This workshop helped participants tackle one of the key challenges identified in our first Digital Leaders report, and fostered the development of relationships, networks and projects to hasten progress over future years. We used the information gathered – including a survey of participants’ views, and their comments during the 90-minute discussion – within our second Digital Leaders report.

Vision and planning

Wednesday 30 March 2022 (Online). 

Too often, national digital vision and strategy documents are vague and generic – setting out the goal of ‘digitising government’ without prioritising tasks, allocating funding, or detailing implications such as changed roles or responsibilities. Yet where these more difficult and controversial issues have not been addressed as the vision is developed, problems are bound to arise during implementation.

It is easy to understand why the digital leaders writing vision documents tend to skirt around some of these topics: few other senior officials want to hear that the changes required will be expensive, substantive and disruptive, that the digital centre will be taking new powers, or that departments will be subject to new targets and reporting regimes.

However, if those arguments aren’t held – and won – at this early stage, then digital leaders can find themselves lacking the powers, resources and buy-in required to transform government. This session considered both the essential elements of an effective digital transformation strategy, and the ways in which digital leaders can win the buy-in, engagement and support of departmental chiefs and the heads of other professional functions.