Digital transformation in the public sector: Get smart, get real

The public sector is rapidly accelerating its path to digital transformation. In fact, today in the EU27+ countries, 81% of government services are already online, according to the European Commission.

Clunky, complex, and difficult-to-access services are becoming consumer-level experiences that revolutionise the ways citizens live and work—a transformation that goes far beyond simply increasing efficiency for citizens.

What’s pushing the public sector change

A variety of circumstances are driving the public sector forward. Foremost among these is the need for new digital solutions that better meet the growing needs of citizens in a digital age—everything from smart cities to customer service management to automation.

Cathy Mauzaize, president of EMEA at ServiceNow, notes: “The gap between citizen expectation and citizen experience has increased over the last decade. Expectations are far higher now, driven by the consumer experiences they have become accustomed to. Citizens have come to expect a simple experience that hides the complexity, taking care of it for them. Where we have all become used to ordering a taxi, a meal, or even our groceries from our mobile phone, we now want our government services to be just as simple.”

The second driver of change is a need for governments, both local and central, to make better use of the limited resources at their disposal. Uncertain financial circumstances over the past decade or more mean the public sector is forced to do more with less. Despite tight budgets, there’s a need to enhance working conditions for government agents to help retain and engage talent, while also helping them to be more productive.

Added to this is a need to keep pace with government imperatives like ESG. Social, financial, and regulatory pressure—as well as concrete benchmarks like the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals—are all creating a need for real metrics and better insight into what’s going on inside government agencies and services.

What transformation should look like

These circumstances have pushed many government agencies to invest in more comprehensive digital solutions. According to Mauzaize, there’s a tried and tested route to doing this right:

“The first step in the journey is to create a unified experience so citizens can find an answer without needing to hunt for the right department to go through. It begins with data empowerment: real-time data in your hands used for decision-making. We must reimagine what it means to be citizen-first and build IT services around it.”

With fear of a recession on the horizon, however, European organisations face limited IT budgets. That means public sector organisations must act smartly and change the engagement layer by modernising processes and moving data to the cloud to help ensure citizens can be served efficiently and effectively.

From theory to practice in France

Organisations like Bordeaux Métropole show how it can be done. The Bordeaux Métropole, offering services in everything from town planning to housing to transport, was born in 2015 following an initiative by the French government to give large urban areas the power to manage their own affairs.

The public organisation needed to pool its 1,600 digital services and 1,200 business applications to benefit its 850,000 inhabitants across the city and 28 municipalities. It created a platform based on ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) which enables 24/7/365 service in response to user requests around IT tool usage.

The region has an ambitious goal to build on the system with another project to help reach its sustainabilIty targets. The Bordeaux Métropole region aims to be energy-positive and low-carbon by 2050.

By extending the functionality of the ServiceNow platform, the agency can measure carbon levels across all activities and, in the near future, share this data with citizens in real time so they can understand the impact of their individual actions on the environment. The region wants to adopt tech that empowers intelligent and responsible actions for the good of citizens and their environment.

From theory to practice in Sweden

Changes to the Swedish Public Employment Service’s internal systems are another example of how technology can serve citizens efficiently and effectively. Every year, the agency processes more than 4 million benefit applications. It helped almost 21,000 Swedish citizens find employment in December 2022 alone.

Cost pressure, however, was pushing the organisation to do more with less while maintaining fairness in the welfare system. The agency wanted to deploy secure digital technologies to fight back against benefit fraud and automate core processes to help reduce incorrect payments and time-consuming manual tasks—with the aim of unlocking time for staff to make more efficient and effective use of taxpayers’ money.

Following the creation of a bespoke proof-of-concept solution, more than 50% of the Swedish Public Employment Service’s benefit application processes have been automated using ServiceNow. Overpayments have been reduced by more than €28 million annually since 2020.

Those benefits are estimated to increase as automation frees further team members. The agency is well on its way to achieving its goals of saving time and money in internal processes.

Enabling real transformation in the public sector

The digital potential of the public sector has long been underestimated. As seen with Bordeaux Métropole and the Swedish Public Employment Service, the scope for transformation in the sector is huge.

Ultimately, the faster the public sector can transform itself, the faster it can achieve its principal goal: to deliver top-quality services to citizens in a way that raises awareness, is easy to access and, perhaps most importantly, remains consistent and transparent.

Find out more about how ServiceNow is helping the public sector adapt for the needs of citizens.