PRESS

November 17, 2022

October 23, 2023

Technology has proven it can tackle crises - so what should Governments be doing about it?

PUBLIC’s whitepaper urges governments to build a new relationship to technology in order to tackle crises around climate, healthcare resilience, cost of living, and international security.

  • High-impact areas for action emerge around integrated data-linking and comprehensive digital upskilling

17th November 2022 - LONDON - PUBLIC has published a new whitepaper “Government Technology in an Age of Crisis” identifying where innovative technologies hold the greatest potential to make impacts on the crises governments across Europe are facing. Drawing on PUBLIC’s project expertise and linking insights to practical case studies across four key crisis areas - climate, cost of living, healthcare resilience, & international security - the whitepaper urges European governments to adopt a new relationship to technology in order to capitalise on the opportunity provided by best-in-class digital solutions.

European governments are facing not one, but multiple crises: war in Europe, rapidly rising living costs, overburdened healthcare systems, and a still-worsening climate crisis. While technology is not a silver bullet, innovative digital solutions can help European governments and their citizens weather the storm. 

The whitepaper argues for a new relationship between governments and technology, one which is built upon collaborative ways of working, public officials equipped with the skills for the future, new market engagement models, and a modernisation of the core digital infrastructures of government. These are by no means new ideas to public officials, but despite the widespread understanding of their importance there remains a gap in their execution and integration across the public sector.

PUBLIC, “Government Technology in an Age of Crisis"

“Though governments have the will to act, they are constrained in their execution by tools that are frequently not user-friendly, interoperable, and fail to leverage the latest innovations.”

Central to the whitepaper are its direct recommendations to governments, providing the foundation for a crisis-focused toolkit backed by case studies and demonstrated best practice. The recommendations revealed two cross-cutting themes with high potential for impact across sectors: integrated data-linking and comprehensive digital upskilling.  

Key recommendations from the whitepaper urge governments to:

  • Map and link data assets that currently sit within distinct departmental databases through standardised API infrastructures, to unlock cross-department collaboration and policymaking,
  • Employ next-generation electronic patient records (EPRs) to enhance the efficiency of healthcare administration and connect data across the health system,
  • Link data on household energy consumption with internal government data on households, to more efficiently target financial relief,
  • Reduce human cyber risk through innovative digital upskilling solutions able to monitor, intervene, and correct instances of non-secure behaviour automatically,
  • Leverage secondment programmes within the private sector to acclimatise public servants to different tech-led working environments,
  • Prioritise equipping all public servants with a basic level of proficiency with digital collaboration tools, data, user engagement, and cyber secure behaviour.

Read the full whitepaper here.

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Authors

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Adam Sticca

Senior Associate

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