Autumn Statement 2015: Why the Government Digital Services needs a boost from George Osborne
Pity the bureaucrats this morning. Civil servants across Whitehall have been asked to impose more major cuts to departmental spending.
BIS faces a cut of 17 per cent by 2020, while Transport will lose 37 per cent.
Others, however, have been spared – some quite unexpectedly. The Arts Council’s budget will be increased, in spite of cuts to its mother department of Culture, Media and Sport. More art, less sport – not my ideal conclusion. More welcome from my point of view, however, is the extra £450m being allocated to the Government Digital Service (GDS), which sits within the Cabinet Office (itself facing a cut of 26 per cent).
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What is the GDS? If you’ve noticed how much government websites have improved since 2012, thank the GDS. Responsible for making government’s online services “simpler, clearer and faster”, GDS has been fighting an uphill battle against legacy technology systems and patchy connectivity between government departments since it was founded in 2011.
As the chief executive of a company that primarily operates online, I have a lot of sympathy with the GDS. But almost all companies incorporate an element of technology now and a more material reason to support yesterday’s funding boost is the work that the service is doing for online security. Now in its “beta” stage, the GDS’s Verify scheme is creating a better way to manage your personal identity online.
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This is a project that needs to happen. Often, opening accounts online involves sending scans or even hard copies of sensitive documents like bank statements, utility bills, or passports. This is whether you’re opening a new bank account, applying for a loan, or making an investment.
Documents get lost, or held-up. The process is always inconvenient. It is always time-consuming. It is a barrier to consumers who want to switch services, and it is consequently a barrier to effective competition and therefore to innovation.
Verify will allow individuals to create a single, secure online identity, which can then be used across a range of government services and, later, the GDS plans to open up the scheme to the private sector.
It will help in the battle against online identity fraud, and will enable businesses across the UK to cut their costs and compete for customers.
The £450m is symbolic of a wider, and very welcome, wave of government enthusiasm for innovation. Using the finance sector as an example, a fortnight ago the regulator announced a sandbox to support experimental innovation in financial services. A consultation on new types of ISAs closed in September, and the Financial Advice Markets Review is trying to simplify the way financial advice is delivered and made available to more people.
Cuts might be happening across government services. But there are reasons to be hopeful that this government understands how urgently we need to move government and private sector services, from banking to investment, into the digital age. The Government Digital Service’s mission to make online government “simpler, clearer and faster” is a valuable one. It deserves its money.