Houses of the UK Parliament

Digital-first governance: Reflections on the first week of a Labour government

Andrew Hawkins

One week into office, and the new Labour government has laid out an ambitious plan for the future. In their manifesto, Keir Starmer proposed a mission-led approach that will use technology in new and innovative ways, driving improvements across energy, health, policing, and education. Among the promises the new government has laid out include the upskilling of civil servants so they are better at using digital and AI in their frontline work, as well as ensuring that the government has the right infrastructure and regulation to become more digital.

A key point that jumped out to me was a commitment to removing roadblocks to data sharing across the public sector. The new Labour government is not the first government to propose this, and if it hasn’t yet been realised, that’s a reflection of the complexity of the problem rather than the lack of any political will.

Many things stand in the way of effective data sharing – GDPR, a lack of data sharing agreements, information held in legacy platforms that refuse to ‘speak’ to other systems. But the idea of making data more available in the right situations is hugely relevant to the work that we do at Zaizi, and key to making the UK the safest place to live and work. 

Data access, not data sharing

In our work with our national security partners, we’ve been thinking long and hard on these big questions around how data is stored and shared. As our solutions architect James Patrick explored in a recent blog, government agencies accumulate a lot of information, which creates a paradox of sorts – data must be kept secure, while also being made accessible for legitimate use.

This is where the principles and concepts of Cross Domain Workflows come to life, enabling a more effective use of the government classification system and its layered security controls. All government data is valuable. But when aggregated, it’s potentially dangerous – so, a mechanism is needed to enable efficient data sharing, while protecting us all from active and developing threats. 

That’s why I’d propose a reframing around the idea of data sharing. Really, when we say data sharing, we should really be saying data access. A semantic change, perhaps, but I would argue a useful one, as it puts the emphasis on the way that we should really be treating data – keeping it in one place, ensuring it is well-protected, but making it available to the right people, at the right time through the managing of access controls. If you’d like to know more about this, I’d highly recommend reading James’ excellent blog How to design thoughtful and secure cross-domain workflows.

Making a success of digital government

The Labour government’s pledge to build a modern digital government is encouraging. If applied right, science and technology has the potential to enhance our public services, boost productivity and investment, and improve the lives of everyone living in the United Kingdom. But as we say at Zaizi, digital government is hard – and there are still significant barriers to success, from critical skills gaps to a lack of coordination between policy, operations and digital teams. 

Through our work with the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), we’ve a proven track record of crafting user-centric, and digital-ready policies aligned with GDS and Agile principles. By engaging with citizens, making decisions rooted in evidence, and ensuring that future legislation bakes in opt-ins and data sharing agreements, we can collectively design policies that deliver both impactful results and make life better for the public at large.

If you’d like to know more about our work in this area, I’d direct you towards our new report Digital government is hard, so what can we do to succeed?. Or if you’d rather, reach out and let’s have a chat.

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