It was a revealing exchange. All over the world the public sector is working to emulate the online platforms which dominate our lives. It’s taking time, but we’re getting there. The goal of creating a "one-stop" digital location that provides citizens with access to all the government services they need is perfectly possible with the technology we have right now. We can build a portal which replicates the seemingly endless choices provided by Amazon and offer easy access to just about any government service and benefit.
WE DON'T HAVE TO REDEFINE THE CITIZEN AS A CONSUMER
The difference between Amazon and government is that we’re talking about the delivery of services which have a tangible effect on citizens’ lives rather than consumer products. What we want to achieve is enabling things like providing drivers' licenses or passports as efficiently and transparently as Amazon does consumer goods. It’s fast, reliable, cost effective and traceable. Citizens "consume" those services and often approach them as "consumer goods." That’s no bad thing.
Ethan Porter, a political scientist based at George Washington University, describes the modern North American voter as a "consumer citizen" whose life is, mostly, lived within the realm of consumer capitalism.1 It’s second nature. When you want something, you go to the mall or browse the web to get it. You have rights as a consumer, and your choice of brands depends on your confidence in service levels, quality and ease of purchase. Porter stresses that the reality of that daily lived experience has changed the way we view the civic realm. We might be the "boss" of government via the ballot box, but we act as if the government is a business competing in the marketplace even though we know that it has a monopoly on the services we need. A 2018 survey revealed that 37 percent of Americans believed that "government should be run like a business."2
Naturally, government is not a business. It is a system for the rule of law and the protection of citizens’ welfare and rights. We need to strike the right balance between the government’s mission (all the things mentioned above) and how it operates. Citizens expect government to match the experience they get from private business. It’s our job to deliver it. The citizen remains a citizen but gets treated like a consumer when that’s appropriate (which it is the majority of the time).
IT'S A STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE
The OECD3, the EU, U.K., and most levels of government in North America, have been focusing on the digital transformation of government for the last decade at least, but it’s only in the last few years that technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud, data analytics, as-a-service platforms and a host of digital solutions have been delivering tangible results that citizens can experience for themselves. That’s where the rubber really hits the road: the everyday experience of ordinary people.
When a citizen can enter their social security number, or address, or maybe their passport number, and get access to all the services and information they need through a single portal, you know you’ve achieved the Amazonstyle experience. And it’s all perfectly possible. The powerful data analytics platform which enables that, delivered by a properly supported and centralized IT estate which provides public servants with an enterprise view of the citizens they serve is the goal of most government bodies.
In the U.K., the Government Digital Service (GDS) acts as a central point where any public-sector organization can go for help in designing, procuring, enabling and supporting their digital technologies and platforms. Crucially, they bridge the gap between private industry and the public sector. As they put it recently, “The lessons we learned from coronavirus have shown us that now, more than ever, digital must be front and center of government’s priorities to meet user needs and this is the perfect time for us to accelerate the digital transformation of public services across the whole of government.”4 Of course, similar bodies exist elsewhere – the key point is, do they have the mandate they need to actually deliver?
THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING...
Ethan Porter believes that the only way to get ahead of citizen expectations is to be realistic about what citizens actually believe about government: “Viewing citizens as consumer citizens helps make sense of an outstanding political puzzle: How do most people make sense of the political world?”5 That means you have to prove the effectiveness of government by making it, well, demonstrably effective. In other words, it just has to work.
Let’s go back to the U.K. for a good example: the U.K. National Health Service’s Test and Trace app. After a false start in early 2020, the government enabled the NHS itself to build an app to not only provide advice but also drive test and trace to help mitigate the spread of the virus. It worked. And within weeks had 16.5 million users covering 49 percent of the eligible population with compatible smartphones. Instantly, the government was in people’s pockets. Data protection was strictly controlled – and even won plaudits from cybersecurity experts – so people trusted it. A paper released in February 2021 concluded that “for every 1 percent increase in app users, the number of infections can be reduced by 0.8 percent (from modeling) or 2.3 percent (from statistical analysis).” In addition, the researchers estimate that, “with a 95 percent confidence interval, that the app has helped avert between 224,000 and 914,000 new infections in England and Wales from October to December 2020.”6
EXCEED TO SUCCEED
The NHS app exceeded expectations and grabbed the headlines because it did so. A coordinated, cross-government approach to digital can deliver real change where it matters, at the point where the citizen engages with the public sector. Achieve consumer levels of excellence and the value of government – as a civic entity – is enhanced. There’s no need to turn government into a business; just ensure government does what it should be doing - brilliantly. Digital is key to achieving that goal.
Fujitsu has a proven track record in the public sector. We’re ready to help you leverage the power of digital to meet (and exceed) the expectations of your citizens. Let’s work together, now.
[1] The Consumer Citizen by Ethan Porter OUP USA 2021
[2] Quoted in Porter, ibid
[3] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/ai-trust-public-services/
[4] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2021/04/06/the-next-steps-for-digital-data-and-technology-in-government/
[5] Porter, ibid
[6] The Epidemiological Impact of the NHS Covid-19 App – still under peer review
