Recommendation 2

Departments are mainly making piecemeal changes to legacy systems rather than investing in more efficient wider service redesign which would reap greater benefits. It is difficult to transform services where they are supported by poorly performing legacy systems and data. When government does not have the right resources and capabilities at all levels it tends to make more superficial incremental changes. This is a lost opportunity to fully redesign and transform services to achieve long-term efficiency benefits. CDDO has assessed the scale of legacy issues in 153 systems so far, across 16 departments. The highest-risk systems have been identified and remediation plans have been set up and funded. Some departments can describe the benefits gained from transformation, but many still struggle to systematically identify the opportunity costs of failing to transform. The Cabinet Office acknowledges that decision-makers will under-invest if they do not understand how transformation would reduce future operating costs. The consequences of not having enough capable resources are to defer opportunity and prolong the risks of continuing to rely on legacy systems. Recommendation 2: As part of business cases, departments should explicitly set out how they will resolve issues cause by changes to old legacy systems and data and demonstrate how wider service redesign will reduce the future costs of the services they support. 6 Digital transformation in government: addressing the barriers to efficiency