Government departments have responded with extraordinary speed to national crises, with civil servants being lauded as hidden heroes. During the financial crisis of 2007-8, for example, Treasury staff worked swiftly to establish recapitalisation schemes that would help save the banking sector. In the most recent public health crisis, HMRC implemented job retention and income support schemes at breakneck speed; DWP moved thousands of staff to the frontlines to deal with an unprecedented surge in Universal Credit claims; and the DfE distributed thousands of laptops to vulnerable schoolchildren. As Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary Alex Chisholm has said, government “built new hospitals in weeks, set up digital services for the vulnerable in days, established new grant schemes in hours, and learnt to process Universal Credit claims in minutes”.
But now, as the UK gradually returns to normalcy, departments have entered a challenging period of policy uncertainty, combined with pressure to adapt to a changing working environment and greater citizen demand. As a result, many are keen to apply the same speed to transformation projects across Whitehall. As HMRC's Permanent Secretary Jim Harra said, “how do I bottle that when we go back to collecting people's contributions to pay for public service, rather than paying out support?”
This roundtable, hosted by Civil Service World in partnership with Boomi, will look at how that might be done. It will bring together public sector leaders from across the country to discuss lessons from the response to recent crises and what it means for the future of public sector digital transformation.
There is no better time to address your technology challenges as demand for digital services grows and people adopt to the new normal. This session will look at how to strengthen the civil service’s digital infrastructure to ensure it can continue to be relied upon to meet future challenges.
For more information, and to register your interest, please click here.