Technology’s Role In Public Services

In a world where citizen expectations are often shaped by leading e-commerce brands and most public sector agencies need to squeeze the most value from what they spend, agility and productivity are more important than ever. That’s where technology comes in.

Governments the world over are turning to technology—specifically digital technologies and AI—to improve services and boost efficiency. And while both digital transformation and AI have already impacted government for the better, there are ways to take it to the next level with a few practical steps.

Agile service delivery

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, governments are embracing agility as a core tenet, leveraging the potential of digital public infrastructure (DPI) to revolutionize the experiences of their stakeholders. DPI can provide governments with the vital tools and platforms necessary to create flexible, practical, and responsive service delivery models. By leveraging digital identity solutions, data exchange systems, and digital payments, governments can streamline processes, reduce bureaucracy, and provide citizens with seamless and more personalized experiences.

For example, in India, investments in a DPI payments infrastructure enabled 500 million new bank accounts over the years. It also allowed governments to directly deposit cash at scale and speed during the COVID-19 pandemic—when citizens needed it most—transferring US$3.9 billion to 318 million beneficiaries within two weeks of announcing an aid program. Similarly, Ukraine’s Diia app streamlined payments for displaced people during the Russia-Ukraine war. When homes had to be rebuilt, Diia launched its eRecovery service for easy, seamless fund disbursement to homeowners.

AI and productivity

Digital transformation enabled agencies to set up the foundation to benefit from advances in AI technologies in the past. Now, Generative AI (GenAI) can go even further, speeding up such tasks such as retrieving relevant information, communicating with others, processing information, analyzing data, and offering informed advice. Some experts predict that GenAI could boost the global gross domestic product by up to 7{996a0067a2ef9e05c4c765c3f2eddd6229568dd81b868c67202910a8b56ae36c} and productivity growth by 1.5{996a0067a2ef9e05c4c765c3f2eddd6229568dd81b868c67202910a8b56ae36c} over the course of the next decade.

In recent years, agencies have embedded AI technologies into thousands of government systems and processes, yielding improvements in agility and productivity. GenAI–based tools have the potential to automate tedious, time-consuming as well as many knowledge-based tasks, freeing up health care workers, child services caseworkers, defense and security analysts, embassy personnel, and other government employees to focus on high-value, intuitive, and creative work, including the ability to quickly respond to citizen needs.

Consider some of the following applications now being employed by governments:

• Virtual public servants that provide personalized responses to questions about public services
• Interfaces that enable the public to make use of government data
• Hyper-personalized digital teachers that can adapt to learning needs and curricula
• Language translation to support delivering more inclusive services

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has implemented more than two dozen AI-based automation solutions across several operational areas, including intelligence and public contact. The solutions have helped the service cut turnaround time from days to hours by fully automating low-complexity tasks while flagging complex tasks for staff review.

Practical ways to build agility and productivity

Incorporating agility and productivity into public services via technology can be challenging and can require actions that go beyond its procurement. To get started, here are some steps governments can take to help ensure they get the most from their digital and AI investments:

• Inculcate a culture of agility: Agility isn’t just about technology—it’s a mindset. Central governments should foster an agile mindset within agencies, prioritizing outcomes for citizens and businesses over inflexible and cumbersome processes. It’s important to establish faster feedback loops to enhance responsiveness and adaptability to changing circumstances.
• Combine different building blocks of DPI: Creating and developing responsive services takes more than simply rolling out individual building blocks of digital identity, payment, and data exchange systems. It is about designing them in such a way that the building blocks are interoperable so responsive digital services can be built on top of those powered by innovation, collaboration and transformation.
• Redefine AI strategy for GenAI: Government AI and technology leaders should experiment and identify the most impactful use cases for the evolving tools and adjust workforce strategy to incorporate new skills into specific job roles and tasks. Agencies can develop policies and guidelines for how people should—and shouldn’t—use the technology for specific applications and build trust by fostering a collaborative culture.
• Focus on workforce experience: Technology transformation can generate a culture backlash. Agencies should take a measured approach to AI skills training and the rolling out of new tools, designing programs around learners and including input from frontline workers. They should also analyze the positive impact of higher productivity on public sector wages and talent attraction and retention.

Unlike private sector companies, government agencies do not have the luxury of quickly redirecting budgets and staff from underperforming departments to promising new initiatives. Service mandates cannot be ignored, even if they’re expensive, and traditional cost-value trade-offs often do not apply. Therefore, achieving agility and productivity improvement lies not in cost-cutting but leveraging new approaches and technologies.

All of the above are themes we will be exploring at Deloitte’s Shared Services Conference, which we are excited to host once again this year on 8-10 October in the Netherlands. This year’s conference will showcase innovative solutions that are helping organizations—including those in the public sector—drive sustained operational excellence.

To learn more about agility and productivity in government, see Government Trends 2024 report or visit our Government & Public Services pages on Deloitte.com.