Government Digital: The Quest to Regain Public Trust

by Alex Benay

Overview

Governments all over the world are consistently outpaced by digital change, and are falling behind.

Digital government is a better performing government. It is better at providing services people and businesses need. Receiving benefits, accessing health records, registering companies, applying for licences, voting — all of this can be done online or through digital self-service. Digital technology makes government more efficient, reduces hassle, and lowers costs. But what will it take to make governments digital?

Good governance will take nothing short of a metamorphosis of the public sector. With contributions from industry, academic, and government experts — including Hillary Hartley, chief digital officer for Ontario, and Salim Ismail, founder of Singularity University— Government Digital lays down a blueprint for this radical change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459742062
Publisher:	Dundurn Press
Publication date:	10/09/2018
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alex Benay is the Chief Information Officer of the Government of Canada. Previously, he was the President and CEO of the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (now called Ingenium — Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation). He is also the author of Canadian Failures: Stories of Building Toward Success. He lives in Ottawa.

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INTRODUCTION

The concept of government as we know it is under tremendous pressure due to the arrival of exponential technologies such as autonomous vehicles, augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), digital biology, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and biotechnology, to name only a few, in almost every sector. As a result, the value that public services deliver is being challenged in ways never seen before and at a relentless pace that governments often fail to grasp.

Of course, governments have been under siege for quite some time. In fact, the level of public trust has been decreasing for decades, globalization has forced countries to look at policies at both the micro and macro levels in novel ways, and climate change has steadily shifted the focus of economies. While threats to governments are certainly not new, there is a new “kid on the block” where government threats are concerned. The digitization of the planet is shifting industries, human behaviour, and overall life patterns in new ways we have yet to fully experience. Many experts agree that we are entering a fourth industrial age in which the pace of change is exponential — open, digital, and global — rather than linear — closed, analogue, and local. Almost overnight new digital behaviours and exponential technologies are completely transforming entire industries anchored in centuries of tradition.

Banks, for example, are implementing AI in ways that will render entire professions obsolete. JPMorgan recently implemented a new software called Contract Intelligence (COIN) that conducted 360,000 hours of annual legal work in mere seconds. The Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, the largest retail chain in the world, doesn’t own inventory. Facebook, the biggest global media platform, owns no media. Airbnb, the most extensive hotel chain on the planet, owns no real estate. Digital has touched retail, media, accommodations, transportation, and a myriad of other areas in our lives. Yet governments have been slow, and in some cases, totally absent in adopting new digital practices.

This government inaction poses incredible risks, since public institutions are often called upon to regulate the very industries heading toward new digital horizons at a pace governments simply can’t keep up with. A good case is driverless cars. Government operations in many countries still rely on “taxi chits” that public officials manually fill out to move from meeting to meeting. How can governments possibly be expected to understand and regulate industries in which digital is at the core if they can’t even apply basic technology in their own internal operations? There is a need for a fundamental rebuild of public service if governments are to grapple efficiently with the digital world.

The danger is quite real and by no means an exaggeration. What happens to regulators when most banks do what JPMorgan has done and introduce AI across all their operations? The two sides won’t be able to have a real dialogue because the digital divide will be too great. What will happen to revenue collection agencies around the world once more and more private corporations and citizens adopt cryptocurrencies? The role of government as a regulator, even more important, as a trusted source of authority, is in many ways already broken, and digitization will only exacerbate this complex challenge.

This new digital reality hits every single area of government operations like a sledgehammer. Even in policy development, often seen as a core offering of most democracies in the world, digital realities are making existing practices outdated. For example, public services typically conduct policy development through some form of formal consultation. Historically, consultations occur during a specific period of time — there is a beginning and an end to the consultation period — then a policy is written and implemented. In a world driven by instant social interaction on numerous social media platforms, dialogue in the form of government “consultation” can often be seen as a tokenistic approach for engagement with citizens. How does the public service change its model to better react to events such as the Arab Spring, which was mostly coordinated using social media? How do governments adjust to this new reality in which citizens expect instant engagement with their public institutions because they get an instant response in every other facet of their lives? The policy development mechanism isn’t digital, nor is it reflective of new emerging global values demanded by an increasing number of digital citizens.

If policy development doesn’t reflect new digital realities, it can also be claimed that government services are outdated. Health care, employment insurance, waste management, and other such services are all impacted by the digital, exponential reality. Consequently, regardless of the level of government — national, regional, or municipal — digital has impacted the expectations of citizens and businesses when dealing with government services.

Citizens are used to tracking their online purchase orders and pinpointing in real time which exact truck is delivering their goods. As individuals, we can order food, music, or transportation from the convenience of our mobile devices. Yet often, when it comes to government services, we assume an analogue delivery. In many ways, this divergent public versus private digital service reality is driven by market needs. In any other sector, there is an imperative to be digital in order to meet shifting market demands. If a service or product isn’t digital by design in today’s world, it simply fails. In government, this imperative is less present, if at all, since there is no competition, and often a “digital-first” approach to service design is non-existent. The thinking in government hasn’t evolved yet because the pressure to do so appears to be less apparent than in other sectors.

Table of Contents

Introduction Alex Benay 7

1 Trust in an Era of "Open" and Digital Government Mary Francoli 15

2 Shift Happens: Governments and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Iain Klugman 35

3 Fifth-Generation Wireless: The Backbone Behind Smart Cities and Smart Government Ray Sharma Amir Bashir 53

4 Building the Future of Learning John Baker 74

5 On Openness Hillary Hartley 95

6 Government Social Media Jennifer Urbanski 115

7 The Future of Digital Government Services Olivia Neal 137

8 Building a Digital Government the e-Estonian Way Siim Sikkut 155

9 Government as a Platform: How Governments Can Lead in a Digital World Alex Benay 175

10 A Path to Exponential Government Salim Ismail 190

Conclusion Alex Benay 205

Acknowledgements 215

List of Abbreviations 217

Editorial Reviews

Over the next decade, expectations of how government services should be delivered will shift.... It is my hope that Canada will be at the forefront of this transformation, figuring out how good governance can be digitally distributed, and sharing what we find with the world.

Tobias Lütke

Governments that get digital right will radically transform how it innovates, competes, and engages its constituent to drive economic growth and prosperity. Government Digital does a terrific job of setting the stage and prescribing how to design the right strategy and governance so countries can embrace the benefits of digital transformation.

Manoj Saxena

This book is an excellent blueprint for governments around the world that need to retool their infrastructure, their policies and their citizens for the success in the interconnected, data-driven age. It provides great insight for all public office holders who dare to act boldly, using new ways to empower and serve modern citizenry and in the process promote public interest and preserve our freedoms.

Jim Balsillie

Estonia’s experience suggests that government digitisation provides numerous opportunities to make people’s lives easier and more efficient. Governments must not miss this opportunity. All public service leaders better read up on it from this book and get to action.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia Jüri Ratas

Estonia’s experience suggests that government digitisation provides numerous opportunities to make people’s lives easier and more efficient. Governments must not miss this opportunity. All public service leaders better read up on it from this book and get to action.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia Jüri Ratas

Over the next decade, expectations of how government services should be delivered will shift.... It is my hope that Canada will be at the forefront of this transformation, figuring out how good governance can be digitally distributed, and sharing what we find with the world.

Tobias Lütke

Estonia’s experience suggests that government digitisation provides numerous opportunities to make people’s lives easier and more efficient. Governments must not miss this opportunity. All public service leaders better read up on it from this book and get to action.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia — Jüri Ratas

Estonia's experience suggests that government digitisation provides numerous opportunities to make people's lives easier and more efficient. Governments must not miss this opportunity. All public service leaders better read up on it from this book and get to action.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia — Jüri Ratas