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Vision

4.  Twenty First Century Government is enabled by technology - policy is inspired by it, business change is delivered by it, customer and corporate services are dependent on it, and democratic engagement is exploring it. Moreover modern governments with serious transformational intent see technology as a strategic asset and not just a tactical tool. Technology alone does not transform government, but government cannot transform to meet modern citizens' expectations without it.

5.  So this strategy's vision is about better using technology to deliver public services and policy outcomes that have an impact on citizens' daily lives: through greater choice and personalisation, delivering better public services, such as health, education and pensions; benefiting communities by reducing burdens on front line staff and giving them the tools to help break cycles of crime and deprivation; and improving the economy through better regulation and leaner government.

6.  In addition, in announcing the Comprehensive Spending Review, HM Treasury set out a range of challenges to Britain that will require innovative policy responses and co-ordination of activity across departmental boundaries. Technology will be at the heart of meeting this agenda. Indeed, this strategy envisages:

• Unlocking around £1.4 billion (10% of the current spend on technology) from the current annual spend on legacy systems which can be released to new technology enabled reforms in public services.
• Providing practical steps to help secure the delivery of the substantial savings at the heart of the 2004 Efficiency Programme which were to be enabled by technology.
• Creating a basis for the next round of efficiencies across the wider public sector which could result from fundamentally different ways of delivering public services.

7.  The specific opportunities lie in improving transactional services (eg tax and benefits), in helping front line public servants to be more effective (eg doctors, nurses, police and teachers), in supporting effective policy outcomes (eg in joined-up, multi-agency approaches to offender management and domestic violence), in reforming the corporate services and infrastructure which government uses behind the scenes, and in taking swifter advantage of the latest technologies developed for the wider market.

8.  Overall this technology-enabled transformation will help ensure that:

• Citizens and businesses have choice and personalisation in their interactions with government. Choice will come through new channels and more fundamentally through new opportunities for service competition.
• Taxpayers benefit from efficiency gains.
• Citizens, businesses and the voluntary and community sector benefit from the better regulation, reduced paperwork and lower costs from a leaner, modern, more effective public sector.
• Public servants have better tools to undertake their jobs, and the opportunity to provide better service as a result.
• Policy makers will be better able to achieve intended outcomes in practice.
• Managers are able to free resources from back office to the front-line.
• Citizens feel more engaged with the processes of democratic government.

9.  However the vision is not just about transforming government through technology. It is also about making government transformational through the use of technology - creating and retaining the capacity and capability to innovate and use technology effectively as technology itself develops. This is the only way in which public services can keep up with a continually changing, globalised society.