January marked the one-year anniversary of the Government’s Blueprint for Modern Digital Government. The blueprint sets out a vision to enable five outcomes: easier lives, faster growth, firmer foundations, smarter organisations, and higher productivity. It promises a government that works across departmental boundaries, uses data intelligently, and designs services around citizens rather than organisational charts.
Whilst the blueprint’s intent is widely understood, the real test is whether change is visible in how services are experienced by citizens and delivered day-to-day. There are encouraging signs emerging: 58% of UK residents say their interactions with government are mostly or always good, and 37% of government bodies have already deployed AI, with a further 61% piloting solutions to improve services and productivity.
Capability is strengthening through the Government Digital Service and wider leadership investment, supported by growing skills and adoption across the workforce. 74% of public sector tasks are suitable for AI automation or augmentation, and most public sector leaders expect significant upskilling over the next three years. Government is increasingly finding ways to transform while delivering critical public services, and it is laying the foundations for sustained system‑wide improvement.
Therefore, there are reasons to think something genuinely different is underway this time.
Below, I share our perspectives as a strategic partner to the UK Government on what’s worked well and what needs more attention.
Getting the diagnosis right
The blueprint stands out for its pragmatism. It brings together a shared diagnosis across government which does not suggest that digital transformation is a matter of buying new platforms or rolling out the latest technology. Instead, it outlines six clear priorities including joined‑up services and stronger digital foundations through to AI adoption, leadership capability, and procurement reform. These priorities draw on lessons learnt from over a decade of digital reform, including the National Audit Office’s own recommendations. Its recent positive assessment of the Bank of England’s major system renewal alongside partners showed that complex digital transformation can deliver value when there is clear accountability, sustained leadership and a willingness to invest upfront.
Building a smarter state: what is working
The new Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo, wants government to be known for delivery, efficiency, and innovation. There is much to celebrate on this front. At Accenture, we partner with government to transform citizen services and drive operational efficiency through digital transformation and a deep understanding of how government operates. This includes adopting AI, digitally transforming court operations in Justice, improving front-line patient management in the NHS, closing the tax gap at HMRC, and supporting operational efficiency at DWP.
In areas such as tax, end‑to‑end digital services have moved beyond pilots to run national transactions, integrating legacy and cloud systems to improve reliability, resilience, and scale.
At the centre of government, digital leadership is increasingly delivery‑focused. During the pandemic, government demonstrated its ability to move at pace: rapidly standing up digital services, sharing data across organisational boundaries and scaling solutions nationally under pressure. That experience is now shaping a more permanent shift, with cross‑government digital, data and AI capability increasingly used to assess ideas quickly and scale what works, moving the centre from setting standards to actively enabling live services.
This matters because the blueprint is aiming for services designed around users, supported by modern infrastructure, and backed by organisational authority to keep improving over time.
Building a smarter state: leadership, culture and skills
One of the blueprint’s clearest expectations, that public sector organisations should have digital leadership at board level, reflects a desire to embed accountability where it has historically been absent. But leadership alone is insufficient. Digital transformation must blend leadership, skills, culture, and capability, and not treat technology in isolation.
Cultural change takes time. Risk management is deeply embedded, often for good reason, while skills gaps can limit teams’ ability to adopt innovative approaches, even where intent exists. There are signs that this picture is beginning to shift. Alongside greater emphasis on digital leadership, there is increased focus on building capability at scale, particularly in data and AI. The Prime Minister has pledged to train ten million workers, including public sector, by 2030 through free training delivered by leading tech companies, including Accenture.
This focus on skills matters because it directly impacts the frontline. Around 42% of routine queries managed by government staff are suitable for automation, and 69% expect AI to reduce workload, freeing time for complex cases requiring judgement and human support. But this only delivers value if staff can use new tools with confidence. One third recognise that better service quality depends on upskilling, and with over one million AI training courses completed since mid‑2025, the focus is increasingly on enabling frontline teams to deliver better outcomes, faster.
The blueprint’s real test lies in successive leaders sustaining focus, investing in skills and capability over time, and accepting that meaningful transformation requires disruption.
Directionally right, delivery still emerging
One year on, the government can point to clear progress and has set out clear next steps through the roadmap for digital government. Positioned as a strategic reset rather than a fixed plan, the blueprint and roadmap show that meaningful transformation is achieved through sustained change, not quick wins.
The challenge now is to move decisively from testing to scaled delivery. Innovation will only deliver public value if proven methods are embedded into everyday operations, supported by sustained investment and the confidence to retire legacy approaches.
I would encourage the government to:
- Adopt a sharper focus on value realisation, using digital to improve outcomes, free up capacity and strengthen core services, while building the institutional capability to scale at pace.
- Harness and better exploit its partnerships with the private sector to extract value and ensure the right outcomes are delivered as part of a cross-government strategy. Recent examples show what happens when government flexes its convening powers.
- Focus on how to enable transformation at scale. We all have a role to play in ensuring digital transformation becomes integral to how twenty‑first‑century government operates.
About the author
Ashish Goel
Ashish leads Accenture’s Health and Public Service business in the UK and Ireland and is a member of the Accenture UKI Executive Board. A chemical engineer by background and technologist at heart, he brings global leadership experience and is known for his entrepreneurial approach to driving strategy, digital transformation and building high-performing teams.