TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
Driving forward digital government
Guy Levin, executive director at Coadec, discusses how the next government should commit to driving forward ‘digital government’ in the UK.
T
he Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) is a non-profi t organisation that campaigns
for policies to support digital startups in the UK, and with just nine months to go until the next general election it has published a ‘Startup Manifesto’ to infl uence the debate.
The report focuses on fi ve key areas: improving access to fi nance; improving access to talent; building world class digital infrastructure; bringing laws and regulations into the 21st century; and using digital government to unlock innovation.
Within this, the manifesto, which is backed by more than 200 leading startups and has cross-party political support, sets out 24 ways the next government can make the UK a world leader on digital innovation.
Finance
Speaking to PSE about it, Coadec’s executive director Guy Levin said: “Before writing the report we did a survey of our supporters, and the issues that came out top from that survey were access to fi nance, skills and tax. And if you look in the manifesto there are recommendations on all of these issues.”
With regards to improving access to fi nance, the report says the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), introduced by the current coalition government, have been very eff ective at encouraging investment in startups.
According to a recent Deloitte survey, 86% of ‘angel investors’ – affl uent individuals who provide capital for a business startup – say they always use EIS or SEIS, while 58% say they would not have invested at all without them.
Levin said: “The EIS and SEIS schemes provide tax relief on early-stage companies and are very eff ective at encouraging capital fl ow to those companies. We call on the next government to keep those for the duration of the next Parliament.”
There has also been a call for bringing back corporate venture capital, and for the removal of the cap on entrepreneur relief – to encourage this group of people to re-invest the money that
they make.
Driving digital government
As well as improving access to fi nance for startups, Coadec wants more acceleration on digital government.
Levin writes in the report:
“[The
government] has redesigned services around the user need, with the Government Digital Service’s (GDS) design principles focus on user-centred design, data, and iteration. This makes government services quicker and easier for citizens. Digital government also saves money – the government’s own digital strategy estimates that digital by default could save between £1.7bn and £1.8bn each year. Finally, it opens up data – and by putting public sector data online it helps unlock innovation.”
Innovation
Asked to expand on this last point, Levin told us that he wants to see more startups creating new services and technologies, with open government data being the platform for success.
He said: “Citymapper is one great example of what happens when you open up data and government services digitally. This startup was built on top of public sector data published by TfL [PSE has previously interviewed TfL’s head of online, Phil Young, about this].
“TfL had tried to develop its journey planners in the past – but they never looked the best, Google tried to do it through Google Maps and it didn’t work well, but Citymapper came along and created something fantastic.”
This shows what can happen when the public sector lets others innovate on top of their platform, he said. “I’m also saying that GDS is doing all the right things and it should keep going in the direction it is,” noted Levin. “I know there is a roadmap for opening up government services to APIs (application
© Paul Clarke and GDS, Creative Commons
programme interfaces) and I am calling for that to happen more quickly and widely.
“I do think this would allow all sorts of things we can’t even imagine yet, and when you get bright minds and startups looking at new ways of combining that data and transactions it could lead to many new products and services. This should be encouraged.”
Coadec has called on the next government to simplify the process for startups to list their services on the CloudStore – making it easier to sell to the public sector – plus a commitment to expand the GDS.
It has even been suggested that this expansion could come in the form of the development of new teams focused on particular issues or areas, for example a ‘Health Digital Service’ with a focus on the NHS. Levin added: “Digitising government services is a worthy aim. It is better for both users and the public sector. I’m all for open data, but you can go even further than just opening up data.
“A future wave of startup innovation will be unlocked when government takes the next step and becomes a platform-based operating model similar to Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook. But this is only the beginning. The next government should work towards all government transactions and services being opened up using APIs to allow others to innovate on top of the platform.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
W:
www.coadec.com/wp-content/ uploads/2014/09/Startup-Manifesto.pdf
public sector executive Oct/Nov 14 | 59
Cabinet Offi ce minister Francis Maude MP at the 2011 launch of the Government Digital Service
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www.freeimages.co.uk
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