Predictions 2015: Public Sector SITS

In the UK public sector, though the General Election will bring uncertainty and interrupt momentum in the early part of 2015, most organisations – whether Whitehall or in the broader public sector – are aware that more radical transformation is required if they are to continue delivering public services while constraining spending. As a result, during 2015, we will see an ‘invest to save’ ICT mentality penetrating more and more public sector organisations. However, this will all be happening in the context of an increasingly complex supplier and technology landscape, exacerbated by the fast introduction of new digital technologies. So, the Government (whoever is in power) will spend 2015 revisiting some of the assumptions put in place over the past few years, particularly in terms of commercial and procurement models.

TechMarketView’s 2015 theme ‘Joining the Dots’ will be extremely relevant in the public sector in 2015. It will be a year defined by public sector organisations trying to seek out the best approaches to enable increased collaboration – ‘joining the dots’ - between public sector organisations, with external organisations (including suppliers and the third sector), and with citizens. Finding ways to enable the sharing of data, as well as opening up Government data, to allow this ‘joining up’ to occur, will be a particular feature of the year. Here we outline what we think will happen.

The General Election & the age of austerity: Austerity continues. Transformation is required across the public sector as budgetary cuts bite harder. But more creativity is required to cut costs while improving public services. The General Election will bring uncertainty; public sector organisations will be reluctant to embark on new initiatives and this will bring more frustration for suppliers. But in the second half of 2015, focus will need to return to the ‘digitisation of government’ and the continuing move to eliminate Government silos through the joining up of people, processes and systems.

The re-rise of the systems integrator: Over the past year, we have witnessed a step change in attitude towards the large systems integrators. From collectively being on the ‘naughty step’, the Cabinet Office has accepted that they require suppliers with deep knowledge of the public sector to guide them on what will be a difficult transformational journey over the next few years. In the world of ‘digital’, systems integrators will be the bolt that holds everything together and helps the public sector ‘Join the Dots’. The large SIs are taking this approach to developing their business outside of Whitehall as well – using their integration skills to, for example, take data analytics capabilities to the table and open up new opportunities.

SMEs as subcontractors: SMEs will still have a significant role to play in the public sector. Indeed, digital transformation requires input from smaller firms with different capability sets. However, as projects scale up, i.e. move on from the pilot or proof-of-concept stages, or require more complex integration with other systems, larger providers will be asked to take SMEs in as subcontractors. This will increase the focus in 2015 on how to ‘join the dots’ between large SITS companies and SMEs and improve their working (and contracting) relationships.

Procurement & commercial models will evolve: The procurement environment in the public sector is renowned for being complex: multiple frameworks, diverse supplier arrangements and various contracting models. Suppliers and customers are often flummoxed by the array of options. Digital technologies – social, mobile, analytics, and cloud – are set to call into question some of the procurement and commercial methods currently in favour. During 2015, we expect public sector organisations to carefully consider the procurement and commercial structures currently in place and start to favour those that fit with the long-term view of the digital transformation journey, while offering the most effective route to ‘joining the dots’ between different technologies and between numerous ICT services providers.

Increased collaboration a necessity, not a luxury: ‘Joining the Dots’ between public sector organisations, even within the same region, has been one of the most problematic issues faced by the Government. Barriers to moving away from the historic silo mentality have been political, cultural and legal, rather than technical. Attempts to implement formal shared service arrangements have suffered from a lack of organisational buy-in and have not progressed as fast as hoped. The one ‘ray of light’ has been the Troubled Families programme, which by focusing on the complex needs of one citizen group, has made considerable strides in a short space of time. There now seems to be acceptance that collaboration initiatives from 2015 onwards need to have specific goals to drive momentum.  

Subscribers to PublicSectorViews can read about these Predictions in full here: Predictions 2015: Public Sector SITS. If you do not currently have access to the PublicSectorViews research stream and would like to become a subscriber, please contact Deb Seth.

Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '09:06' - Tagged: publicsector   predictions