The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has announced a new four pronged approach for UK Government funding for public sector AI experiments and digital projects.
It said the move is aimed at embedding a ‘start up’ mindset to cut down waste in taxpayer funding, boost efficiency and improve services.
Four different funds will be made available through a staged funding model, with the money supplied in increments if a project is providing successful at its different stages, to support an agile approach to developments.
A DSIT spokesperson said these will involve: small scale pilots; live services such as those the Government Digital Service has provided; funding for a portfolio of projects based on a multi-year business case; and funds for projects on risk reduction in areas such as technical debt and cyber security.
No figure has been placed on the money available but DSIT is planning to announce funding for one project in each group during April.
There will also be a strong focus on developing new outcome metrics and evaluation plans for major digital projects, aimed at helping to provide value for money.
Digital first Spending Review
DSIT indicated that the Government is also taking a digital first approach to decisions in Spending Review 2025, to ensure that strategic judgements about its digital needs inform departmental allocations.
The Government will also reshape how it measures the success of investment in digital projects and offer bespoke digital training for teams preparing advice for ministers, with a view to better prioritising all spending on technology.
The moves are based on the findings of a performance review of government's digital spend, and follow the publication of the Blueprint for modern digital government in January.
DSIT cited research showing that one-in-four of the digital systems used by central government are outdated. For the worst affected organisations, this figure is almost triple that at 70%, and a growing number of these outdated systems are ‘red rated’ for reliability and security risk.
Innovation by default
Ahead of a speech to announce the reforms at techUK, alongside a suite of other measures to use technology to drive growth, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: “Technology has immense potential to build public services that work for citizens. But a decades old process has encouraged shortsighted thinking and outdated tech, while stopping crucial innovation before it even gets going.
“These changes we’re making ensure innovation is the default. We will help give AI innovators in government the freedom they need to chase an exciting idea and build prototypes almost immediately.
“This review will help us build technology that will mean businesses can skip the admin and get on with driving growth, digital systems supporting the police are more reliable so they can keep our streets safe, and it will mean we can build new tools to speed up wait times for doctors’ appointments and get the NHS back on its feet are built.”
