Building the Smarter State

The seventh edition of our flagship public services conference, Building the Smarter State, took place virtually on 22 September 2021.

2021 marked ten years since the launch of the report that led to the founding of the Government Digital Service. The decade since witnessed both significant disruption and progression in public sector transformation. As well as the establishing of GDS, there was the introduction of the Cloud First policy, the creation of the Digital Marketplace, the launch of the Local Digital Declaration and a new Local Digital Collaboration Unit, a renewed emphasis on user centricity and the disaggregation of large IT and technology contracts. All of which helped propel the UK to the top spot in the UN’s E-Government Rankings in 2016. 

Alongside past pressures and the legacy of COVID-19, 2021 saw changes to public procurement, key leaders in the heart of Government brought in to supercharge digitization, and efforts to address the legacy estate, harness data and develop capability across the public sector.  

The 2021 conference brought together senior leaders from the public sector and the civil service to explore the key issues and technologies that will usher in the next decade of public service transformation. 

You can view the sessions from Building the Smarter State 2021 on the techUK YouTube channel 

Building the Smarter State 2021 Sponsors