Everyone in government is focused on outcomes. Whether these are wrapped up in policies or programmes, the underlying driver is about meeting citizens’ needs through good services. In MHCLG we emphasise that digital is more than digitising things or adopting new tools – it’s a critical partner in shaping responsive, innovative and efficient government. Digital is about working smarter, streamlining how we operate, making policies more responsive, and creating a culture of collaboration.
“Digital is not just something that lives within a single part of the organisation. Digital is being called out as a primary driver across government, and we need to ensure that we're all ready for this ask.”
Gill Stewart, Chief Digital Officer
Explaining what we care about
Earlier this autumn, we set out a vision within the department of using digital ways of working to deliver improved outcomes. With this aim, we intentionally took a fresh approach to ‘strategy’, moving away from a long, static document unlikely to capture much attention from our users or fulfil its ambition. Instead, we chose to capture our vision in 3 strategic objectives and 9 guiding principles, brought to life by a set of case studies that demonstrate them in action.
This new strategic vision sets out our ambition, showcasing how digital ways of working can support the delivery of our departmental objectives and outcomes, offering better, faster and more efficient services to citizens.
Our ambitions in 3 objectives
Our 3 objectives explain to the department what we care about. We want to embed digital in policy, accelerate digital maturity, and enhance operational excellence:
1. Embedding digital in policy
- We will help the department to deliver more responsive and user-friendly policies
- We will leverage digital technology to enhance the efficiency of policy implementation
- We will design services to ensure they meet citizens’ needs
2. Accelerating digital maturity
- We will enhance digital and data skills for everyone
- We will help the department to use digital tools to automate and streamline internal processes
- We will aim to rapidly advance the department's capability to effectively use digital methods and tools
3. Enhancing operational excellence
- We will ensure our technology tools and platforms are user-friendly, secure and effective
- We will ensure that our operational excellence underpins the successful and efficient delivery of digital services
- We will continue to ensure robust security measures protect data and digital services from threats and ensure compliance with government standards
9 principles to guide the work we do
- We start with the needs of the user and value their knowledge
- We support fairness and equality in the development and use of new technologies
- We are committed to rapid delivery while adhering to functional standards
- We strive to provide value for money for the taxpayer
- We adapt to our environment and plan for the future
- We encourage standardisation and reusability
- Security is intrinsic and proactive
- We are accountable and work transparently
- We develop digital skills and work together
The strategy is engagement
Communicating our objectives and principles was only the starting point for MHCLG Digital. We have also been using the strategy as a framework for engagement across the department.
- We’ve been running a range of activities, from drop-in sessions and staff events to blog posts and videos, aiming to spark meaningful exchanges and inspire everyone to consider how these principles apply to their role.
- We’ve been offering training in digital and agile ways of working, helping colleagues learn how they can adopt these approaches in their day-to-day work. These sessions are tailored to the needs and context of non-digital teams.
- We aligned the start of our departmental engagement with the launch of this year’s One Big Thing, a Civil Service initiative focused on innovation. We want to inspire everyone to feel confident to imagine change and take action.
“The true power of digital lies in uniting people, processes, tools and data, ensuring a more efficient, effective and value-for-money approach to all of our work as a department.”
Matt Thurstan, Director General and Chief Operating Officer
Bringing our objectives and principles to life
In order to inspire teams across the department, we used case studies to illustrate the benefits of collaboration between policy and digital teams, demonstrating our principles in action.
These examples include how policy and digital worked together to respond to a crisis with Homes for Ukraine, how we have worked to deliver a consolidated Funding Service that reduces the overhead on both local authorities and the department, and our work to transform the complex and archaic planning system with Digital Planning.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll explore these case studies and our guiding principles in more detail, and how to embed digital ways of working to achieve better, faster and more efficient outcomes.
Contact us if you are interested to know more about our approach to transformation.
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