The DGI evaluates 38 countries based on their digital government capabilities, focusing on six dimensions. The UK’s overall position of third place, while slipping one spot from the previous index, arguably demonstrates an ongoing commitment to digital governance all the same.

This year, the UK made notable progress in the ‘digital by design’ dimension, which measures efforts to institutionalise digital government in ways which enable public sector institutions to use digital tools and data in coherent and strategic manners to transform services. The UK landed third overall in this domain, up from fifth in the previous index. 

However, this year, the UK failed to even crack the top 10 in the ‘data-driven public sector’ category, which highlights the significant gaps in high and low performing categories. 

“Data-driven public sector is one of the dimensions with the highest standard deviation, reflecting a large gap between high and low performers. More countries could enhance data leadership to fully harness data as a strategic asset across government, to complement the considerable efforts undertaken to establish data protection regimes and authorities,” said the report. 

Furthermore, the UK experienced a decline from first to seventh place in the government-as-a-platform dimension. Nonetheless, the marginal differentiation in points among the top 10 performers underscores a comprehensive effort in digital government policy implementation.

According to the OECD index report, countries have made significant strides in strengthening digital governance, yet there remains a need to enhance the mandate and oversight mechanisms to maximise impact. The top 10 performers include South Korea, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, Estonia, Colombia, Ireland, France, and Canada, reflecting their balanced performance across various dimensions of digital government.

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In reference to the OECD index, the Scottish GovTech Cluster said: “There could be two areas for Scottish GovTech’s here, exporting the proven UK service design skills in creating user centric services and focusing in on the UK weakness in data driven Public Services.”

Gareth Davies, head of the National Audit Office, emphasised the urgency of addressing data issues within the UK government during his annual speech to Parliament in January 2024. Davies underscored the importance of clean, quality data as a key enabler of productivity and efficiency gains, crucial for realising the government’s ambitions in artificial intelligence (AI) implementation.