‘Ground-breaking’, ‘innovative’, ‘visionary’. They are not words traditionally used to describe a government department’s IT strategy, but in the case of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) our aspiration is to be the best at what we do. When I joined the DWP in November 2014, it was in the midst of delivering some of the biggest changes to the welfare state in 60 years. Digital technology was, and remains, central to this transformation. For those less familiar with our work, DWP delivers a wide range of State support from pensions to Jobseeker’s Allowance and services for disabled people. What we do directly affects around 22 million people – that’s one in every three UK people living in the UK. Our digital technology and data and security specialists are engaged in simplifying the benefits system, always keeping customer needs at the heart of everything we do. Design-driven and user-focussed, we prefer open source technologies to build flexible platforms. For example, we’ve recently launched over a dozen digital services, including the Universal Credit and digital pensions’ services. We delivered 7,229 iterations and changes into production last year. We also reduced downtime for our key operational services by 42% for the year. All this was done while saving £139 million for the taxpayer. We must build on these achievements to sustain our high levels of performance. We’re moving away from a model of long-term, outsourced IT contracts, to one where we develop and deliver new digital services and a flexible cloud infrastructure. In DWP, multi-disciplinary teams come together to create at pace, in a dynamic environment where ideas and ability are more important than grade or hierarchy. We’re proud to have a strong team behind us to make this happen. Our innovation and research team seeks out new ways to make public services simpler, faster and cheaper. This approach ensures we design services based on how people act in the real world, with real-time analytics used to continually improve performance and user experience. We are only as good as the talent in our teams. People who know their craft are joining our teams. Working in public service offers the chance to create and apply the latest technologies on a grand scale. We’re changing the very infrastructure of government, while making a real difference to millions of people’s lives. At DWP, we’re motivated every day by the challenges we face. Few organisations – if any – are applying next-generation technology to such nationally-important issues on such a scale. From design thinking, to building secure infrastructure, to creating intelligence from data accessible through open APIs, we’re accelerating the journey towards our digital future. With innovation and creativity at the core of our culture, we are re-imagining our future. Mayank Prakash is Director General – Digital Technology at the Department for Work and Pensions Related content brandpost The steep cost of a poor data management strategy Without a data management strategy, organizations stall digital progress, often putting their business trajectory at risk. Here’s how to move forward. By Jay Limbasiya, Global AI, Analytics, & Data Management Business Development, Unstructured Data Solutions, Dell Technologies Jun 09, 2023 6 mins Data Management feature How Capital One delivers data governance at scale With hundreds of petabytes of data in operation, the bank has adopted a hybrid model and a ‘sloped governance’ framework to ensure its lines of business get the data they need in real-time. By Thor Olavsrud Jun 09, 2023 6 mins Data Governance Data Management feature Assessing the business risk of AI bias The lengths to which AI can be biased are still being understood. The potential damage is, therefore, a big priority as companies increasingly use various AI tools for decision-making. By Karin Lindstrom Jun 09, 2023 4 mins CIO Artificial Intelligence IT Leadership brandpost Rebalancing through Recalibration: CIOs Operationalizing Pandemic-era Innovation By Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies Jun 08, 2023 6 mins CIO Digital Transformation Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe