The UK government should establish an expert technology ethics body to help address complex challenges, including health monitoring, autonomous vehicles and legal disputes such as the right to be forgotten, an independent review has recommended.
The ethical body, which would be similar to those in medicine and academia, is just one of a slate of wide-ranging recommendations in the Making Digital Government Work for Everyone review published on Tuesday, which explores how technology and digital services could be better used to help citizens.
Commissioned by Labour and written by an independent panel of more than 20 advisers and volunteers, the review has been in progress since December 2013.
“This is one of the best pieces of work ever done in opposition,” said Chi Onwurah, Labour MP for Newcastle central who commissioned the review. “It emphasises the size of the opportunity, and sets out what’s at stake as well as what we could lose.”
21% don’t use UK government services online
Critically, the review highlights research by the BBC in 2013 which estimated that 21% of the UK population either don’t have the skills to access government services online, or don’t want to. “I think many people will be surprised by that number, but the technology has to deliver something to the people that are going to use it. If people have no incentive that is what we have to change.”
The review points to the work of the Government Digital Service, which has been systematically services such as applying for a new passport, benefits or tax returns, but Onwurah said the service needed to be less Whitehall focused and more informed by citizens.
“GDS has been world beating and Labour wants to continue on that path, but with different policy parameters. GDS started with the 20 most common transactions, the transactions that would save money or be changed the most quickly - Labour would want to prioritise the services that people need the most.”
‘Technology is no longer one sector, but part of every sector’
Further recommendations include setting up a review into the use of data by the public sector, releasing performance data for key services and appoint dedicated technology leaders within key government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Health and the Department for Education.
“The government has to recognise that technology is no longer a subsection of a department, but part of every sector. Every department in every local authority is going to be hoping to improve services while reducing cost and the only thing that is going to make that possible is technology – there is nothing else than enables engagement, productivity and reduces cost.”
Revive libraries and job centres for training and support
Another of the 35 recommendations is for social infrastructure, supporting citizens by helping provide support and training at under-used town halls, job centres, schools and create a new lease of life for libraries, many of which already provide unrecognised support for citizens struggling to learn how to access online services.
Investing in training and support to help a further 4.9 million people learn digital skills would create £189m in annual savings, the review claims, but present, the review says “a humane, active and vibrant experience of technology, rather than of government as just another online form”.
“This approach,” the review warns, “will be uncomfortable to many in central government. But it is only through approaches like this, not old-style top-down command and control, that government will develop a digital approach adequate to society’s most complex problems.”
‘We need to rebuild trust in open and shared data’
Citizens need to be able to connect with both local and national government, Onwurah said. “If they want to share all their data and be easily identified across all services, from registering births to applying for universal credit, they can. Equally if they want to keep the government more at a distance from their data, the choice is theirs.”
She also acknowledged that the trust of both consumers and citizens has been damaged by the Snowden revelations. “It has amplified the sense that citizens are being watched or exploited, and it’s not the positive democratising engagement that is the internet’s potential.
“There are recommendations to address this, including around how to rebuild trust and confidence in open and shared data. We want people to embrace the internet and think of it as theirs just as they do with government.”
The top recommendations
- Dedicated digital leaders in government departments
- Bring key government departments up to scratch by 2020
- Focus on services with the highest value for society
- Help 4.9 million people improve their digital skills
- Use libraries, town halls and job centres as training venues
- Release public sector performance data openly
- Establish a review into data and society
- Create an ethical framework for government, citizens and corporations
- Support digital change in local authorities
- Recognise and help promote digital experts in government
‘UK has chance to show ethical leadership in tech’
Saul Klein, partner at Index Ventures, said that there were very practical and pragmatic questions for businesses faced with complex ethical challenges.
“As technology becomes ubiquitous the ethical dimension becomes very important, both nationally and internationally, and the UK has a chance to show real leadership through an ethics body like this. It’s an interesting idea and not just for the people, but for companies and for countries to have a potential moral authority,” he said.
Klein said it is part of the nature of the work of GDS that it should start with what appears to be a centralised system, but that there is real desire for its benefits to be felt in broader government. “There’s almost a case for a chief digital officer in every department but, rather than a civil servant, this should be a minister who is accountable for digital change.”
Reaching the 21% of the population who can’t or won’t use online services is dependent on engaging people through libraries and job centres. “There does need to be equality of access, and services also need to be easy to access,” he said.
‘We need to engage the hardest people to reach’
Helen Milner, chief executive of the Tinder Foundation which contributed to the review, welcomed the review. “It’s a necessity they’re ambitious about accelerating the speed at which people without digital skills are able to take part in a digital society.
“We welcome the report because it acknowledges that simply doesn’t happen by magic. It needs to be supported - and funded - in a partnership involving the public sector, the private sector, and the grassroots organisations who can engage the very hardest to reach.”
The general secretary of the Co-operative Party, Karin Christiansen, said it was right to give citizens more control and access to government services.
“A co-operative model, based on the values of accountability and democratic control established in the 19th century, is even more relevant to the digital revolution of the 21st century and could be the solution to creating genuinely people-powered services,” she said.
“By joining a data co-operative people could not only make decisions about and have more control over the data that they give to both public and private organisations but also have more of a say in the services that are built upon and informed by that data.”
More than 2,000 citizens contributed to the review through its website as well as 80 formal submissions from organisations and companies. Onwurah said Labour’s technology policy would be heavily informed by the review, which continues to invite comment and contributions online on a new site from Wednesday.
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