GDS head Kevin Cunnington: Government Transformation Strategy will 'be carried out at pace and scale'

Cunnington explains strategy for 'digitally enabled transformation of government'

Government Digital Service (GDS) head Kevin Cunnington has promised that the Cabinet Office's new Government Transformation Strategy, which finally saw the light of day today, will "be carried out at pace and scale".

Cunnington, who took over as head of the GDS only in August last year, made the pledge in a blog post today after the release.

"This strategy charts the direction of the digitally enabled transformation of government - in how we work, how we organise ourselves and how we serve our citizens. It's been designed to be carried out at pace and scale: to deliver meaningful change to the people who need it most, faster and more efficiently," Cunnington wrote.

The approach, he claimed, built on the strategy established in 2012, and added the promise of better collaboration across government departments - a promise that is easier made than done in Whitehall.

"For the first time, digital professions have been established across the public sector. And, a strong foundation has been laid for departments to share platforms, components, code and best practice," he wrote.

He added: "We know that the work of transformation needs to penetrate deeper than ever before. We need to make sure data can flow easily between departments, allowing us to build joined-up services that run seamlessly across government. This will be how we start to reshape the relationship between citizen and state into one that puts power into the hands of the citizen."

There are five main themes to the strategy:

  1. Business transformation, "from front-end to back-office";
  2. Improving skills and capability, by developing "the right skills and culture among our people and leaders";
  3. Providing better workplace tools and processes to make it easier for public-sector staff to working together more effectively;
  4. Making better use of data across government to aid transformation; and,
  5. Creating more shared platforms and re-usable business capabilities across government.

Cunnington admitted that the aims of the strategy were "ambitious", but had set a deadline of 2020, although added that "we're already planning for the things we'll do beyond 2020".