Central Government Programme: Year in review

16 Dec 2019 02:52 PM

A round-up of the Central Government Programme's events and activities this year.

It’s been a busy year for the Central Government Programme here at techUK. We kicked off the year by giving evidence to the House of Commons S&T Committee on the future of Digital Government. February saw two notable events, our SME Campaign Week that looked to raise awareness of the barriers SMEs face in accessing the public sector market, and the launch of TechConnect, a 12-week digital skills programme that brings together early professionals in government and industry to inspire them to design and deliver the best public services.

Continuing on with the SME agenda, in March techUK launched the results of techUK’s fifth SME Survey with our report, Procuring for Innovation and Growth, which explores the views of SMEs supplying the public sector and identifies ways to improve their experience. Moreover, to further explore the report’s findings and recommendations, techUK convened a roundtable discussion with public sector and industry.

Summer saw a number of industry briefings, including a DOS 4 Industry Briefing, Market Briefings with the DfE, MoJ and Home Office, and an event with CCS on the launch of their new framework, Spark. We also launched our Fostering the ecosystem: Guide for SMEs selling to the Public Sector report, which aims to provide guidance to SMEs on how to best navigate the public sector market.

After the summer almost 300 leaders across the public sector and tech industry attended our flagship public services conference, Building the Smarter State, to hear the government's vision for transformation and learn how peers are re-imagining public services through technology. We were delighted to hear from Simon Hart MP (the Minister of Implementation in the Cabinet Office), John Manzoni (Chief Exec of the Civil Service), Joanna Davinson (CDIO, Home Office), Simon McKinnon (CDIO, DWP) and many others. We’re already excited for the 2020 edition!

Bringing the year to a close, alongside a few more industry briefings, we launched the second TechConnect cohort and last but not least, December saw the launch of our fifth annual GovTech SME Survey. Every year we conduct this survey to better understand the experience of SMEs in the public sector tech market, so if you have a spare few minutes you can complete the survey here. 

On that note, thank you to all our members and stakeholders who worked with us this year, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and look forward to working with you in 2020!