Scotland’s Digital Programme for the public sector is moving into its delivery phase with a system level portfolio approach and a pipeline of projects and an aim of reducing reliance on contractors.
Head of the programme Paul Fagan has outlined the position in a blogpost to make a year since it was launched.
He said the programme, led by the Scottish Government Digital Directorate, has a number of projects underway including the building of common components – such as ScotAccount, ScotPayments and the cloud platform service – common processes, portfolio management, a common methodology for designing services and structures to support web domains.
The system level portfolio approach is now aimed at ensuring the most important work is done, to help achieve strategic objectives and solve shared problems, and to find a better balance of delivery, budget and resource.
“We’ll have central management of capability and the process we use to recruit and retain staff with reduced reliance on contractors and managed service contracts,” Fagan said, adding that it will help provide a more flexible workforce.
Other aims include the increased use of common infrastructure and data sources, and user-centred processes, products and services.
Public service plans
Among the plans for transforming public services in the Digital Scotland Programme are the delivery of guidance for building services, real time shared data repositories, shared platforms and components and continuous improvement of digital services.
“The programme changes how colleagues in the public sector think about, design, deliver and maintain digital public services and has been introduced to further the outcomes of the rapid review of digital functions and is tied to wider public sector reform,” Fagan said.
