What’s the Public Purpose of GovTech?
Comments on Matt Hancock’s vision for a more tech-driven NHS
Last week, I talked about the need for policymakers to up their game to create symbiotic relationships with tech companies — The Perks of Being Policy-Native in the Digital Economy.
Recently I read with great interest a speech by Matt Hancock, UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care “My vision for a more tech-driven NHS”.
It came to my attention thanks to Daniel Korski, a seasoned policy advisor who is now helping startups transforming the public sector with public.io.
Unlike what the media coverage and the title suggest, this is not a speech only about bringing the “best technology in the world” to the NHS.
Rather, I believe Matt Hancock’s speech could be the sketch of “bold new organizational structures”, as described in “Mission-oriented innovation policy and dynamic capabilities in the public sector” by Mariana Mazzucato and Rainer Kattel from The Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP).
And these “bold new organizational structures” should include a commitment of the government to harness the power of technology to transform its services for the benefits of citizens.
Three ideas stuck with me, let me share them with you.
1) Buy the right stuff
“Suppliers’ interests are too often not aligned with the NHS’s interests, and the contracts badly managed. This supplier capture is common in IT, but it is not inevitable”
For those in Europe who are afraid that GovTech is a Trojan Horse for the corporate capture of public services, let’s remember that the UK Government itself has been ripped off by G4S and Carillion. Unfortunately, I’m sure that many similar cases exist all over Europe.
When it comes to tech companies, a new cohort of US-based scholars is now devoting their time to investigating anti-trust issues. They are rejuvenating a field where consensus has been strong, rediscovering a forgotten literature and making waves in the public debate.
In Europe, what if we put the same energy to understand why our governments are calling on such a small number of players in markets like facilities management?
In such choices, what is the balance between political path-dependency, economics efficiency or mere complacency? Can it be any different?
2) A new skill-set
“We will work to build technical skills in the whole health and care system to help them manage their tech, meet their user needs, articulate those needs better, guide innovators through the rabbit warren and buy the best tech”.
As I’ve explained at a “French Tech” panel at Station F earlier this spring:
We should start with better framing what we mean by “collaboration between startups and the State”. In fact, I think that it’s misleading to insist too much on the Start-Ups & State collaboration. Why?
Because the question we should first answer is: what is the public purpose?
We must be talking about the State’s relationship with its citizens. Startups are here to help — but it’s not about them!
It follows that GovTechs should not be seen as competing against public sector employees. What’s the goal then?
GovTech should enable public employees to focus on high-value tasks because the boring, painful ones have been taken care of by startups who have an edge in understanding what users need and providing them outstanding services at scale.
3) Culture change
“The truth is, it is not the technology that is holding us back. Just being able to make the best use of technology that has already been invented would transform health and care in this country. In all my experience of digital transformation, it’s no different. Only 10% of the challenge is the tech. 90% of the challenge is the culture.
Matt Hancock is right to emphasize that most of the technology we need in government services is commoditized. But this doesn’t mean that it’s a non-issue.
The challenge is to build and sustain the right dynamic public capabilities [*] at every step of the way. As Rainer Kattel put it :
“The design of a good policy is, to a considerable extent, the design of an organizational structure capable of learning and of adjusting behavior in response to what is learned.”
What’s next?
You might say: “Nothing new here”. But in our times, it is heartening to see a politician, exposing his vision for a tech-driven government service with such clarity and conviction.
I find this particular talk deserving of attention outside of the UK (and especially in France) and I encourage you all to go through Hancock’s vision for a more tech-driven NHS.
I am convinced that there’s not one single way to deploy and conceptualize #GovTech. But we need a European vision of what it could be. After all, here in Europe, government services have historically been our institutional comparative advantage.
That’s why you should join the conversation by following the emerging #GovTech key players in research and investment :
- Public.io, a European accelerator co-founded by Daniel Korski and Alex De Carvalho
- UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, a London-based research center co-led by Mariana Mazzucato and Rainer Kattel
And read
- Mission-oriented innovation policy and dynamic capabilities in the public sector
- The Promise of HealthTech: How Digital Innovators are Transforming the NHS
We’ll keep the conversation going at Sciences Po School of Public Affairs. Follow us week by week with “Institutional Hacking: A Playbook for Policy-Makers Lost in Transition” — Lessons from the History of Tech Revolutions and Beyond.
[*] My impression is that in France, outside of business schools, the idea of capabilities didn’t spark much interest:
- It’s not a secret that economics is not sure about what to do with “the State” beside “fixing market-failures”. Economics is not the best entry point to grasp organizational success.
- French Sociology is very much focused on “principles of vision and division of the State” — Think about The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning by Desrosières or Berkeley sociologist, Marion Fourcade’s work on the metrology of the State.
- How about political science and public administration? An important reading (in French) is a co-written policy paper “From State startups to Government-as-a-Platform” by Henri Verdier, the French State Chief Digital Officer and Pierre Pezziardi, entrepreneur-in-residence at beta.gouv.fr for the think-tank Fondapol. As they make it clear : the tech revolution is first an organizational and managerial revolution. In this line, an interesting course I’ve noticed is “Decision-making in the Public Sector” at Sciences Po Paris led by 3 members of the French high-level audit court, the Cour des Comptes.
