UK govt appoints expert panel of digital industry heavyweights

12 Feb 2016

New payment and communications services could save the UK state £900m over five years

The UK government has appointed an expert advisory board of digital industry leaders to advise the Government Digital Service on ways of transforming how services are provided to millions of people.

The group includes: the founder and CEO of LoveFilm, Saul Klein; ASOS chairman, Brian McBride; Hermann Hauser, who is known for setting up Acorn Computers and its spinout ARM Holdings, and the co-founder of Lastminute.com, Martha Lane Fox.

The UK government is also revamping how it communicates with citizens and how it receives and refunds payments in a strategy tipped to save the UK close to £1bn over the next five years.

The announcements were made at the government’s annual digital conference, Sprint.

‘We are recasting the relationship between the citizen and the state – all with the goal of making people’s lives better’
– MATT HANCOCK, BRITISH MP

“We are recasting the relationship between the citizen and the state – all with the goal of making people’s lives better,” said the UK’s minister for the cabinet office, Matt Hancock.

“I’m thrilled to have these experts on board and look forward to working closely with them to discover and build the new digital infrastructure.”

Among the latest digital services to be rolled out are a new notification platform to enhance the relationship between citizens and government and a new payments system.

Notify is to be a platform that any civil servant will be able to use to communicate with citizens using email, text or physical letters. The Notify platform is tipped to reduce spending by the UK government on communications by £600m over five years.

Pay is a system to enable government departments to receive payments or make refunds simply and easily. More efficient payments are tabled to save the UK state £200m over the next five years.

UK government image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com