What it was:

Round table discussion, focusing on HMRC as a case study, attended by a range of people involved in the transformation of public services and public bodies, hosted by Reform at their Westminster office on 23 July 2018.

What I learned:

HMRC is engaged in ambitious transformation program:

• HMRC compares well as a revenue authority but still working to close the tax gap.
• Three objectives of the programme: improve service to customers, be more efficient, close the tax gap. Doing so by making tax digital for individuals and businesses.
• Significant internal change programme, organising more along customer lines, plus location rationalisation, and upskilling
• Original plans had arguably optimistic about the speed at which both HMRC and customers would change their behaviour
• Approx £400M annual savings from the baseline achieved

Key lessons learned by HMRC:

• Digital processes have to be end to end, look at the whole costumer journey, otherwise don’t really improve things or make savings.
• Also important to look at the end to end journey for employees… If they don’t have the right tools as part of the process then things don’t improve
• Sometimes it is not about technology, it is about changing behaviour or process or policy
• Overall, end to end approach is key

Other points:

• RPA seen as a tool to accelerate change.
• Don’t neglect the role of public servants to engage the public and drive change.
• NHS has challenges in that expectations of patients are changing, and NHS is federation of organisations not a single organisation.
• An important factor is arguably the strength of connection between the leadership and the customers. At times organisations have got ahead of customer expectations for digital, sometimes they have fallen behind.
• Involving the customer is key, some organisations are reorienting their structures around customers groups rather than their products.

What I will aim to do differently as a result:

• Aim to hook our digital and data transformation programmes to wider change programmes, otherwise there is not a strong enough driver for change.
• Try to ensure that our efforts bake in the principle of end to end transformation and design of services, and how we will support that. How do we support the early design and exploration of services?
• Work to understand and define how digital and data capability are accessed by customers, how is that capability made available to them?