A new Whitehall unit, unveiled as part of government’s digital roadmap, has been created to replicate the best customer service of the private sector in the delivery of public services
Government has created a new ‘CustomerFirst’ unit with a remit to reform and improve citizen services by “bringing together the best civil service operators alongside leading private sector disruptors and transformation specialists”.
The team will be based in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and will be led by Tristan Thomas, who becomes a civil servant having previously been a senior leader at Monzo. After leaving the online bank, in 2021 co-founded Packfleet: a carbon-neutral package-delivery firm.
Another industry big-hitter supporting the work of CustomerFirst will be the founder and incumbent chief executive of Octopus Energy Greg Jackson, who will serve as the DSIT unit’s co-chair.
The newly created team will have a remit “to build services that make use of AI and modern solutions to mirror excellent customer services in the best of the private sector”, according to a press release from government – which cites online banking and utilities.
As an example of the kind of services government wishes to replicate, DSIT points to Jackson’s company which it says now uses “generative AI tools [to] assist in drafting 35% of all customer emails, slashing wait times and receiving customer satisfaction ratings of 70%”.
The tech department wants its new team to “take a ‘NewCo’ approach to transformation”, in which it will not be encumbered by legacy systems, and will enjoy a high level of autonomy in the creation of new tools.
In addition to benefits for users of public services, CustomerFirst is also intended to “help the hardworking employees delivering services… [by] ensuring dedicated customer service staff have the right tools to do their job well”.
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DSIT estimates that the unit could also help enable taxpayer savings of £4bn by supporting online fulfilment of services that would otherwise have required interactions via phone, post, or in person.
Having launched the new customer service unit, government is now “looking for senior and experienced talent who want to be part of this change, [and] expressions of interest are now open for experts in service design, solutions architecture, and product management”.
The road ahead
According to DSIT, the creation of CustomerFirst is to be one of the main initiatives set out in the new cross-government Digital Roadmap set to be published in the next few days – which is intended to provide a detailed delivery agenda for the ambitions set out in the Blueprint for modern digital government released in early 2025.
Minister for digital government Ian Murray said: “Too often people are put off from interacting with the services they need by the frustration that comes with waiting on hold, filling in endless forms, and jumping through hoop after hoop. A culture of ‘computer says no’ is not good enough, and this Roadmap sets out the wide range of brilliant work happening across government to improve public services and citizens’ interaction with them. Alongside that we’re launching CustomerFirst – taking bold steps in how we redesign services so they meet the demands of modern life – fast, simple, and stress-free.”
The first government body to partner with CustomerFirst is the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Working together, the agency and the new DSIT team will be asked to “think radically about how DVLA handles… millions of customer interactions”. This work, which will include the potential use of AI tools in contact centres and other customer-support facilities, is intended to “serve as a blueprint for improving services across government”. The hope is that, working with, CustomerFirst “other departments will deliver the same improvements unlocked by technology, ensuring millions more people benefit from simpler, faster interactions with the state”.
Having been founded by Jackson in 2015, Octopus grew to become the UK’s largest energy supplier by 2024, and accounts for almost a quarter of the market. In August of last year, Jackson began a three-year term as a non-executive director of the Cabinet Office. He also serves as a member of government’s Industrial Strategy Advisory Council.
After three years in operation, Thomas’s start-up, Packfleet, raised about £8m in a 2024 funding round – but shuttered its brand just a year later, with all customers and operations transferred to new owner DHL. Shortly after its multimillion-pound funding injection the company also encountered criticism for its employment models, with leaders of the Unite union hitting out at “disgusting… pernicious and hypocritical” proposals to offer drivers more money for taking on a greater workload of deliveries, rather than being paid a flat hourly rate.
