This was presented by Breandán Knowlton (Government Digital Service, UK) at the Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC 2019) in Paris on 19th March 2019. You can find out more information about the conference here: http://tictec.mysociety.org/2019

1. Breandán Knowlton
Lead Technical Architect
Government Digital Service
@bfk

2. What is it?

3. GDS
A £20 million, 3-year programme that funds
private sector innovators to partner with the
public sector on policy challenges

5. GDS

6. Public
Challenges

7. GDS
Challenges 1-5
Identifying Daesh still imagery
Tracking waste through the waste chain
Tackling loneliness and rural isolation

8. GDS
Cutting traffic congestion
Intelligent data to transform local council
service delivery

9. GDS
Challenges 6-10
Improving firefighter safety
Making better use of data to guide public
sector audits

10. GDS
Detection of illicit goods at borders
Understanding overlaps between
business regulations
Prescription continuity while people move
between care providers

11. GDS
Challenges 11-15
Management of self-driving vehicles
Monitoring the condition of social housing
using sensors

12. GDS
Better use of the protected natural Scottish
landscape
Better prediction of adult social care to
deliver a seamless service
Accelerating the building of new housing
using better geospatial intelligence

13. What did we do?

14. GDSGDS
How might we make it easier
for emerging tech companies
to work with government?

15. GDS

16. GDS
Discovery goals
1) To understand the barriers emerging tech companies face when trying to work with government
2) To understand the barriers government faces when trying to work with emerging tech companies
3) To understand what and how we should communicate lessons learnt from addressing public
sector challenges so the market can build on past learning
4) To understand how we measure the success of a “front door” for government
5) To understand how we can join up the buying and selling of emerging technology
6) To understand what emerging tech companies need from a “single point of contact”

17. GDSGDS
We conducted
interviews

18. GDSGDS
Sellers of emerging tech
Buyers of emerging tech
P4 P6P3
P11 P12P9
P2P1
P8
P7
P5
P10

19. GDS

20. What did we learn?

21. GDSGDS
Insight: Smaller companies seen as more
risky. Departments within departments
not talking to each other.
Implication: Buying things from the “top
tier” companies or unnecessary risk
management via contract requirements.
Work stalls, startups don’t have the
capital to wait it out.
Culture of
government

22. GDSGDS
“They run these innovation programmes and
they have no relationship whatsoever to their
procurement programmes… it’s almost like
you have to start all over again”
P4P4

23. GDSGDS
Insight: Suppliers who work to open
standards find it difficult to access
the data needed in proprietary
software to develop innovative
solutions to problems.
Implications: Prevents
SMEs/start-ups from competing with
the incumbent which inhibits
innovation.
Open
standards

24. GDSGDS
“So a lot of solutions in hospitals are built
with Excel Spreadsheets and Access
Databases and you can only scale those so
far before they hit a technical wall. ”
P4P2

25. GDSGDS
Insight: Government services are
large in nature, and hard to deliver at
scale.
Implications: The requirement for
scalability creates a barrier to SMEs
that do not have the resource and
infrastructure.
Scalability

26. GDSGDS
“I think implementing the scale version of our
trial is more difficult. We don’t have the
resources to put into sort of thing. You can’t
take as much risk whereas a big company has
a bigger team to engage clients in a big scale.”
P4P7

27. GDSGDS
Insight: Government badge is great
for supplier reputation and for
exporting their services
Implication: Government has a
strong reputation, if a technology
has been deployed in a government
context it is seen to be rigorously
tested.
Reputation/
Brand

28. GDSGDS
“If I could say to other customers, this is
being used by the British government, that
would take me a long way”
P4P4

29. GDSGDS
Insight: Government doesn’t want to
be an early adopter of tech.
Government doesn't see the value of
new technology
Implications: Government is slow to
move, adoption is more likely once
the technology is established. There
a perception that new = risk.
Maturity of
technology

30. GDSGDS
“Automated translations is a technology that
could be considered to have emerged but be
improving, whereas you compare it to
something like blockchain which is really like no
one knows what the heck that is going to look
like and what it’s going to do.”
P4P7P9

31. GDSGDS
Insight: Startup-SME suppliers find it
difficult to navigate procurement
regulations. Government sets
localised rules on top of
procurement regulations.
Implications: Proving that something
works in a pilot doesn’t mean you
can buy it. Incumbent suppliers have
advantage as they have history
Regulations

32. GDSGDS
“They stated EU State Aid rules as being the
limitation here, fundamentally I think the
[department] had misunderstood State Aid
rules.”
P4P7P4

33. GDSGDS
Insight: Buyers use procurement
process to alienate smaller players
because of fear of risk. New ways of
doing things seen as too risky or the
new ways are unknown.
Implications: Natural selection
whereby only large businesses can
get involved. New tech “can’t” be
bought. Tech companies avoid
government.
Procurement
process

34. GDSGDS
“The major requirements will probably result in
those bigger players being the ones that come
forward to meet our needs. The market, in
some respects, will self-select, in terms of could
they meet our requirements.”
P4P7P5

35. GDSGDS
Insight: Government finds it hard to
connect with unknown suppliers and
to know what it out there which could
better meet their needs than what
they are currently aware of.
Implications: Companies who don’t
have these relationships are at a
disadvantage. Have to spend money
& time to build relationships and
leading to unfair decision making.
Relationships

36. GDSGDS
“I have won tenders based on the personal
relationships I have built.”
P4P7P9P7

37. GDSGDS
Insight: Politically sensitive or citizen
critical areas not good for proofs of
concept because they carry too
much risk. Financial risk makes it
hard for departments to justify
innovation work
Implications: The hardest problems
continue to not be addressed
Risk

38. GDSGDS
“The council is never going to take much of a
risk with something so significant. Where is
infrastructure going to lie in the future? You
want established players that can demonstrate
track record, that have got the necessary
controls and security.”
P4P7P5

39. So we’ll keep
trying.

40. Call for public
sector challenges
Challenges are turned
into competitions
Responses are
evaluated
Feasibility outputs
are evaluated
Entire public sector
can now buy solutions
Submitted challenges
are reviewed
Companies, not for
profits and social
enterprises respond
Up to 5 companies
are funded to
show feasibility
Up to 2 companies
are funded for
development

42. Thanks!
Breandán Knowlton
@bfk
#govtechcatalyst