In this exclusive piece for PublicTechnology, government’s long-standing tech advisor discusses how the new digital centre aims to give citizens back their time, at the times of their greatest need
We all know that losing a loved one is one of the worst things to go through. And piled on top of the grief, the loss, the shock – is the ‘sadmin’. A horrible heap of paperwork that none of us wants to have to do, coming at the worst time possible.
So in 2025, when we can book taxis, do our banking, even apply for a mortgage all from the comfort of our own homes, it’s almost unforgiveable that the state requires people in the throes of bereavement, to turn up to an office in person to register a death. There are so many better things they could be doing with that time, and losing someone close to you brings into full contrast just how important our time is.
While they’re not all as deeply emotionally affecting, there are scores of similar examples of this across the public sector. Where the machine of the state simply hasn’t caught up with today’s timesaving technologies, and where we are wasting the public’s time – and often their cash too – demanding that they apply for something in person, send off letters by snail mail, or just sit on hold on the phone for hours. The list goes on – and that’s before we get onto geriatric IT systems, and even records being held on paper, which slows things down further still.
This is a colossal opportunity to streamline things for the end user – which means we get the public out of thankless queues, and liberate police officers and doctors from drudgerous paperwork
It’s clear we can’t go on like this. But the good news is that we don’t have to – and that solving this problem doesn’t require anyone to reinvent the wheel. It’s more than 25 years since I started selling holidays, on the web, and fifteen since the government launched GOV.UK. Many of us will use an app to buy something, or book travel, every day or every week. The tech is already out there, to make good this problem, and AI will only offer more opportunities to do so.
The plans being announced by the government this week set out the practical steps that will put technology at the centre of how the public sector works and how we all interact with it. It is a comprehensive reboot of how the UK government ‘does’ tech: from using tools like chatbots more smartly and more often, to overhauling how the tech that underpins our public services is funded and delivered. This is a colossal opportunity to streamline things for the end user – which means we get the public out of thankless queues, we liberate police officers and doctors from drudgerous paperwork, and we replace creaking and expensive infrastructure with tools that are useful, secure and cost-effective. It’s also a chance to back innovative British businesses to grow and create jobs, by putting their products to work for the public good.
This is not a case of tinkering around the edges. The government has been spending £14.5bn a year on consultants to perform basic tech tasks that our own tools are too weak, or too elderly, to manage. That has to stop.
And the prize that’s at hand? A potential £45bn in productivity savings, if we roll out the latest tech to its maximum potential. There is also a growth dividend we can reap from using government procurement, in a smart way, to back the British firms who are developing this sort of technology. All of this speaks to technology’s pivotal role in this government’s overall plan for a decade of national renewal, and delivering meaningful change.
The last thing anyone needs when they’re in a crisis is to lose precious hours to admin and busywork. We can use tech to put public services just a few clicks or a smartphone swipe away, giving people back one of the most important things they possess: their own time, and the freedom to do what they need to with it.

Baroness Martha Lane Fox (picture above) is a tech entrepreneur, crossbench peer and co-chair of the panel recently created to advise government on the new ‘digital centre’ created in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Having founded lastminute.com in 1998, Lane Fox went on to play a key role in establishing the Government Digital Service, and served as the government-appointed UK digital champion from 2010 to 2013.