The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the advent of truly digital government, with agency leaders establishing essential elements of digital infrastructure, the needed workforce, and citizen-facing connectivity. The public sector’s response to the pandemic has produced rapid change, the shifts in operations reflecting the dramatic changes happening in the world at large.
Source: Propelled by the Pandemic, Digital Government Logs On
Among them is the way the pandemic has served as an inflection point in the digital maturity of government, according to The Deloitte Center for Government Insights’ report “Government Trends 2021.”
The report, which identifies nine of the most transformative trends occurring in government today, finds that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated—in some cases, by years—the digitization of government. Prior to the pandemic, governments around the world had been making digital advances, although at an uneven pace. While some had made significant progress, others were still in the early stages of digital transformation. Our research found that when the global pandemic hit, everything changed. Digital was suddenly an imperative.
The report finds that governments with strong digital infrastructures were able to rapidly adapt to the new virtual world, while those still relying on manual processes have struggled. Last year’s “Government Trends 2020” report highlighted trends that centered on using technology to better serve citizens, including AI-augmented government, digital identities, behavioral nudges, anticipatory government, cloud, and customer experience. When the pandemic hit, governments that were ahead of these trends proved far more able to effectively respond to the needs of the citizens. From telehealth to telework, and from virtual courts to virtual education, many large-scale digital innovations were rolled out at unprecedented speed.
Our research from this year’s report found that governments are accelerating their digital journeys to meet the surge in service demand along three major dimensions: scaling digital infrastructure, creating a more digitally savvy workforce, and investing in citizen connectivity.
Scaling Digital Infrastructure
The pandemic brought three main challenges for the governments to address. As public health officials around the world ordered citizens to stay at home and businesses to operate remotely, government agencies grappled with an explosion in demand for digital services, the need to provide such services in a completely remote environment, and requests for new services that never existed before. In response, agencies dramatically scaled their digital capabilities along three complementary digital approaches: ramping up AI and automation, harnessing the cloud, and building a “whole of government” digital architecture.
Ramping up AI and automation. From automating manual tasks to deploying virtual assistants powered by AI, governments used automation tools to provide faster service and reduce human workload. In the United States, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Institutes of Health, and Internal Revenue Service used robotic process automation (RPA) to help their employees move from low-value to high-value work and to effectively tackle the spike in demand for critical services. Similarly, AI-powered virtual assistants, chatbots, and “virtual doctors” helped governments provide quicker COVID-19 responses by answering citizen queries, tracing contacts, and overcoming language barriers.
These adoptions are not likely to recede after the pandemic, with 79% of government officials surveyed by Deloitte indicating that automation is making a significant positive impact on their business.
Harnessing cloud solutions. While there are multiple solutions for remote work, from remote desktops to virtual private networks, many governments found them insufficient for the sudden scale of remote work. Cloud by its very nature was more quickly scalable, allowing for a more seamless transition to telework. In California, for instance, 90% of around 200,000 state employees were able to smoothly switch to telework, owing to the state government’s early efforts to pursue cloud.
The shift to cloud also helped governments reach citizens. In Singapore, public agencies Original Postostman/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tapped into “postman.gov.sg,” an omnichannel cloud-based communication tool, to send bulk messages with critical updates to citizens. As of November 2020, the tool had been used to share more than 1.3 million messages.
Building a “whole of government” digital architecture. Most government agencies hadn’t planned to draft social distancing regulations or coordinate the logistics for shipping vaccines at subzero temperatures. While these and other pandemic challenges may have been new to many parts of government, they were not necessarily new to government as a whole. The key to success was creating a “whole of government” digital architecture that could make relevant solutions created in one area of government available to others. With these efficiencies, governments could increase their public notification capacities, improve security, and collaborate across agencies. For example, with the help of tools such as GOV.UK Design System, GOV.UK Notify, and GOV.UK Pay, both central and local governments in the United Kingdom have been able to ensure speedy service delivery during the pandemic.
Creating a More Digital Public Workforce
The pandemic highlighted the growing need for a tech-savvy, digitally literate public workforce. As a result, governments are driving efforts to raise the digital literacy of their staff. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget put its data science reskilling pilot to practical use, deploying trainees to analyze data sets from their respective agencies.
Having technologically skilled public sector workers is such an advantage that it is attracting interest from a wide array of partners. Africa’s Digital Skills for Public Service Employees initiative, developed in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, helps participating African governments train their workforces in skills critical to recovery efforts.
Investing in Citizen Connectivity
Finally, the benefits of ramping up digital solutions and promoting virtualization of services can be fully realized only when citizens can access such services. Therefore, building public infrastructures that allow for better access to digital solutions—especially for the most marginalized populations—becomes necessary.
Several nations have announced initiatives to significantly increase their digital infrastructure spending over the next few years. Investments will go toward improvements such as modernizing technology infrastructure, installing fiber networks to increase internet access, and closing the “digital divide” between the best- and least-connected communities.
How To Move Forward
Federal agency leaders should collaborate to develop and accelerate a strategic, cohesive approach to modernizing digital capabilities. Essential components include:
- Embracing operational adaptability. Expand the business models that can help the agency adapt and thrive in changing conditions. Rethink the end-to-end organization structuring and break down silos that may inhibit optimization.
- Building a flexible and scalable infrastructure. Leverage cloud computing for scalability and agility in administrative processes.
- Creating intelligent workflows. Continue to leverage AI and automation to increase efficiency and migrate human resources to higher-value tasks.
- Enhancing infrastructure resilience. Provide cyber response and resilience to secure infrastructure (network and IT), apps, devices, and data at the center and at the edge. Adopt federated security to manage situational awareness and access points as contexts change.
- Developing digitally savvy, open talent networks. Support human-machine collaboration to augment the workforce and provide better service delivery. Additionally, inculcate a digital mindset by training and upskilling the workforce.
- Accelerating with control. Identify areas of digital transformation that need the most acceleration. Alternate between improving citizen experience and operational excellence.
- Continuing the momentum. Use the experience of agility during the pandemic to create the case for continuing the pace of digital transformation.
With the Biden administration’s addition of $1 billion to the Technology Modernization Fund for shared IT and cybersecurity services across government, agency leaders including CIOs, CFOs, and chief risk officers should be working hand-in-hand to ensure their agency makes the right investments and adopts a cohesive approach to modernizing digital capabilities.
—by Mike Canning, Government & Public Services leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP; William D. Eggers, executive director, The Deloitte Center for Government Insights, Deloitte Services LP; Dave Mader, chief strategy officer for the civilian sector, Government and Public Services, Deloitte Consulting LLP; and Meghan Sullivan, principal, Government & Public Services, Deloitte Consulting LLP
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