Labour and digital government - how's it going so far?

As the Labour Party shifts focus from Westminster to Liverpool for its first annual conference in charge of the UK government for 15 years, MPs and members will no doubt take time to reflect on their early days in power. So why don’t we do the same?

What to make of Labour in digital government so far? The noises have been positive. “We need to rewire Whitehall,” said Peter Kyle, secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, in his first Parliamentary speech. “As innovation has accelerated, the state has fallen further behind,” he said – and he’s not wrong.

Where once the UK was rated in the top three digital governments in the world – as recently as 2017 – it’s become a laggard: “A glaring technology gap” between the private sector and public services, said Kyle.

The intent is there, and the recognition of a problem is there. But what about solving it? For the digital leaders at the heart of rewiring Whitehall, Labour’s “mission-driven” approach holds promise – in essence, a policy to cut across departmental silos where doing so tackles prime minister Keir Starmer’s five missions of kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower, taking back our streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity, and building an NHS fit for the future.

Gill Stewart, chief digital officer at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said the mission-focused approach provides an “overarching thread” for government bodies to align their digital transformation efforts.

Simon Bourne, chief digital, data and technology officer at the Home Office, added that, “What I’m seeing for the first time is the start of a really rich set of conversations across different departments involved in the justice system and the policing ecosystem, about how we work together, what data we can share,” he said. “It’s early days, but definitely moving in the right direction.”

Better collaboration, a recognition of joint problems and joint solutions, breaking down accounting silos – all these are challenges highlighted by previous, exasperated, Whitehall digital leaders. So, some progress?

But there’s a long way to go, and perhaps a recognition of the political cost might help move the dial quicker. Starmer has been widely criticised for scrapping the winter fuel payment for pensioners. It’s a universal benefit that most observers agree should not be paid to people who can afford their energy bills. Means-testing the allowance would not be so politically toxic.

But the simple fact is, the government is unable to means test pensioner income, so has to use a weak proxy like Pension Credit instead. Why? Because disparate, un-joined-up IT systems have no capability to identify which pensioners earn what amount in order to set an income level above which the allowance is withdrawn.

If Starmer and his government want to deliver radical change to the country, they will still need radical improvements in their digital capabilities to deliver the policies the UK needs.