The cloud enables governments to accelerate the transformation of their services. Examples of successful transformation using the cloud, from Singapore to the UK, India to Iceland, Australia to Argentina and many countries in between, show that the public sector can respond to their citizens’ changing needs. However, they also show that transformation is about more than modern technology. There are common elements that underpin success. There are also common challenges. Some nations are well advanced, and those who started their transformation journey more recently can benefit from the experience of early adopters.

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Institute has taught almost 5,000 government leaders in 23 countries through its Executive Education programme, in collaboration with leading academic and international non-governmental institutions. Participants deliver government services of varying types and sizes. They raise five common challenges.

This guide summarises the answers from experts, many of whom have first-hand experience of nation-scale transformation. There are links to real examples and additional resources, including technical guides. The guide is in five distinct sections that reflect the most common challenges. Find more insight and solutions for other transformation challenges specific to your region or service at the AWS Institute.

When they recruit new, highly qualified hires, public-sector managers consider how they can compete with tech or financial services companies with regard to pay. Spiller says government can offer two things that people with tech skills value highly: flexible working and an innovative working environment, where experimentation is encouraged.

“Rather than being prescriptive about a particular coding language, job ads could prioritise these things, which are what people want,” she says.

Liam Maxwell adds: “Communicate the whole package. Government is for everybody. In government jobs, you deliver for every citizen and there is a powerful sense of purpose that motivates people. Public sector leaders say that three years in a government role is the equivalent of ten years of experience in similar private sector roles because of the scale of the challenges and level of exposure.”

“It becomes more effective to help people understand what’s going on when information is drip-fed,” he says. “You need to actually show the delivery and what will follow in the next stage. It also makes it much more intimate. The UK Government Digital Service (GDS) Blog is a good example.”

The Singapore government also does this effectively, he adds. “They regularly say what has happened and how it will change things, and it becomes a normal state of affairs that things are changing.” There are two blogs that serve different audiences. One, the LifeSG blog, provides updates on citizen services. The other, on the Singapore Government Developer Portal, is for the technology community.

This type of open communication is also a great recruiting tool, adds Beaven, alerting people to interesting projects that are going on in government, which attract them to work there.

Simply, no. When it comes to the technology element of capability, there’s a growing movement, for example among European governments, in Brazil and in India, that projects should use open source code. For example, in October 2020 the European Commission committed to the use of open source in practical areas, such as IT, and also in areas where it can be strategic. Using coding languages and frameworks that people want to work with and where skills are available makes adding the capability to build the service simpler.

Open source code is found in online repositories and can be freely accessed and reused under open source licences. Caroline Mulligan, who worked with the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), says: “Why reinvent the wheel? Why not use something that works and then focus on the bits that are relevant to your unique problems or legislation?”

One such example was the UK government’s Digital Marketplace, set up to help public sector procurement bodies buy and deliver cloud-based services. It took around two years for the UK team to build it. The Australian government reused the UK government’s open source code and was able to launch its own digital marketplace in just six weeks from start to finish. This approach meant there was no need to spend the time and money on development that the UK government needed to find.  

“The development savings run into hundreds of thousands of dollars when you consider that the UK evolved their service over several years,” says Mulligan. The service has evolved substantially since this time and is now called Buy ICT.

In the same way as code, open standards for digital services are invaluable. Mulligan explains: “Things we take for granted, such as seamless mobile phone connections in different countries and international rail services are all possible because common standards have been agreed. The same principle applies to digital transformation. Common standards mean digital services can interoperate with one another. They also provide high quality across security, accessibility, user experience and data exchange. They make sure that suppliers have equal access and opportunity to work with government, which gives governments access to innovative technology at competitive prices.”