A new report finds one-in-four digital systems used by central government are outdated, rising to 70% in the worst cases.
According to a new analysis published today, Tuesday 21st January, nearly half of all public services still cannot be accessed online. This means users are spending too much time applying for support in person, on hold to helplines, and travelling to council offices.
Workers themselves are wasting valuable hours on physical letters and paperwork, leading to ‘unnecessarily long’ response times, frustrated members of the public and over-stretched departments. Examples include being required to register deaths in person, and firms being forced to advertise in local news outlets when they want to purchase a new heavy goods vehicle.
In some instances, departments still rely on paper-based processes for 500 actions, making it much harder to share information with other teams, killing opportunities to streamline through closer collaboration. Some patients with long term health conditions are asked to speak with more than 40 individual services to get the care and support they are entitled to.
In the worst scenarios, 70% of systems being used were considered to be outdated, with many ‘red-rated’ due to their poor reliability and high risk to security. In NHS England alone, 2024 saw 123 critical service outages, leading to missed appointments, cancelled treatments, and exacerbating the already-huge backlog.
‘It doesn’t have to be this way – and it won’t be with our Plan for Change. There is a £45 billion jackpot for the public sector if we get technology adoption right, that’s twice the size of the black hole we faced when we took office, and it’s not an opportunity we can let pass us by,’ said Technology Secretary Peter Kyle.
‘The new findings are also expected to show government departments have been pushed towards bringing in contractors and consultants to complete basic technological tasks instead of full-time staff,’ he continued. ‘This trend was driven by weak salaries and headcount restrictions that stopped departments. This is despite them costing 3 times more than civil servants and eating up £14.5 billion in taxpayer money a year.’
The Government has also unveiled two bespoke AI tools it hopes will prove key in its mission to overhaul public services. Connect, developed in Whitehall, aims to help reduce delays to large-scale energy projects. Responding to the ongoing controversy surrounding the slow speed of connecting to the National Grid, the software will aid the newly announced AI Energy Council in bringing producers, big tech and suppliers together.
Meanwhile, Scout, created by the same team, focuses on delivery times for major multi-billion pound infrastructure projects, ensuring these are brought online on time and within budget. This replaces a manual process that involves reviewing 150 individual reports and documents, which often means significant information is missed when people are forced to skim read to save time. The analysis follows strict guidance set by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, cutting processing down from hours to minutes.
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