PRESS RELEASE : Whitehall set to bring in AI and data experts under plans to turbocharge productivity [July 2023]

• New Digital Secondment Programme to bring experts from top tech businesses into government
• AI to be harnessed to boost productivity
• Minister for the Cabinet Office Jeremy Quin gives speech on digitally-focussed reform priorities

DIGITAL gurus from the private sector will be parachuted into government departments as part of radical plans to turbocharge the technological skills of civil servants, Cabinet Office Minister Jeremy Quin revealed today.

Delivering a speech at respected think tank Policy Exchange, Minister Quin set out a number of measures which will drive forward the government’s plans to harness innovation and technology to make Whitehall run more efficiently.

The Minister demonstrated his clear intent to overhaul the way digital and data is utilised in government departments. This will start with a series of secondment programmes which are set to kick off in Autumn, beginning with the Digital and Data secondment scheme. Government will work with the major tech players, with plans to target FTSE100 companies in order to second digital experts into departments as well as giving civil servants the chance to spend time working within industry-leading businesses. This will then be expanded to other sectors such as science and engineering.

Minister Quin set out his ambition for the government to use AI confidently and responsibly, where it matters most, to improve public services and boost productivity. One example is the unit responsible for exploring Automation and Innovation in government, known as i.AI, who will become a permanent civil service team following a successful trial.

Another initiative is the creation of a Data Marketplace which will break down barriers to sharing data inside government. As we believe there is potential for government data to drive value and innovation in the economy, the government intends to make the marketplace available to third parties outside government, such as businesses and researchers by 2025.

In his speech, Minister Jeremy Quin said:

There are brilliant people in our Civil Service but I know there are many, as can be the case in any organisation, that feel frustrated and stifled by bureaucracy.

Alongside the Cabinet Secretary, I shared with Civil Service colleagues at Civil Service Live in Cardiff last week that we need every colleague to be calling out waste and inefficiency, determined to end the frustrations I know many share.

They can do so by more specialisation, more access to outside voices and fresh ideas, staying longer in post, delivering certainty on what we are seeking to achieve and benefitting from crisp evaluation on whether we have, while embracing the digital future which will transform all our working lives.

It comes as the latest efficiency drive, led by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, has published savings of £4.4 billion in the last financial year. The savings were made through central government teams, including more than £1.3 billion saved through  fraud prevention and detection, much of which came from advanced data analytics,  and more than £370 million of efficiencies found through modernising legacy IT systems.

The latest figures published by the Crown Commercial Service, an agency of the Cabinet Office who help procurement teams from different parts of government buy collectively, show a huge £3.8 billion in savings and commercial benefits achieved in the last financial year.

Minister Quin highlighted the need to address the skills deficit in the Civil Service, confirming his intention to oversee a streamlined recruitment process including a new digital platform for moving civil servants between departments seamlessly. This will allow the Civil Service to be more agile as different areas need more resourcing and is expected to save approximately £100m over the next 5 years.

There were also further commitments to increase transparency related to how the government evaluates its spending through the establishment of a publicly-available Evaluation Registry. This will be active across government from September 2023 and will be publicly available from March 2024.

Previous reforms have already shown positive results, with the Cabinet Office now on track to exceed its ambition for 50% of Fast Stream recruits to have a STEM subject background.