There’s been no shortage of press in the last few years, vaunting Scotland’s place within not only ‘tech city’ rankings, but as places for high-growth businesses and startups to flourish.

Although these rankings generally tend to take in and highlight the private sector – fast growth, and internationalisation being particularly coveted – one of the greatest benefits of Scotland’s rapidly changing IT infrastructure has been the impact on public services and the transformational effect this has had on engendering business and entrepreneurial culture throughout the country.

Since humble beginnings over 50 years ago, Capita has seen it all so there’re few better placed to deliver public sector digital transformation projects than them.

As such, we caught up with Capita’s Melony Buchanan and Tom McLaughlin to try and get a sense of how far IT infrastructure has come in the last decade, what it’s meant for Scotland’s public services, what impact it’s had, and how it’s set the landscape for years to come for the technologies – IoT in particular – that can  potentially be leveraged to further the ambitions of using tech in a way that compellingly moves public services forward.

(Almost) a Decade of Change

Being at the heart of many large-scale, public-facing IT projects is a huge point of pride for Capita: “From our perspective, where we’ve really focused – on the 20 years I’ve been in this business – is on connectivity,” says Capita’s Solution Director, Tom McLaughlin.

He adds: “Where Capita’s had the most impact in Scotland is through an infrastructure framework that’s made public services more efficient by creating a system wherein collaboration was engendered as opposed to building in silos.

“Going back to 2014, there was still a huge amount of ADSL being rolled out, fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) was just starting to happen. Wheel forward eight years to today and there’s a whole range of application and data-sharing options available that didn’t exist before, that place both reliance and demand on secure, highly available infrastructure.”

However, to Mclaughlin, the transition to things like the cloud is far from complete. There’s still a requirement for native, legacy data centres and internally hosted applications. On this, he says: “There’s still that need for secure, effective and efficient data sharing internally within networks and across organisational boundaries – then we have the cloud on top of that.”

Capita’s Managing Director of Capita Public Service in Scotland, Buchanan also reflected on this intense period of transformation over the last eight years, saying: “Looking back, it’s fair to say that the growth and success of our IT and Network capability in Scotland has surpassed everyone’s expectations. That said, success brings its own challenges and for Capita its ensuring that we keep pace with emerging technologies and consistently meet the level of demand on our services.

“Our success over the past decade and exponential growth across the Scottish Public Sector is largely attributable to the fact that we have continually evolved, reflected, and improved to develop our offering to meet the needs of our customers.  We have worked hard as a team and set the bar high when it comes to the technology and services that we provide.

“Moving forward, it’s this hard-earned experience that gives us the momentum and ability to elevate our support of the public sector and people of Scotland.”

There’s no shortage of digital transformation victories that Capita has enjoyed over the last decade – keeping pace with the ever-growing expectation for Scotland’s IT infrastructure to be world-class, reflected in delivering top-tier public services. It’s no small task, reinvigorating a country’s IT sector, on which vital services so heavily lean on.

“There’s no escaping that these kinds of large-scale projects cost serious money,” admits McLaughlin.

Though he adds, with pride: “If it’s done properly, however, it will save money in the long run. We deployed a network that was faster, more widely available that delivered significant savings – over £30m – to the public purse.”

As a nation, Buchanan feels that national undertakings like this should be treated as a fourth utility.

On this, she says: “We have and continue to provide first class connectivity across Scotland. The availability and ability to connect Scotland is there and like everything, is evolving.”  Though, Buchanan is very cognisant of the importance that emerging technology will play in achieving the new Digital Strategy for Scotland.

She adds: “The narrative needs to shift from ‘when’ to ‘what’.  Rather than considering when fibre will be available, we must be clear on what fibre will help to enable, and what outcomes will it allow us to achieve.  Fibre, when delivered, will not digitally transform or enhance legacy systems in its own right. Let’s take the narrative away from discussing the component parts and move it to a place where we’re talking about the vision and sustainable outcomes that we hope to deliver, including net zero, digital inclusion and community benefits.”

How Big a Role is/will IoT Play in Public Services?

Much of challenge around effective IoT deployment is about demystifying its actual use-cases, where appropriate. Scotland isn’t necessarily uniquely places to use IoT tech in a special way, we have the same opportunities as many developed countries. What makes us stand out, is how we’ve actually gone about using it, while creating a tech culture that again, doesn’t see any one kind of tech as a silver bullet.

Essentially, while IoT may be cheap and simple enough to deploy – and without delving into bad faith arguments – it’s often deployed to superficial effect.

McLaughlin anecdotally elucidates on this, saying: “IoT today tends be actioned through throwing out sensors and bringing back the data to a platform, there’s a report and it’s a case of ‘look at us, we’ve done IoT’.

“Where Capita is uniquely placed is because of the work we do within the Scottish public sector, with the range of customers and contracts we have, we can’t approach the development of a ‘solution’ then ask, ‘what’s the problem?’

“What we do, is find problems then offer solutions. There’s a still a huge degree of immaturity with the tech and for me the exciting thing about it – of which hasn’t yet been realised – is that panacea of devices to operate in response to other devices in a compelling way.”

He goes to give an example from one of Capita’s experiences: “We worked with one of our local authorities in the latter stages of the pandemic to implement an air quality monitoring solution in schools, in line with Scottish Government guidelines. The spot solution – and it was a good one – went back to this idea of a sensor feeding data back to a platform.

“For me, this becomes exciting as we look to evolve this technology to allow the air quality and heating sensors to report back to the actuator that can then open the window. When we do this, for me, that’s when the value of IoT can be properly realised.”

In a broader public services context, McLaughlin sees the potential of IoT primarily through its ability to save money and streamline processes, freeing up budget and resources for Scottish communities.

Buchanan weighs in, saying: “Looking at the wider potential [of the tech], where we’ve seen real penetration with technologies such as IoT is where the business case has been created around the outcome and not the tech.

“Going back to the ‘what’ as opposed to the ‘when’ or the ‘how’.  We have seen great success where the implications of not doing something has been fully explored and understood, where the cost of failure is greater than the cost of the solution.”

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“Understanding how we can use relatively inexpensive technology to make our streets, roads, schools, and communities safer will not only improve the lives of the people of Scotland but will drive significant savings to the public purse. If we are able to visualise and articulate outcomes such as these, then we will unlock the potential of things like IoT.”

Capita has overseen some of the most fundamental shifts and overhauls within public services seen in a generation, all while serving the entrepreneurial ambition of a Scotland that’s betting heavily on the innovation of our tech start-ups.

The fact is though, these ambitions can only be built on a world-class IT infrastructure that’s future-proofed and delivered by an outfit that’s been there and done it before and sees themselves as an integrated partner to the public sector, not just the technological conduit between public sector and services.

To learn more about how Capita has accelerated Scotland’s digital potential, visit:

capita.com/expertise/technology-solutions/digital-connectivity/accelerating-scotlands-digital-potential