Kattel, Rainer;
Takala, Ville;
(2023)
The Case of the UK's Government Digital Service: The Professionalisation of a Paradigmatic Public Digital Agency.
Digital Government: Research and Practice
, 4
(4)
, Article 28. 10.1145/3630024.
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Abstract
This case study explores the evolution of the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS) since its inception in 2011. GDS is seen by many as the gold standard digital agency, copied in multiple instances and praised for its achievements. Drawing on expert interviews with former and current GDS employees, we look at the evolution of GDS through three distinct phases. We argue that at the core of GDS foundation is a coherent and paradigmatic approach to government digital transformation. GDS can be viewed as a conscious effort to create new capabilities within government through a new organisation that questioned dominant routines in government IT and generated new approaches, frameworks, and skills to do digital transformation differently. These new routines have, over time, become part of the central government machinery. GDS has successfully professionalised these new routines beyond its own organisational boundaries. However, in doing so, GDS has itself become a distinctly different organisation that now faces the challenge of how to rejuvenate its original dynamism.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Case of the UK's Government Digital Service: The Professionalisation of a Paradigmatic Public Digital Agency |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1145/3630024 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3630024 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Digital transformation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Inst for Innovation and Public Purpose |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10185731 |
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