Imagine a world in which interacting with government services feels as effortless as ordering a morning coffee – they remember your name, recognise you as the person who likes warm oat milk in their coffee, and respect your need to rush off to work after delivering your drink with a smile. That is the vision of a modern digital state, as laid out in Secretary of State Peter Kyle’s foreword to the government’s blueprint for a modern digital government. He described “a truly digital state – one where services work across institutional boundaries, and where digital credentials enable a more timesaving, personalised user experience”.
In a recent Civil Service World webinar, hosted in partnership with KPMG, a panel of digital trailblazers explored what this might mean in practice and discussed the latest findings from KPMG’s research on citizen experience.
What citizens want – the three Rs of service
The discussion began with an overview of KPMG’s 2025 Citizen Experience Excellence Report, given by Jo Thomson, Partner in Customer Transformation at KPMG. The report, now in its fourth year, provides a detailed analysis of how citizens view public services and what impacts their views.
The analysis is based on 31,640 responses that, when overlaid against the more than 100,000 citizen surveys conducted since the research began, provides deep insight into citizen experience across all UK regions, demographics and organisations.
Thomson reported that the headline findings for the public sector in 2025 are encouraging – with a slight increase in the overall citizen satisfaction score, closing the gap between public services and the customer satisfaction score recorded in the equivalent research for the private sector.
In addition, 77% of citizens say that staff are listening to them and there has been a 20% improvement in experience scores for citizens when digital channels are used. Nevertheless, she pointed out that this improvement should be viewed with caution, considering the additional complexity faced in terms of cost cuts and economic struggles. There is still work to be done as digital channels are only used 41% of the time, with 59% of citizens still relying on slow, high-cost channels.
The tendency to use these traditional channels results in frustration as citizens are less likely to receive the service they want. By creating well-designed digital channels and creating more robust engagement techniques, Thomson said, service providers can encourage users to engage with digital channels where they are more likely to have a better experience. She also stressed the need to move from thinking vertically (about the provision of a single service) to horizontally (taking in the whole breadth of services which a citizen will use).
Thomson also outlined three elements that the research suggests the public now expects from excellent services: the three Rs of the citizen experience. These are:
- Remember: Recalling citizens’ history so they don't have to start from scratch every time.
- Recognise: Tailoring services to citizens' individual needs and life circumstances.
- Respect: Treating citizens with dignity, empathy and respect for their time
Remember me – connecting the dots
Thomson explained that creating services which remember citizens is all about understanding a user’s history by joining up data, remembering their previous interactions and preferences for how they would like to be dealt with, including their channel preferences.
The 2025 CEE report found that 39% of citizens report that public services feel disjointed – they often must repeat themselves, which leads to frustration and has the effect of lowering experience scores by 17%.
Government is already working to address these issues. Panellist Emily Middleton, Director General for digital centre design at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, described work on the GOV.UK app, currently in private beta. With a single log-in, citizens will be able to carry their digital identity – their preferences, ongoing applications, and deadline reminders – across different public services. It will be like a digital passport to the entire public sector, but without the annoying queues.
And while Middleton’s team in the newly revamped Government Digital Service lead on this work from the centre, departments are also working to better understand and improve the overall journeys of their customers and service users.
Mark Thompson, Group Chief Digital and Information Officer at the Ministry of Justice, described how the department thinks of a “street-to-street ” approach. This process begins with removing someone from the street and continues through to rehabilitating them back onto the street, with various stages in between, including movement through different parts of the justice system, each with its own set of platforms and services. Throughout this process, there are several challenges around how to track and streamline support, including dealing with multiple legacy systems. His team is currently building an “interoperable tissue” – a digital solution to follow people through their individual journeys and improve outcomes overall.
In addition to improving outcomes in various ways, the ability to remember citizens also prevents duplication in service provision. KPMG’s Thomson explained that this has the added benefit of reducing overall costs, while also lowering dissatisfaction, which means people are more likely to trust public services.
Recognise me: designing systems around real life
Even the best digital journeys can falter if they ignore the nuance of people’s lives. KPMG’s research shows that recognising citizens – tailoring services for their behaviours and needs – can lead to a higher adoption of digital channels, providing a higher return on investment and better outcomes.
At the MoJ, Thompson explained, the digital teams map user journeys by describing the ‘personas’ of different users. These personas are grouped into those who are proactive (someone who is eager to engage but may need technical support), persuadable (someone who is hesitant, may have a particular vulnerability or sensitivity but one which can be overcome with enough support) and finally those who are disengaged (those who have very little interest in engaging at all).
By understanding these personas and mapping distinct journeys, service designers and owners can help improve accessibility and uptake.
Recognising citizen needs can also help to improve outcomes by supporting public sector teams to proactively engage with those who suffer from poor outcomes, preventing long-term costs. Middleton spoke about work at DSIT to join up multiple teams across central, local and healthcare to support people with long-term health conditions into employment. She described the department as acting like a catalyst, supporting teams in testing what works and has the biggest impact on people.
Together, she says, DSIT and the operational teams look for “what can be done quickly?” Relatively simple things, like creating a landing page to connect previously disconnected guides and information, can have a huge impact on people’s experiences when interacting with public services. Taking advantage of low-hanging fruit while the government works on longer-term structural changes is essential to delivering the next generation of public services, she argued.
Respect me
Treating people as individuals, and with dignity, empathy and fairness, is a key part of a great citizen experience. Yet 44% of survey respondents felt that staff do not go the extra mile for them.
Discussing this element of excellent services, the panel explored how technology can be used to support a more human and respectful experience for citizens.
Firstly, they explored the idea of dignity through automation. Thomson argued that simple, repetitive actions – like status checks or document uploads – demand seamless self-service. Automating these high-volume journeys respects citizens’ time, cuts reliance on costly call centres and frees human experts for complex cases.
Middleton also raised the paradoxical idea of building empathy through AI. She pointed to research in which AI agents, unburdened by rushed schedules, score higher on empathy than humans. These systems are not a silver bullet or magic, she added – they must be designed with the communities who will use them, built on robust ethical frameworks, and deployed where they add genuine value.
A great citizen experience hinges on empowered civil servants. The panel all agreed that a fundamental part of creating great services is through helping the teams which build and deliver them. For example, by making sure they have the information available to achieve the best possible outcomes and ensuring that they have the tools at their disposal to reduce the need for repetition.
Transitioning to next-generation services, which are digital at scale and personal by design, is not a one-and-done project. It is a shift in mindset that requires listening, learning and iterating. But when government services remember citizens’ past, recognise their needs, and respect their time, people feel valued. In turn, services cost less, public trust strengthens – and everyone is a winner.
Download now the
2025 Citizen Experience Excellence Report