Page 32 - Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities - A U4SSC deliverable

how civil services can invest in these skills – through attraction, recruitment and development – to
improve policies and services.”

This OECD Review goes on to conclude that the capability and capacity of the civil service workforce
is fundamental to the success of all public policy and reform; a known but often overlooked fact.

Case study – Digital maturity analysis of English local authorities

National, International & Research Group | UK Government Digital Service (GDS)

Figure 5: UK local authorities

Analysing the current state of digital maturity was across all UK local authorities.

Summary

• Having the right people in the right roles has the biggest impact on digital maturity.

• Strong evidence of collaboration and partnerships are an enabler to improving digital maturity.
• Budgets and deprivation do not affect digital transformation directly.

The problem

GDS supports digital transformation across the public sector. With 343 separate local authorities,
this would mean that considerable resources would be needed and would lead to a delay in being
able to support these organizations on their digital journey. We needed to establish the current
state of digital maturity across all these local authorities, and what the most mature authorities had
in common, so that we could target our resources and efforts to be as effective as possible.

18 Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities | May 2023