The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has criticised the UK government’s attempts at digital transformation, arguing in a new report that the country's governing infrastructure is lacking in the adequate resources.

PAC, which examines the value for money of government projects and programmes, said that government departments are only making “piecemeal changes” to legacy systems instead of investing in redesigning new systems which would yield greater benefits.

“It is difficult to transform services where they are supported by poorly performing legacy systems and data,” the report says. “When government does not have the right resources and capabilities at all levels it tends to make more superficial incremental changes. This is a lost opportunity to fully redesign and transform services to achieve long-term efficiency benefits.”

The government set up the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) to help improve digital transformation and the report said that it had made good progress on supporting departments.

However, PAC found the government has half the proportion of digital, data and technology professionals amongst its employees compared to other organisations, which further limited the government’s efforts to transform digitally.

The report argues the government had been affected by the digital skills shortage, but some of this had been “self-inflicted through headcount cuts” to cut costs. This may harm the government in the long run.

“If senior leaders do not understand how transformation would reduce future operating costs, they will continue to under-invest,” the report says, adding: “As part of business cases, departments should explicitly set out how they will resolve issues caused by changes to old legacy systems and data, and demonstrate how wider service redesign will reduce the future costs of the services they support.”

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