Alongside our startup case studies, the Netherlands GovTech Community will also be exploring how governments and public authorities from around the world are seizing the GovTech opportunity in 2021 - and what the Netherlands can learn.
This week, we are looking at how different European governments have sought to drive GovTech by creating new internal GovTech units and teams. We show how the UK, Poland, and Luxembourg have taken three different models for supporting GovTech at the national level.
United Kingdom
In 2018, the UK became one of the first countries to establish a specialist GovTech unit within its national government. Administered by a small team of 4 members, the GovTech Catalyst Fund is run jointly by BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) and the Government Digital Service.
The principal responsibility of the team at the GovTech Catalyst is exercising a £20 million fund to support innovative technology companies in solving public sector problems submitted from across government. To date they have funded 15 different GovTech challenges, submitted from a wide range of government departments . These challenges are run as SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) Competitions. This is a type of pre-commercial procurement, which under EU rules, enables contracting authorities to challenge industry from the demand side to develop innovative solutions for public sector needs and enables the authority to compare alternative potential solutions and filter out the best options on the market.
Some of the most recent challenges are:Â
‘Monitoring the condition of social housing using sensors’ - Leeds City Council and City of York Council
‘Accelerating the building of housing using geospatial intelligence’ - Waltham Forest CouncilÂ
‘Developing a travel network management system for new mobility’ - Oxfordshire County Council
Poland
Poland offers one of the most successful examples of integrating the GovTech mission into the heart of government. GovTech Polska is an inter-ministerial team operating at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. Much like the UK GovTech Catalyst, the team works across the public sector to coordinate strategic digital projects, involving entrepreneurs, officials and citizens, including innovation challenges.Â
In order to support the private sector in delivering these challenges, GovTech Polska has pioneered an innovative approach to public procurement. Using design contests, previously reserved for architecture competitions under EU law, GovTech Polska works with startups to make contracts accessible to smaller, innovative companies. Design contests offer an innovative remedy to the key problem in scaling public sector startup pilots: the valley of death between building a pilot product and launching a commercially viable company. Design contests allow authorities to run a pilot competition, narrow down the list of possible vendors and directly award a high-value contract to a supplier, all within a single complaint procedure.
Design contests seek to avoid the funding gaps and slow procurement cycles that frustrate many public sector innovation projects. Inspired by the success of GovTech Polska, Network Rail in the UK recently used the design contest model to run its Stations of the Future competition. We look forward to seeing which other governments can continue this exciting new momentum in 2021! Â
Luxembourg
In September 2020, Luxembourg became the latest country to establish a GovTech unit within the government. The GovTech Lab is a joint initiative of the Ministry for Digitalisation and its technological arm, the Government IT Centre (CTIE).
The Lab’s first Call for Proposals is seeking a solution to tell computers and humans apart when conducting online procedures with the Luxembourg State. The solutions will be assessed and procured according to another innovative procurement mechanism: the innovation partnership. Innovation partnerships are used to develop new products or services, where solutions do not already exist on the market, and to enable contracting authorities to select and work with partners to collaboratively develop a solution tailored to their requirements.
This process of working with startups to co-create the terms of and solutions to technology challenges has an exciting track record of delivering great tech to the public sector. We can’t wait to see how it plays out in Luxembourg, with some exciting companies already making tracks!
Find out more about the progress of the participating companies here: https://digital.gouvernement.lu/fr/actualites/article/2021/GovTechLab_byebyerobots_1ere_selection.html
Next: The Netherlands? 🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱
We believe the Netherlands is perfectly positioned to continue the trend of putting GovTech innovation into the heart of government administration. This could start with a new GovTech Taskforce to manage future mechanisms for growing GovTech, with federal and regional leadership supporting the programme.
As Cor Jan Jager, Programmamanager ICT at BZK, noted at the launch of our report on Dutch GovTech: ‘We should think about establishing one central entity within government, which has a charter to bring GovTech to the next level over the coming five years. This will require a big bold plan, and vision, a mission, and an execution strategy’.
We couldn’t agree more - let us know your thoughts about what kind of government unit and design we need to take this forward!