digital government report
The future of digital public services Director of Digital Shared Services, Iggy O’Doherty, discusses the immediate priorities within the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) of data, capability and infrastructure to support digital transformation in government. Setting the context of a range of challenges and opportunities thrown up by the Covid-19 pandemic in the past two years in relation to the digital transformation of government, O’Doherty points to an ongoing focus on building capability within the NICS. “Improving the digital literacy of staff across government departments, including those of senior leaders, is central to the effective running of our business areas,” he explains, outlining work to professionalise the public sector’s approach to a host of disciplines such as procurement, contract management and security, in order to develop the digital skills required to lead and run modern government departments.
Turning to digital transformation, O’Doherty points to the recent launch of the digital transformation hub for all NICS staff, as a means to help promote better awareness of the services provided, highlight the changes enabled and offer staff a feedback channel for the transformation team. It is seen as a platform for viewing the success of digital transformation work across the public sector.
With the majority of NICS staff now working remotely, the public sector’s dependence on digital technology has never been greater and as a result, O’Doherty states: “There is a growing need to enhance the digital skills of public sector colleagues and improve our own digital capability so that we can deliver better and more efficient public services.”
The success underpins the goals of the NICS’s Digital Transformation Strategy and O’Doherty explains that the portal is used by all government departments to share learning experiences and lessons of excellence.
Recently, O’Doherty oversaw research which considered how NICS staff were using technology and commissioned a survey to ascertain how competent staff felt they were in using technology.
However, the Director of Digital Shared Services is aware of the need to continuously drive forward digital inclusion, recognising that while the pandemic caused a surge in digital interaction with public services, it also exacerbated the digital divide for those who remain offline. To this end, he says that his Digital Inclusion Unit were relentless with their efforts throughout Covid and continue to work closely with external stakeholders, such as Business in the Community, Supporting Communities and LibrariesNI to minimise the gap.
“Our research focused on digital skills to establish if we had the required learning and development to support our staff and we supplemented this with a digital skills assessment.” says O’Doherty. Follow up surveys have been conducted and the Director of Digital Shared Services points out that interventions informed by the research have led to an approximate 43 per cent improvement in digital skills. Additionally, the findings prompted a deep-dive analysis and the creation of an array of eLearning utilities to help develop staff further. At the end of 2021, O’Doherty and his team launched the eLearning package across all NICS departments. Stressing that work will continue on building digital capability in the NICS, O’Doherty adds: “As head of profession for ICT in the NICS, I am going to tackle capability and talent pipeline issues head on. We have many new digital recruitment opportunities and are actively defining career paths to build future capacity.” 64
Digital transformation
Technology and digital adoption O’Doherty explains that increased demand for digital public services has compelled the Digital Shared Services’ design team to adopt new technologies.
