Recommendation 18

Departments have made technology choices too early in the life of digital programmes before they have fully understood the business problem the programme is seeking to address.42 Departments have then over specified supplier contracts to a degree of detail which does not match the department’s knowledge and this has resulted in a loss of flexibility.43 Consequently, departments have struggled to change the direction of programmes in response to later events.44 Departments have also been slow to stop programmes when it has become clear they are not working. An example is GOV.UK Verify, which after years of development still does not work for around half of the people trying to use it.45 The Cabinet Office acknowledges government can learn from the private sector how to do this better. This will require a change in culture and a willingness not to regard such changes in direction as failures, when they are a response to additional information emerging over time.46 Skills and outsourcing