart-of-government-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/20\/the-digital-education-problem-at-the-heart-of-government-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"The digital education problem at the heart of government transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/HeroImages\/London-Westminster-Houses-of-Parliament-aerial-zgphotography-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" data-credit=\"zgphotography - stock.adobe.com\"  width=\"520\" height=\"173\" alt><\/p>\n<p>zgphotography &#8211; stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"content-header\">\n<h2>A recent NAO report on digital government highlights some progress and ongoing challenges \u2013 but Whitehall needs to tackle a more fundamental flaw if it\u2019s to deliver true digital change<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"content-center\">\n<ul>\n<li><i data-icon=\"1\"><\/i><\/li>\n<li><i data-icon=\"2\"><\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"contributors-block\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Mark-Thompson-60px.jpg\" alt=\"Mark Thompson\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/contributor\/Mark-Thompson\">Mark Thompson,<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Exeter Business School and DIGITLab<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n\tPublished: <span>16 Mar 2023<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<section id=\"content-body\">\n<p>Two years ago, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252504290\/Government-officials-lack-experience-to-lead-digital-transformation-says-NAO\">National Audit Office (NAO) report into digital change in government<\/a> made fairly grim reading. It documented many seemingly intractable issues government has experienced in trying to deliver \u201cdigital\u201d (essentially, \u201ctechnology\u201d) initiatives at the programme level. For example, understanding of its aims, getting the commercial aspects right, tackling its vast legacy estate, building capability, and so on.<\/p>\n<p>In March this year, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/365532069\/Government-departments-need-to-better-understand-digital-transformation-or-efforts-will-peter-out\">NAO published its follow-up report<\/a>, <i>Digital transformation in government: addressing the barriers to efficiency<\/i>. While its tone is similarly critical, there is perhaps a note of optimism.<\/p>\n<p>This time, the NAO focused on the efforts to date of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252500188\/Government-digital-chiefs-outline-plans-for-CDDO-and-GDS\">Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO)<\/a>, which was set up not long before its July 2021 report. The NAO assessed the CDDO\u2019s progress in trying to reinvigorate a transformational narrative that had largely become moribund across government. About time, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the NAO acknowledges that government\u2019s \u201ctransformational\u201d efforts to date have centred largely around \u201cdeveloping digital front ends\u201d &#8211; \u201cattempts [that] have often prioritised developing the citizen-facing elements of a service over tackling the more complex underlying issues posed by legacy systems and poor data quality\u201d. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/opinion\/Searching-for-the-signal-of-open-standards-amid-the-growing-noise-of-agile\">I hate to say \u201ctold you so&#8230;<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moving responsibility for government transformation from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252501808\/CIO-interview-Tom-Read-chief-executive-Government-Digital-Service\">Government Digital Service (GDS)<\/a> &#8211; which had really always been a delivery shop at heart, not an engine for transforming government &#8211; and giving it to the new CDDO was a great idea, as was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252521307\/UK-government-promises-1bn-savings-from-latest-digital-strategy\">CDDO\u2019s roadmap<\/a>, a genuine attempt to reinvigorate genuine structural digital transformation, as opposed to citizen-centric front ends.<\/p>\n<p>The roadmap tries to establish some useful, if hugely overdue, baselines for transformation, including: a data-gathering exercise (\u201cwhere\u2019s everyone at?\u201d); a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252527371\/HMRC-will-begin-migration-from-Government-Gateway-to-One-Login-in-summer-2023\">single Gov.UK login<\/a>; data quality; common standards; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252514283\/Government-publishes-update-on-plan-to-tackle-legacy-IT\">tackling legacy IT<\/a>; addressing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252525692\/Public-sector-aims-to-close-digital-skills-gap-with-private-sector\">skills shortages<\/a>; and leadership\/influencing. So far, so good.<\/p>\n<p>However, while the NAO notes some early progress against these objectives, the watchdog concludes by stressing \u2013 yet again \u2013 that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252527942\/Civil-servants-want-more-digital-skills-training-survey-finds\">government lacks the skills and expertise to deliver transformation<\/a> at scale.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s take a closer look at this \u201cskills\u201d thing. Worryingly, it appears that government is actually sliding backwards on this. It claims 4% of civil servants are digital professionals, compared with between 8% and 12% industry average; that there has been a 20% reduction in digital, data and technology (DDaT) apprenticeships from 800 in October 2021, down to 637 in December 2022; and a 7% increase in government DDaT vacancies, from 3,900 in April 2022, to 4,100 in October 2022.<\/p>\n<p>However, the skills problem is actually very much worse than stated, because these numbers only reflect some<i> <\/i>of the digital capabilities we need in government. There\u2019s a critical difference between \u201ctech skills\u201d and \u201cbusiness expertise\u201d in the context of digital transformation.<\/p>\n<p>Why does this matter? The answer is that while a shortage of DDaT skills points to a worrying lack of oars to row the government\u2019s digital ship, there\u2019s also a widespread lack of experienced digital business leadership, which means that the ship itself is largely rudderless. There\u2019s a general lack of vision, understanding and clear direction, about what it is that we\u2019re trying to transform <i>into <\/i>in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>This problem is partly due to a tendency to conflate these two concepts, in which the <a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/writtenevidence\/39203\/pdf\/\">ability to understand the implications and opportunities of digital technology and data for a department\u2019s purpose, services, structure and partnerships<\/a> is often lumped together with technical skillsets, like for a cloud engineer or a scrum master.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I am reliably informed that the CDDO digital education offering at permanent secretary level in the civil service is about data standards, agile teamwork, infrastructure, user-centric design, and similar concepts. While these are undoubtedly important for permanent secretaries to understand, this is \u201ctraining\u201d rather than \u201ceducation\u201d. A crash course in GDS DDaT practices emphatically does not<i> <\/i>equip our leaders to direct the radical, digitally-enabled reshaping of our public services that we require.<\/p>\n<p>I would not dream of basing my MBA Digital Business class at Exeter solely around technical skillsets (although we do cover them), since to focus on these alone would be failing to equip my students to lead in the digital era.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So why does government continue to fail to offer a decent digital business education to those we call upon to shape our complex public service landscape for an increasingly digital future?<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"DigDeeperSplash\">\n<h4>\n\t\t\t<i data-icon=\"m\"><\/i>Read more on IT for government and public sector<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/365532069\/Government-departments-need-to-better-understand-digital-transformation-or-efforts-will-peter-out\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero Images\/London-Westminster-Parliament-3-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-Westminster-Parliament-3-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-Westminster-Parliament-3-adobe.jpg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>Government departments need to better understand digital transformation or efforts will \u2018peter out\u2019<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Karl-Flinders-profile-pic-2022-140x180px.jpg\" alt=\"KarlFlinders\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Karl\u00a0Flinders<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252527942\/Civil-servants-want-more-digital-skills-training-survey-finds\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero Images\/London-Westminster-Parliament-1-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-Westminster-Parliament-1-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-Westminster-Parliament-1-adobe.jpeg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>Civil servants want more digital skills training, survey finds<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/lis pic.jpeg\" alt=\"LisEvenstad\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Lis\u00a0Evenstad<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252521378\/Whats-new-about-the-new-government-digital-strategy\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero Images\/London-parliament-digital-mobile-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-parliament-digital-mobile-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-parliament-digital-mobile-adobe.jpeg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>What\u2019s new about the new digital government strategy?<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Bryan-Glick-profile-pic-2022-140x180px.jpg\" alt=\"BryanGlick\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Bryan\u00a0Glick<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252521307\/UK-government-promises-1bn-savings-from-latest-digital-strategy\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero Images\/London-parliament-digital-mobile-2-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-parliament-digital-mobile-2-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/London-parliament-digital-mobile-2-adobe.jpeg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>UK government promises \u00a31bn savings from latest digital strategy<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Bryan-Glick-profile-pic-2022-140x180px.jpg\" alt=\"BryanGlick\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Bryan\u00a0Glick<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/opinion\/The-digital-education-problem-at-the-heart-of-government-transformation\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Yuri Mcnaught<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>zgphotography &#8211; stock.adobe.com A recent NAO report on digital government highlights some progress and ongoing challenges \u2013 but Whitehall needs to tackle a more fundamental flaw if it\u2019s to deliver true digital change By Mark Thompson, Exeter Business School and DIGITLab Published: 16 Mar 2023 Two years ago, the National Audit Office (NAO) report into<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":619947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22067,1781,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-619946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-digital","8":"category-education","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}