New report shows how the Labour government can avoid the policy-delivery gap
Following Labour’s landslide election victory, focus will be on Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new government and how it will deliver on the policies promised in its manifesto.
At Zaizi, we design digital products for government organisations. We know that the successful implementation of policies can depend on creating digital products and services to deliver them.
But there’s a problem; the policy-delivery gap. It’s where policies stumble during digital implementation.
We’ve seen instances when policy, operations, and digital teams lack coordination in the policy life cycle. This can cause policies and products to stall.
When policies fail to translate into efficient services, it has real-life consequences. It can erode public trust, waste taxpayer money, affect lives – and of course, it frustrates policymakers who want to make a positive change in society.
For the Labour government, avoiding this “policy-delivery gap” is fundamental to fulfilling their promises to the electorate.
Avoiding the policy-delivery gap in government projects
To better understand this, we’ve produced the report ‘Avoiding the policy-delivery gap: Digital government is hard, so what can we do to succeed?’
We reviewed several government digital strategy publications and interviewed people with experience working on complex digital initiatives within government organisations.
We found that digital often operates in isolation, disconnected from the policy inception process. As one participant remarked, “These silos still exist all over government, and we’re going to need a big cultural shift to break them down.”
Meanwhile, commercial thinking still leans heavily on capital expenditures and fixed project timelines, which do not align with building evolving long-term products. “Even when GDS came in and introduced digital products a decade ago, this old model of project-based capital thinking didn’t change,” noted another participant.
Our findings revealed that leadership often struggles to understand the need to embrace uncertainty. They approach digital teams with pre-determined requirements or solutions rather than get the team to explore the whole problem to solve.
There’s also a lack of understanding of what it takes to replace or manage legacy IT, leading to sticking plaster solutions that add to the technical debt.
Another major challenge identified is the critical skills gaps that leave departments without the capacity to build or maintain products.
What steps can we take today?
As we’ve seen from reviewing the various documents, government is well aware of these challenges and is taking steps to tackle the issues in the long run. And our research points to some practical solutions organiations can take today.
We advocate for closer collaboration between policymakers and digital experts early in the policy creation process to ensure that policies are user-centric and digital-ready from the start.
To bridge organisational silos and get leaders on board, we’ve seen how specialised workshops can align different stakeholders, accelerate decision-making and foster shared ownership.
Longer term, we believe embracing ‘systems thinking’ is vital for transforming an organisation’s culture. This holistic approach will address interconnected challenges across departments and tackle issues like legacy and technical debt that hinder innovation.
Finally, we explain the importance of partnering with experienced external collaborators like Zaizi, who understand the government landscape. From technical execution to strategic engagement with stakeholders, these partnerships can facilitate the critical conversations needed to align policy goals with digital realities.
The correct partners will also help address the digital skills gap and upskill internal capacity so that departments can sustain their services without more external help.
Digital government is hard, together we’ll succeed
With the new Labour government now at the helm, how it bridges the policy-delivery gap will undoubtedly be important.
Although true transformation will come from within government departments, partners like Zaizi are committed to providing the support and expertise needed to enable that change.
We recognise that digital government is hard. The road to a more effective and joined up way of working includes many barriers that need to be overcome. But together we believe we can succeed.
We invite you to download our full report to dive deeper into these insights and solutions.
