3rd October 2026
Britain has spent years being told that digital technology will transform government.
Paper forms will disappear and Services will become easier to use Artificial intelligence will reduce bureaucracy. Councils and government departments will become more efficient.
But a new report produced by ArvatoConnect in collaboration with the New Statesman raises a rather important question.
Are we measuring whether any of this is actually working?
The report, Digital transformation: The path to a more efficient state, examines how digital technology could improve public services while also spreading economic opportunity more widely around the UK.
There are certainly signs of progress.
Research involving more than 200 senior decision-makers found that 56% of public-sector organisations are now delivering government-wide digital transformation programmes, compared with 37% a year earlier.
That sounds impressive.
But then comes the uncomfortable part.
Almost half, 44%, have no performance monitoring in place, while 53% have yet to establish key performance indicators for their transformation programmes.
In other words, government is becoming more digital, but in many cases it still appears to be struggling to answer a basic question:
How much better are we actually making things?
Digital does not automatically mean efficient
There is a danger in assuming that putting something online automatically makes it cheaper and better.
A badly designed online service is still a badly designed service.
Indeed, it can be worse if somebody who previously spoke to a person is now expected to navigate a complicated website.
The report therefore puts considerable emphasis on understanding the people who actually use public services.
Professor Helen Margetts of the Oxford Internet Institute argues that better use of place-based data could give public servants a fuller picture of people's circumstances rather than treating every contact with government as an isolated transaction.
That could have considerable implications.
Someone applying for housing, struggling with employment, needing healthcare and receiving support from a council may currently appear in several different systems as several different people.
Better use of data could potentially allow government to see the whole picture.
But that also raises obvious questions about privacy, security and who controls the information.
Devolution makes the issue even more important
The report appears at an interesting time because devolution is becoming a much bigger part of the political debate.
If more power and responsibility are transferred away from Westminster, local authorities will need the technology and skills to make use of that freedom.
That is particularly relevant to Scotland.
A council in the Highlands does not have exactly the same problems as a large metropolitan authority in central Scotland or England.
A rural authority may have fewer people, longer distances, poorer connectivity and a much smaller pool of specialist staff.
Digital technology could potentially help overcome some of those disadvantages.
A resident should not necessarily have to travel hundreds of miles simply because the specialist expertise happens to be located in a major city.
But there is a catch.
Digital transformation itself requires expertise.
If every council has to build its own expensive digital systems, employ scarce specialists and negotiate complicated technology contracts, smaller authorities could find themselves at a disadvantage.
Could digital transformation spread opportunity?
One of the more interesting arguments in the report is that digital government should not simply become another way of concentrating economic activity in London and the major cities.
Public procurement could instead be used to build British skills and regional capability.
That is an important idea for places such as the Highlands.
Imagine if some of the work required to modernise government systems, develop artificial intelligence applications, manage data or provide digital services could be undertaken from places such as Inverness, Thurso or Wick.
The technology does not necessarily have to be physically located beside Westminster.
A rural Scotland digital economy could potentially serve customers across Britain.
That would turn digital transformation into something more than a government efficiency programme.
It could become part of a regional economic development strategy.
But don't forget the people who are not digital
There is another warning in the report.
Natasha Bray-Wright of the Good Things Foundation argues that digital inclusion should be treated as core public infrastructure.
That matters because the more government moves online, the greater the consequences for people who struggle with digital technology.
There will always be people who cannot easily use an app, do not have reliable broadband, cannot afford suitable equipment or simply prefer dealing with another human being.
A digital-first government therefore cannot mean a digital-only government.
Otherwise the attempt to make government more efficient could simply transfer the cost and difficulty from the state to the citizen.
The £14 billion question
The wider ArvatoConnect research describes a continuing "digital deficit" which it says puts the Government's £14 billion efficiency drive at risk.
That is perhaps the most important message.
Digital transformation is not automatically an efficiency programme.
It becomes one only if the technology actually reduces costs, improves services or both.
And that means measuring the results.
If 53% of organisations have not yet established key performance indicators, there is a danger that government ends up measuring how much technology it has installed rather than what difference it has made.
We have seen versions of this before.
A new computer system is launched.
A new website appears.
An app is produced.
A press release announces a digital revolution.
And everyone moves on to the next project.
The real test is rather simpler.
Did it save money? Did it save staff time? Did it make the service easier for the public? And did it improve the outcome?
If the answer to those questions is not being measured, we may simply be replacing one form of bureaucracy with another.
Digital government has enormous potential.
But technology is only the tool.
The real transformation will come when government learns how to use that tool to provide better services, measure the results and make sure that the benefits reach people in every part of Britain rather than simply those living closest to the country's biggest cities.
Read the full report HERE
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